This Friday on Fox & Friends, Geraldo Rivera was back to his bizarre ways, this time seemingly justifying the killing of Walter Scott in South Carolina by former officer Michael Slager, who shot Scott in the back as he was running away.
Responding to a second video (taken from Slager’s dashcam) that was released showing the moments that led up to the shooting, Geraldo characterized Slager’s initial pulling over of Scott as “a righteous traffic stop,” saying that Scott was “acting very hinky and edgy.” He then added that people should put the killing into context before being quick to criticize.
“You don’t see, but there is reliable, I think, eyewitness account that there is then a struggle after the Taser,” Rivera said. “So, up until that point, the cop with his adrenaline pumping, now he’s been in a physical tussle, and now the perpetrator has reached for the Taser allegedly. Now it gives you the context of his blood boiling.”
“[Slager] has done everything professional and now he’s had this — this civilian has dared to physically have this altercation with the officer. Put that in the officer’s head now. I think it saves him from the murder rap.”
“Even when you see him shooting him the back dead?” Elizabeth Hasselbeck asked in a rare moment of moral clarity.
“Elizabeth, that is an excellent point,” Rivera replied. “This is a horrible, horrible shooting, but there was no premeditation, this is manslaughter. I believe this is manslaughter and, were I the officer’s attorney, I would begin negotiations for that plea immediately.”
Watch the exchange in the video below, via Talking Points Memo:
Leave a Reply