The indispensable Kerry Pickett of the Washington Times is reporting that the address director Spike Lee re-tweeted out to his 200,000 followers over the weekend was, in fact, not the address of the man who allegedly shot Trayvon Martin:
[T]he Edgewater Circle address Mr. Lee re-tweeted out is not part of the gated Retreat at Twin Lakes where the shooting took place and where Mr. Zimmerman lives. The area is not even a gated a community.
In fact, I took a drive to that Edgewater Circle address that so many on Twitter re-tweeted and cursed, and I discovered through a neighbor named Tim, who lives across the street from the address, that not only does George Zimmerman not live at the lakeside house, but a woman by the name of Elaine does.
Re-tweeting Mr. Zimmerman’s address is bad enough, especially when the New Black Panthers have put a bounty out for Zimmerman’s capture. But it should go without saying that the kind of act Lee engaged in only serves to stoke lawlessness and a mob mentality — not due process.
And now we’ve learned that, according to Picket’s reporting, Spike Lee didn’t even have his facts straight and that his thoughtless and inflammatory act could have resulted in someone who has nothing to with any of this being harassed or worse.
The law of untintended consequences is especially felt when those who go outside of or skirt the edge of due process take matters into their own hands. We all know the law isn’t perfect, but the alternative is unthinkable.
Spike Lee not only needs to publicly apologize; he needs to do a little soul searching of his own.