Robert Zimmerman Sr. and Gladys Zimmerman have filed suit against comedienne Roseanne Barr, nearly two years after Barr published their home address on Twitter in the aftermath of their son George Zimmerman Jr.’s killing of Trayvon Martin in self-defense.
(Zimmerman successfully argued at trial that he shot Martin in necessary self-defense, and he was acquitted by a unanimous jury.)
The Orlando Sentinel reports that the suit, filed in a Florida circuit court, accuses Barr of attempting to incite “a lynch mob to descend” on their home and carry out “vigilante justice.”
Zimmerman’s parents say that Barr’s tweet of their home address compelled them to flee their home in the middle of the night, and they remain unable to return and in hiding for fear of violence.
They also point out that their son George did not live with them, and they had nothing whatever to do with his shooting of Trayvon Martin in self-defense.
The Zimmerman’s note that Barr’s tweeting of their address was not an isolated event on her part. Rather, she followed up the tweet of their address with additional tweets about them and their son, including one which stated “If Zimmerman isn’t arrested I’ll rt [re-tweet] his address again–maybe go 2 his house myself.”
Their suit accuses Barr of the intentional infliction of emotional distress, and seeks unspecified damages. Barr, currently living in Hawaii, reportedly had no comment to news of the suit.
–-Andrew, @LawSelfDefense
Andrew F. Branca is an MA lawyer and the author of the seminal book “The Law of Self Defense, 2nd Edition,” available at the Law of Self Defense blog, Amazon.com (paperback and Kindle), Barnes & Noble (paperback and Nook), and elsewhere.
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