It's a report detected as trending by Lead Stories' Trendolizer on Tuesday night, November 24, 2015. And it is NOT true. Donald Trump's presidential campaign did not hire George Zimmerman, the Florida man who shot Trayvon Martin to death, as a special events security consultant.
The hoax report was published Tuesday by NationalReport.com, which has a history of posting sensational fake stories to draw traffic from unsuspecting readers.
It quotes fictional Trump crowd control coördinator Karl Brandt as saying "It was a great decision and we did the right thing." The quote referenced the recent "Birmingham incident" in which a black protester was roughed up by Trump supporters after shouting "Black lives matter!" during a Trump campaign rally.
It also includes a fictional quote from Trump. "That black activist - and this wasn't his first time being arrested which hasn't been widely reported by the way - he was so obnoxious and so loud that maybe he should have been roughed up," the questionable quote says. "So when I heard George was available, and he's had lots of experience in this area, we reached out and hired him."
The creative writer knows the story will catch web attention since it connects Zimmerman -- who is controversial for his aggressive actions toward Martin -- with the Trump campaign.
But as we say at Lead Stories: Just because it's trending, doesn't mean it's true.
Lead Stories' Trendolizer scours social nets for trending Trump content. For a whole bunch, type Trump in the site search box. Or scroll down to see the latest top content.
