Panelists on “CNN This Morning” shot down a conservative commentator’s justification for a violent crackdown on protesters in Minneapolis following the fatal shooting of a woman by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer.
The ICE agent fatally shot 37-year-old Renee Good last week in the city, where the Trump administration has surged hundreds of additional federal agents as part of its ongoing crackdown on immigrants. Former Homeland Security official Ashley Davis tried to justify the use of force against the slain mother on CNN Tuesday.
“I don’t think the officer is going to, I mean, I don’t think there’s going to be any repercussions to him,” said Davis, who served in the George W. Bush administration. “I really think that he, from the videos that have been shown, I don’t know what the case would be there.
“But I do agree with you 100 percent that the agitators or protesters are completely different, look, as kind of, the days of the ‘defund the police’ days and others. But I still think that there’s half of this country that does not, that really supports and believes in our military and our law enforcement and our police officers of any type, that they are not going to like the protesters.”
“Listen, we can’t, I mean, the pepper spray talking point these days,” Davis added. “I mean, if you’re up in these people’s faces that are trained to hurt and trained to protect, they’re going to pepper spray you.”
Host Audie Cornish and the other panelists were aghast.
“Having been pepper sprayed during crowd control – not great,” Cornish said. “You know, there’s a couple of rules around crowd control and how that’s supposed to work. But I want to expand on your point of view. We heard from Texas Republican [Rep.] Chip Roy earlier this week.”
That GOP lawmaker bashed protesters as “middle-aged white women” wearing “Coke bottle glasses” and attempting to interfere with law enforcement, which he said justified the invocation of the Insurrection Act, and Cornish and other panelists questioned that messaging.
“As somebody who has been pepper sprayed and who has participated in protests, that’s our right as American citizens,” said Democratic strategist Chuck Rocha, “and I wholeheartedly want to celebrate our military, and I always back the blue, as you would, But that don’t mean they can kill unarmed American people. I know there’s a difference of opinion between me and Ashley in the way that that woman used her car, but I think the American people, at the end of the day, are going to judge this, and they’re going to be on my side because you see what you can see, and I just don’t think it’s right killing unarmed folks.”
“What did you do to get pepper-sprayed, more importantly?” Davis asked, seemingly recoiling from Rocha seated next to her.
“Yeah, that point of view, that’s always like, well, what did you do to get in trouble?” Cornish interjected. “It’s a little bit, like, not America. I mean, occasionally you’re allowed to protest.”
“But you can’t break the law,” Davis argued.
“But I was in a Seattle protest over the environment,” Rocha objected, “and they were pepper–spraying everybody because that’s what they did back in the ’90s.”
“And for the record, I was pepper-sprayed in a Red Sox rally,” Cornish concluded. “Okay, so settle down, good. Give me a break.”
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