15 Jul 2013 Did Post-Zimmerman Twitter Taunts Go Too Far?

Yesterday, I suggested that NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell needed to start his day today with a phone call to the management of the New York Giants to see what steps were taken to discipline wide receiver Victor Cruz.  Cruz posted a note on Twitter that seemed to offer encouragement for street justice against George Zimmerman in the wake of his not guilty verdict on Saturday night.

It turns out that Goodell actually needed to make a second call to the management of the Atlanta Falcons as well.  One of their receivers, Roddy White was posting his own inflammatory tweets.

On Saturday night, White tweeted:

All them jurors should go home tonight and kill themselves for letting a grown man get away with killing a kid.

White later apologized, tweeting:

I understand my tweet last nite was extreme.  I never meant for the people to do that.  I was shocked and upset about the verdict.  I am sorry.

Nonetheless, he said it.  The tweet is still up on his feed.  If White didn’t think he meant it at the time, he wouldn’t have posted it.

Clearly, something needs to be done about White and Cruz and their extreme and inflammatory tweets.  Especially in light of the fact that, as I pointed out yesterday, Miami Dolphins receiver Mike Wallace (and his teammates) got a talking to last April after Mike Wallace tweeted something considered to be less-than-congratulatory regarding professional basketball player Jason Collins coming out of the closet as a homosexual.  At that time, the NFL was vigilant against the appearance of intolerance.

While the world waits for news about the fates of White and Cruz, Project 21 member Stacy Swimp has his own thoughts about White and the idea of protected speech, and whether White may have actually broken the law:

Roddy White, the star wide receiver for the Atlanta Falcons, posted on his Twitter account after the Zimmerman verdict that “all them jurors should go home tonight and kill themselves for letting a grown man get away with killing a kid.”

In my opinion, and in light of the tension of the trial that was so great that the police asked for calm in the face of the numerous threats of rioting, White’s social media promotion of threats against the jury (or at least suggesting they should die) could rise to the level of a federal offense.

While the Obama Justice Department is thinking about reviewing the Zimmerman case, they should also review the social media threats and suggestions of death towards Zimmerman and the jury.  I can cite many federal statutes against rioting, racketeering and hate crimes that — based on my past experience as a paralegal — I think could apply in this instance.

It is time we stop simply reacting emotionally to the hate agenda of the left and do something about it.

We must hold offenders, if they are determined to have crossed the legal line, accountable in a court of law.