On the same day that the guilty verdict was announced in the Derek Chauvin trial, a police shooting happened in Columbus, OH. It prompted the Usual Suspects to rush to the Twitter machine to give their all-too-predictable hot takes well before more facts were known.
Before we get to their reactions, many of which aged very badly, here’s a quick rundown of what happened via local news station ABC6:
Columbus Police said at about 4:30 p.m. Tuesday, officers responded to 3171 Legion Lane. The caller said females were there to stab them and put their hands on them, according to police.Columbus Police said dispatchers were unable to get information about weapons at the scene.Officers arrived at the scene at 4:44 p.m.Body-camera video from a responding officer shows [shooting victim Ma’Khia] Bryant appearing to try to stab two females when the officer fired, striking her.
Watch the graphic bodycam video of what happened below, which appears to back up the PD’s version of events. It’s set to slow-motion to show the sequence of events that led to the shooting.
Early reporting on the incident from “news” outlets like the Daily Beast relied heavily on statements from Bryant’s aunt Hazel that the video ended up proving false:
Before more facts were known, protestors arrived at the scene of the shooting. Some carried signs you typically see at Black Lives Matter demonstrations:
And as per the norm, the initial reactions from the left revolved around playing the race card:
Vice President Harris’ sister Maya also weighed in:
There were many others as well, as Ian Miles Cheong documented in an extensive thread:
Benjamin Crump, the attorney for the Floyd family, declarws that Bryant was “unarmed”:
It was a familiar tactic he uses, and he was called out on it:
And there were others for who the facts, once known, still didn’t matter:
Then there were the “hey, why not let these gals stab it out” hot takes, which were truly bizarre:
Perhaps much of what’s wrong with how the left reacted to the story can best be explained by reading NPR’s explanation on how media reporting on police shootings can often be wrong:
And that, I submit, is a huge part of the problem.
— Stacey Matthews has also written under the pseudonym “Sister Toldjah” and can be reached via Twitter. —
CLICK HERE FOR FULL VERSION OF THIS STORY