TMZ Edits Graphic Video of Teen’s Murder as Advertisers Bail

TMZ edited out the portion where the teenager is shot and killed, after brands pull their ads from the site's video page

TMZ edited its video late Thursday night of a teenager's murder outside a Hollywood nightclub, as advertisers abandoned the gossip site and a Change.org petition gathered more than 200,000 signatures.

TMZ

The nearly two-minute video showed dozens of clubgoers brawling in a parking lot before one man pulls out a handgun and fires two shots.

It then replayed the murder in slow motion, showing a man — identified by TMZ and the victim's family as Andre Lowe — in jeans and a black hoodie lying face down on the ground.

The edited video freezes frame on the shooter for a few seconds before it ends.

Jason Andrews, Lowe's uncle, started the Change.org petition last week, calling on advertisers to drop support from TMZ. Since then, about 25 brands — including Chase, Toyota and Comedy Central — have suspended their ad campaigns on the site's video page, according to a statement Friday morning from Andrews and Change.com.

There were no ads on the site's video page Friday morning.

"TMZ's sensationalistic coverage of a regular teenager's tragic murder added salt to the wound for our family," Andrews said in the statement. 

The video was viewed thousands of times on TMZ and on its YouTube page in the 11 days before it was pared down the exclude the moment the alleged shooter pulled the trigger.

TMZ did not immediately respond to emails from TheWrap requesting comment.

The Los Angeles Times first reported on the re-editing of the video, following the online petition.

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