On his HBO show Real Time this week, Bill Maher spoke out about the horrific police shooting in Pasco, Washington this Friday, where cops shot dead a man who was running away with his hands up.
“Tell me why that is not cowardly. Why is that not cowardly?” Maher said. “Yeah, throwing rocks, not a cool thing. But then he’s running away. Even if he was throwing rocks at the time — really? You’ve gotta shoot him?”
According to police, 35 year-old Antonio Zambrano-Montes was hurling rocks at the police officers before they killed him. Video of the incident has been going viral, sparking outrage and protests – even from the Mexican government.
“That is just straight-up shooting a guy in the street like a dog,” Maher continued. “We keep saying most cops are good, and I believe that; I’ve known a lot of good cops. But there is something systemically wrong here.”
One of Maher’s guests, Author Baratunde Thurston, noted that just as people expect Muslims to speak out and denounce acts of terror, more cops should come forward and denounce police shootings that are unjustified.
“To take that analogy a bit further, how much bad sh*t has to happen before people admit it’s something systemic in the culture?” Maher responded. “The police culture needs a Page One rewrite. I don’t know if it’s retraining, rethinking, releadership. But something has to change where they think they can get away with doing it.”
Watch the exchange in the video below, via Mediaite:
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