Uncle of slain teen: TMZ “profiting from our loss”

Fri, 25 Jan 2013 21:52:00 +0000

When TMZ posted a video depicting the murder of Andre Lowe, a 19-year-old student, his family felt "disbelief and anger," said his uncle Jason Andrews in an email exchange with Salon. "Knowing that the last two minutes of a family member's life was being viewed ... for entertainment was too much to handle." TMZ's paparazzi camera happened upon the crime outside a Los Angeles nightclub; Andre Lowe was not a figure of note like usual TMZ targets Kim Kardashian or Lindsay Lohan, though he was within the site's titular "Thirty-Mile Zone."

Andrews launched an online petition at change.org, which received some 200,000 signatures, to get the site to remove the video. Of TMZ, which usually traffics in celebrity gossip, Andrews wrote: "I understand freedom of press, but the line has to be drawn somewhere." Though Andrews and other family members called the gossip site and left voicemails, he says that no one received any response. After launching the petition, Andrews did get a person on the phone, but was transferred to TMZ's legal department, which took a message and did not call back.

Salon.com > media exploitation

Uncle of slain teen: TMZ “profiting from our loss”