MIAMI — Bidding in an online auction for the pistol former neighborhood watch volunteer George Zimmerman used to kill Trayvon Martin appeared to have been hijacked by fake accounts posting astronomically high bids.
At one point early Friday, the bidding surpassed $65 million with the leading bidder using the screen name “Racist McShootFace.” The site later showed that account had been deleted.
Other screen names of bidders on the site included “Donald Trump,” “shaniqua bonifa” and “Tamir Rice,” the name of a black 12-year-old who was shot and killed by Cleveland police in 2014 while playing with a pellet gun.
The website for United Gun Group began hosting the auction Thursday after another website, , took down the auction, saying it wanted “no part in the listing on our website or in any of the publicity it is receiving.”
Hours later, United Gun Group tweeted that it would post Zimmerman’s ad. The new link was posted, along with a statement from Zimmerman. The site calls itself a “social market place for the firearms community.”
Bidding on the 9mm Kel-Tec PF-9 pistol began at $5,000.
Critics called the auction an insensitive move to profit from the slaying.
