Spike Lee Apologizes for Tweeting Couple’s Address
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Bruce Glikas/FilmMagic(NEW YORK) — Spike Lee apologized to an elderly Florida couple after he tweeted their address and said it belonged to George Zimmerman, the man who shot Trayvon Martin on Feb. 26.
“I Deeply Apologize To The McClain Family For Retweeting Their Address. It Was A Mistake. Please Leave The McClain’s In Peace. Justice In Court,” Lee tweeted to his 250,000 followers.
David McClain, 72, and his wife Elaine McClain, 70, have been living in a motel since Lee tweeted their address. They said they’re thankful Lee apologized on Twitter, but they’re not yet comfortable returning home.
“How do you know the ones who are extremists have seen it? Maybe they haven’t looked again on Twitter,” Elaine McClain said.
The Florida woman said she doesn’t know when, if ever, she and her husband will be ready to return home.
“There’s a bounty out. To be there at nighttime at all, we’d be afraid to walk past the window,” she said. “I don’t even like to go back for five minutes. We grab our clothes and get out of there.”
The New Black Panther Party is offering a $10,000 bounty for capture of Zimmerman.
McClain said her son’s middle name is George and his last name is Zimmerman, but he hadn’t lived at the residence since 1995.
The tweet originated from an account with the twitter handle @MACCAPONE, The Smoking Gun reported. The account, which is the handle for a Los Angeles man named Marcus Higgins, tweeted the address at various celebrities. Lee was the only one to retweet it.
Elaine McClain said the fiasco has taken a toll on her health.
“My blood pressure is just hurting my heart,” she said. “To live in a motel room 15 by 15, it’s not the way you want to live your life.”
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