Video below via Raw Story, which also reported:
The anchor is known for his claim that Trayvon Martin may have been violent because he had smoked marijuana, and he also suggested the teen’s killer, George Zimmerman, had been punished enough for the crime by his apparent weight gain.
In one of my own posts about Jarrett, I also saw pro-Zimmerman/anti-Martin bias when he called Trayvon Martin "the alleged victim":
Rather than pointing out how “what happened that evening” is really the only thing that matters as to Zimmerman’s guilt or innocence, Jarrett added, “Well, one thing may come into evidence, depending upon the autopsy and toxicology report and that is whether Trayvon Martin had marijuana in his system or the components of marijuana in his system. That, you know, is sort of a wild card here and depending upon how prosecutors handle that, that could also open the door to more evidence of drug use by the alleged victim.” He spoke as though putting airquotes around the term.
In response, I received an email from Jarrett calling me "an idiot" and "obviously a moron" because the term "alleged victim" "is almost always used to describe either the surviving complainant or the deceased, especially in cases where the defendant claims self-defense." We went back and forth and I felt - and still do - that while Jarrett (a lawyer) may have been legally correct, "alleged victim" is not commonly used in the popular press and that the way he used it deliberately suggested Martin had been rightly killed.
I debated with myself about posting this video because, as I said in my previous post, alcoholism is a serious disease that deserves compassion, not public humiliation. However, the video below is of a public figure on the air and I think readers have a right to know that Jarrett's problem obviously affected his work.
Let us hope that someone can 12 Step him and that this incident will lead to his recovery. Even if that means calling me a moron again.
