Doing the Wrong Thing

Y'all take a chill!
Ya need to cool that shit out!
And that's the double truth, Ruth!
--Do the Right Thing (1989)
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You live in the land of the free, with a great body of jurisprudence, don't you think this is just a little bit -- mad? From Slate:

Spike Lee's Retweet Causes Couple To Flee

A Twitter user spread the wrong address for the man who shot and killed Trayvon Martin.

By Abby Ohlheiser | Posted Wednesday, March 28, 2012, at 11:54 AM ET

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Spike Lee retweeted the wrong address for Trayvon Martin's killer last week, forcing a Florida couple to flee their home

Photo by Drew Hallowell/Getty Images.

An elderly couple has fled their Sanford-area home after a tweet—disseminated by Spike Lee—mistakenly gave their address as that of George Zimmerman, the man who shot and killed Trayvon Martin in Florida last month.

The Orlando Sentinel reports that David (72) and Elaine McClain (70) received hate mail, threats, and visits from reporters looking for Zimmerman after their address was incorrectly pegged as that of the man who killed Martin last month in what he says was self-defense.

Elaine McClain has a son named William George Zimmerman, no relation to the Zimmerman in question. The couple is currently living in a hotel.

The Smoking Gun traced the original tweet back to a California man, who apparently sent a tweet containing the incorrect address to Lee and other celebrities with a request for a retweet. Lee obliged, retweeting it to his 240,000 followers last Friday. He's since removed the post, but it continues to bounce around Twitter.

William Zimmerman told the Sentinel that he lived at his mother and step-father's house briefly after college. He registered to vote, got a driver's license, and registered a car at that address.