Fox News’s top-rated opinion host compared the fatal shooting of Ashli Babbit on January 6th, 2021 by Capitol police during the violent attack on the U.S. Capitol to the deadly police beating of Tyre Nichols in Memphis this month – the tape of which was released to the public on Friday.
Nichols, a 29-year-old FedEx worker and father, was pulled over on January 7th and beaten by police for 3 minutes in an encounter that was caught on tape. Ben Crump, an attorney for the family addressed the public on Friday and said Nichols was treated like “a human piñata” in a “savage” beating he likened to the 1991 police beating of Rodney King in Los Angeles. The five police officers involved in the beating have been fired and charged with murder.
After a lengthy monologue in which Carlson denounced anyone calling the police beating of Nichols racist and accused the left of a “campaign of propaganda” to incite violence, Carlson brought on former Detroit police chief James Craig.
“They need to be charged. That is a problem. And that strikes right to the heart of what a police department’s culture is like,” said Craig, adding:
Now, I don’t want to say bad things about Memphis. I know the chief. She’s a wonderful chief. But I got to ask the question, what’s the culture of that Scorpion unit? Where was supervision on these these specialized units? You must have proactive supervision there. And I don’t know if that’s the case. I just don’t know. There’s a lot I don’t know.
Carlson thanked Craig and moved on, saying:
So, of course, the very same people who are weeping on television about police brutality applauded when one of Nancy Pelosi’s officers murdered an unarmed woman called Ashli Babbitt.Yes, murder. That’s exactly what that was. Far more clearly than anything you just saw in the videotape we played. So, of course, the point of this is to federalize local law enforcement. Obviously, it’s never about saving anybody’s life. It’s about accumulating power. But there are a lot of nuances here that are hard to untangle in real time. And that’s why we’re really blessed to go to one of the smartest people we know.
The Government Accountability Office reported in March of 2022 that some 114 Capitol police officers suffered injuries on Jan. 6th. The Washington Post also reported that “About 65 D.C. police officers also suffered injuries on Jan. 6, including several concussions from head blows from various objects, including metal poles ripped from inauguration-related scaffolding and even a pole with an American flag attached, D.C. police officials have said. Other injuries included swollen ankles and wrists, bruised arms and legs, and irritated lungs from bear and pepper spray.”
The attack on the Capitol and law enforcement on Jan. 6th has led to almost 1,000 arrests on various charges from assault to theft to vandalism and entering restricted grounds.
