Tuesday on CNN’s Cuomo Prime Time, in the wake of the police-involved shooting of black suspect Daunte
Wright, commentator Van Jones called the policing “methodology” used in the United States “dumb and dangerous and discriminatory.”
Jones said, “The reason that young man —people say, why didn’t he do what he was told? Please understand there are two different Americas here. If when you see a police officer, you see the badge and not all those weapons, you are in one part of America. If when you see a police officer, you see all those weapons and don’t see the badge, it’s because your experience has been they don’t come at you with respect. They don’t come at you with trust. They come at you with force. When people see somebody coming at them armed who has never treated you with respect, you can panic.”
Jones is lying. The police didn’t initially come at Wright with weapons and force; he resisted arrest and attempted to flee despite police commands to stop. Wright would still be alive if he had done what he was told.
He continued, “The deeper problem is that the policing methodology that we have in the country right now is both dumb and dangerous and discriminatory. It is dumb to have all of these cops out here with all of these weapons, tasers and pepper spray and batons and guns and dogs and drones, pulling people over for like little, what do you call it, your taillight’s out?”
Wright was pulled over because of an expired registration, but police learned he had an open arrest warrant stemming from pending charges for 1st-degree aggravated robbery with a gun which alleged that he assaulted, robbed, and choked a woman before robbing her of $820. After posting $100,000 bail, Wright had allegedly violated the terms of his release by again possessing a firearm. Based on that information, police attempted to arrest him.
Jones went on to ramble that police firepower is dumb and the police are racist, adding, “The first thing you have got to do is you have to say we need to completely, as Obama said, reimagine policing. We don’t need this much firepower going after little petty stuff. It’s dangerous for everybody and discriminatory, and everybody knows it.”
1st-degree aggravated robbery with a gun and illegal possession of a firearm is not “little petty stuff.” Don’t want to get shot? Don’t commit crimes and then resist arrest.