Fox & Friends Weekend used the manhunt for alleged cop-killer Christopher Dorner as an excuse to play a thinly-veiled race card against Rep. Maxine Waters and other African Americans. The pretext was a discussion about how Dorner has garnered some fans on Facebook and Twitter as a result of his manifesto alleging racism and corruption in the Los Angeles Police Department, his former employer. But instead of doing any real work and reporting any real facts about the state of community relations with the LAPD or even relaying what the fans are saying, the three hosts dismissed any concerns about police brutality and racism and suggested that race-crazed African Americans are using the case to justify violence. For good measure, host Tucker Carlson baselessly suggested that Congresswoman Maxine Waters is part of Dorner’s fan base.
Huffington Post also reported on Dorner’s fans but – unlike Fox – also noted that there’s a sort of “Dark Knight Complex” that gives a kind of appeal to high-profile killers among certain people:
The vast majority of Americans are horrified that Dorner declared "war" on the LAPD and has allegedly killed three individuals so far. But the public disgust seems to add fuel to the fire for his followers, as it does with skeptics of 9/11, the Aurora massacre and the Newtown massacre.
However, it is clear that Dorner's fans have a more issue-driven focus than, for example, the fans, or "Holmies," of alleged Aurora shooter James Holmes.
Dorner's supporters say the media should be focusing on police brutality and officer-involved deaths as much as they are on this alleged killer.
In other words, Dorner is obviously not the only public villain to gain fans and it is clear that the case has brought to the forefront a range of concerns about the LAPD. But Fox ignored the “Holmies” just as it disregarded the Dorner supporters' issues - in order to paint them as racial demagogues.
Co-host Mike Jerrick offered up his decades-old observations and current suppositions instead of facts. He said he lived in Los Angeles “in the 90’s” when “there probably was corruption and racism… So, they have tried to stamp all that out and they’ve had a pretty darned good relationship with the public, the police out there, for the last 5-10 years and now all this starts up again.” He shook his head in disbelief.
And we knew who to blame even before Tucker Carlson said:
Who cares (what kind of racism Dorner endured in the LAPD)? You saw this in 1992 during the LA riots. And you saw members of Congress, including Maxine Waters who’s still in the Congress, make the case that this violence against innocent bystanders then and now was justified because it was a reaction against racism. Violence is not justified. Period… I don’t care what happened to Rodney King. You don’t have a right to shoot strangers.
Nobody pointed out that Rep. Waters’ comments about a riot 20 years ago have nothing to do with the murder spree now, nor that she expressly disavowed the violence then even as she sympathized with the sentiments of the community she represented. In fact, nobody even questioned whether Waters or any other members of Congress had voiced any support at all for Dorner, as Carlson had hinted.
Instead, Jerrick ran with the insinuation that she and any other (black) person with a real or imagined beef against the LAPD is probably a fan of Dorner’s: "So anybody who’s ever been wronged or feel that they were wronged by the LAPD is now somehow going online and showing this guy support."
Disgraceful, even by Fox News standards.
