Allen West calls Obama’s Zimmerman verdict response ‘horrific’
theGRIO REPORT - Former Congressman Allen West has joined the small, but vocal minority of pundits who have lashed out at President Barack Obama over his impromptu remarks on race and the George Zimmerman trial...
Former Congressman Allen West has joined the small, but vocal minority of pundits who have lashed out at President Barack Obama over his impromptu remarks on race and the George Zimmerman trial.
Obama made headlines (and some have argued history) when he told the press corps last Friday that “Trayvon Martin could have been me 35 years ago.”
Martin, a 17-year-old unarmed black teen, was shot and killed by George Zimmerman, who argued he pulled the trigger in self defense and was acquitted of all charges relating to Martin’s death.
West, who has made so secret of his hatred for the president, said that Obama’s statement was “horrific.”
“I believe it comes back to being a respectful young man and maybe that’s something that was missing out of President Obama and Trayvon Martin’s life,” West said. “But to try to play this and try to make it a personal experience, this was just absolutely horrific.”
Previously, West, who represented a district in Florida, had been more critical of the Sanford police department’s handling of the Martin case, but he has also been staunchly opposed addressing the subject of race when it comes to what took place that fateful night in February.
“From my reading, it seems this young man was pursued and there was no probable cause to engage him, certainly not pursue and shoot him…against the direction of the 911 responder. Let’s all be appalled at this instance not because of race, but because a young American man has lost his life, seemingly, for no reason, ” said West in March last year.
Tavis Smiley, Cornel West and Sean Hannity have also either ridiculed or dismissed the president’s statements on the acquittal of Zimmerman.
