14 DAY TRIAL // Director Spike Lee is being dragged to court by a couple whose address he tweeted days after the death of teen Trayvon Martin, who was shot by George Zimmerman in 2012. The couple are seeking unspecified damages.
Lee, who is now in the midst of promoting his brand new movie, the “Oldboy” remake with Josh Brolin, Elizabeth Olsen, and Samuel L. Jackson as leads, is accused of putting the two in danger by erroneously tweeting their home address.
As the Trayvon Martin story spread in newspapers from all the world, Lee took to Twitter and, in a fit of rage, tweeted the address thinking it was Zimmerman’s, the neighborhood guard who shot Martin.
Zimmerman didn’t live at that address, but elderly couple David and Elaine McClain did. They received several death threats after Lee gave their home address to the public, putting their lives “in grave danger,” they say in court papers obtained by TMZ.
“David and Elaine McClain claim in a new lawsuit Lee was so filled with hate he got the wrong address and carelessly threw it up online, just days after the shooting,” the celebrity publication notes.
“In the lawsuit, the McClains say they received numerous death threats and hate mail and feared for their lives as their address was re-Tweeted countless times. The McClains say Lee's Tweet of their address encouraged ‘a dangerous mob mentality’,” the same media outlet adds.
They’re asking for unspecified damages for the trouble and horror they’ve been put through by a moment’s carelessness on part of the director.
Zimmerman was acquitted of murder charges in July this year, prompting angry riots all across the US, because many Americans still thought he should have been jailed for shooting an unarmed teen. Though the Zimmerman trial was one of the most debated and mediated trials of recent years, it did not succeed in having the “Stand Your Ground” law amended.