After taking the tape and "enhancing" and "redigitizing" (a term which leads me to all sorts of Digimon pages when I try to google it) it, ABC News is now claiming to have evidence which shows "a pair of gashes" on his head. The evidence: this single frame:
Of course, they also dutifully report the news that the ambulance to take Zimmerman to the hospital was canceled, which is indicative of how serious his "gashes" were.
This single frame seems to be identical to the one that the Daily Caller picked up a few days ago, and that Mediaite reported as:
Viewers can decide for themselves, but reviewing the video, rather than isolating single frames, seems to pretty clearly show that what The DC identifies as a possible “laceration” is actually a dark spot created by variations in the density of Zimmerman’s hair, the curvature of his skull, and the lighting and angle of the shot. That spot on his head is visible and well-lit in other spots on the tape, but nothing is visible. Lacerations don’t disapppear depending on how you light them.
Further, if he did actually have a broken nose, and "gashes" on his head, the ambulance probably would not have been canceled, and thirty minutes later, instead of being walking around the police station unassisted, with a neat, tucked in shirt, and not a spot of blood to be seen anywhere; poor GZ would have been at the hospital getting examined, or at the very least, with lots of visible blood on the back of his skull and clothes. Oh, right, and
BANDAGES. We're supposed to believe that the police let a guy with "gashes" on his head just bleed in the back of the car without bandaging them? And then walk around the station with no sign of treatment at all? Really? One would think there'd be some pretty serious liability issues in that case.
The location of these supposed "gashes" also fail the common sense test. If you're at home or something, try lying down. What part of your head is touching the ground? Try to twist your head around such that the very top of it is on the ground. Not an easy thing to do, even if your neck does bend that far (mine doesn't, at least, not without arching the rest of my body to change the angle). So what, did Trayvon pick GZ up and flip him onto his head at some point?
This story brought to you by Absolute Bull C* News.
(Changed the title because it occurred to me that jut C&Ping ABC's one made it look like I was buying into their account. I don't quite like the new title either, but I've never been able to write good ones.)