In a blog posting titled "Friends don't let friends drink and drive," Ebert admits his initial tweet about alcohol being involved in Dunn's death was poorly timed, even if it turns out to be true.
To begin with, I offer my sympathy to Ryan Dunn's family and friends, and to those of Zachary Hartwell, who also died in the crash. I mean that sincerely. It is tragic to lose a loved one. I also regret that my tweet about the event was considered cruel. It was not intended as cruel. It was intended as true.
I have no way of knowing if Ryan Dunn was drunk at the time of his death. What I knew before posting my tweet was that not long before his death, he posted a photo on Tumbler showing himself drinking with two friends. I tweeted:
"Friends don't let jackasses drink and drive."
What did I mean by that? I meant exactly what I wrote. I wasn't calling Ryan Dunn a jackass. In Twitter shorthand, I was referring to his association with "Jackass." I thought that was clear. I note that Bam Margera uses the word "jackass" in the same way in his tweet.
[...]
I don't know what happened in this case, and I was probably too quick to tweet. That was unseemly. I do know that nobody has any business driving on a public highway at 110 mph, as some estimated -- or fast enough, anyway, to leave a highway and fly through 40 yards of trees before crashing. That is especially true if the driver has had three shots and three beers. Two people were killed. What if the car had crashed into another car?
The hysteria over Ebert's initial tweet has gotten to the point that his Facebook page was flagged as inappropriate, likely -- Ebert states -- because of angry Jackass fans. (It has since been reinstated.) Police are currently performing an autopsy on the body of 34-year-old Dunn to help determine whether alcohol played a role in the crash.
ยท Friends don't let friends drink and drive [Roger Ebert's Journal]