Following the guilty verdict against former Minneapolis cop Derek Chauvin on Tuesday for the murder of George Floyd, Fox News host Tucker Carlson appeared to suggest that the jury was tainted by fear of riots if they did not convict Chauvin, and that the public’s demand for justice amounts to an “attack on civilization.”
Visibly annoyed, Carlson started off his segment by suggesting the jurors were intimidated by the public.
“The jury in the Derek Chauvin trial came to a unanimous and unequivocal verdict this afternoon: Please Don’t Hurt Us. The jurors spoke for many in this country, and everyone understood perfectly well the consequences of an acquittal in this case. After nearly a year of burning and looting and murder by BLM, that was never in doubt. Last night, 2,000 miles from Minneapolis, police in Los Angeles pre-emptively blocked roads. Why? They knew what would happen if Derek Chauvin got off.”
he added; “In the end he didn’t get off. If given the maximum sentence under the law, he will spend the rest of his life in prison. Is that a fair punishment? Is the officer guilty of the specific crimes for which he was just convicted? We can debate all that, and over this hour, we will. But here’s what we can’t debate. No mob has the right to destroy our cities. Not under any circumstances, not for any reason. No politician or media figure has the right to intimidate a jury. And no political party has the right to impose a different standard of justice on its own supporters.”
“These things are unacceptable in America. All of them are happening now,” he added. “If they continue to happen, decent, productive people will leave. The country as we know it will be over. So we must stop this current insanity. It’s an attack on civilization.”
However, the president of the top police union in the United States told CNN that he supports the verdict in the Chauvin case, calling the conviction “justified.”
Watch the segment below:
Tucker Carlson reacts to Derek Chauvin's conviction by characterizing public support for Floyd as "an attack on civilization" pic.twitter.com/kfY1NedNu2
— nikki mccann ramírez (@NikkiMcR) April 21, 2021
