Police cover-up? Two versions of the shooter's call to the police in the Trayvon Martin killing?

WED MAR 21, 2012 AT 01:36 AM PDT
Police cover-up? Two versions of the shooter's call to the police in the Trayvon Martin killing?
byMeteor BladesFollow

Several people, apparently starting with Sirius XM radio talk host Joe Madison Tuesday morning, listened to the recording of Zimmerman's call to the cops, in some cases making technical adjustments to bring more clarity to what's being said. The recording, including the racist slur, was played on Larry O'Donnell's "Last Word" Tuesday evening. O'Donnell said his reporting experience with police cover-ups made him believe that there is "evidence of a police coverup." There is, he said, evidence that the police department "never wanted anyone to hear those two words and that's why we haven't heard those two words until today."

Putting an exclamation mark on that view was one of O'Donnell's of his guests, Jasmine Rand, a lawyer for the family of Trayvon Martin. Here's the exchange:

RAND: My office has been analyzing the tapes even as I've been on air. And I know that in the version that we heard tonight, it appears that the words "eff-ing coon" were used. The official version that we have from the police department, you don't hear those expletives. So where the version stating "eff-ing coons" came from we don't know. at this time until we can verify that is an original copy from the Sanford Police Department. The family cannot stand by those terms because we don't know where that version came from.

O'DONNELL: Okay. Let's dig into that. That's important. So just so we understand, the version that you've heard or your office has heard from the police department, the official version doesn't have a blank there? Does it have something inaudible?

RAND: I don't believe that it has a blank there. I can't recall exactly from memory. But as stated earlier, first couple times I didn't hear or notice. That I have heard versions since then where I do hear that. But we went back and analyzed the original version that we received from the Sanford Police Department, and it does not appear to us that based upon the original version that our office received that expletives were included there. I can't say where that version where we can clearly hear the expletive there came from.