Former Zimmerman Defender Taaffe Now Says He Should Have Been Found Guilty
Frank Taaffe, the tough-talking friend of George Zimmerman who in the shooting of Trayvon Martin, has had an apparent change of heart.
Taaffe, who has a history as a white supremacist as well as a criminal background, that he now believes that Zimmerman 鈥渞acially profiled鈥� Martin the day he was shot, and that he should have been found guilty by the jury that eventually acquitted him last year.
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"What I know of George and his tendencies and also my opinion is that he racially profiled Trayvon Martin that night because if that had been a white kid on a cell phone, walking through our neighborhood, he wouldn鈥檛 have stayed on him the way he did and that鈥檚 a fact and I believe that in my heart," Taaffe told reporter John Davis.
For many months, Taaffe said just the opposite, and did so on national television on numerous occasions, depicting Martin as a drug-addled, thuggish teenager and declaring Zimmerman鈥檚 innocence. "It's really sad that he has already been convicted in the public media and has already been sentenced to the gas chamber," he lamented in an interview with NBC's Miami affiliate.
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Taaffe said he鈥檚 now recanting his earlier statements in order to clear his conscience. "I can only ask for the country to forgive me, and today I believe that he racially profiled him based on the color of his skin.鈥�
Davis said that some 鈥渕ay wonder what does Frank Taaffe have to gain by doing this,鈥� before asking if he was was working on a book or TV show. Taaffe said no, 鈥淚鈥檓 just working on me right now and getting right with God.鈥�
Taaffe told Davis that he was driven to reassess his views after the death of his brother last month, as well as his two sons鈥� deaths in recent years. He added a message for Trayvon Martin鈥檚 parents: "I鈥檓 sorry that you lost your son, I know what that鈥檚 like and I wish things had been different."
It was not clear whether Taaffe now has similar regrets over the while campaigning on Zimmerman鈥檚 behalf 鈥� most notably on the white nationalist podcast 鈥淭he White Voice.鈥� On that show, he attacked Oprah Winfrey as a 鈥渘-----鈥� and said 鈥渢he only time that a Black life is vindicated is when a White person kills them.鈥�
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