CNN Suggests Daunte Wright Was Just Killed Over Expired Tags

bradwilmouth | April 15, 2021
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Cross posted to the MRC's NewsBusters blog

On Thursday morning, as CNN's New Day show continued to avoid informing viewers of the full magnitude of Daunte Wright's criminal history that led to a bungled arrest attempt, CNN's Poppy Harlow hinted that Wright's arrest and killing were over something as harmless as expired tags.

The fill-in host was speaking with Gwen Carr, the mother of Eric Garner, who was accidentally choked to death by police officers as he resisted arrest in 2015. Harlow listed several cases in which black men have died after arresting arrest after initially attracting police attention over issues that were relatively minor:

When you get back to the root of what precipitated the deaths of all of these black man in America at the hands of the police, so many of them -- I mean, your son, Eric Garner from Staten Island not far from where I'm standing now, was selling loose cigarettes -- for Daunte Wright, it was expired tags -- for George Floyd, it was a counterfeit $20 bill -- Alton Sterling, I could go on and on and on. So I think my question to you this morning, Gwen, is: Has anything meaningful, from a mother's perspective, changed in policing in America?

A bit later, when Harlow asked about concerns by liberals that President Joe Biden is not pushing aggressively enough for police reform, Carr accused police generally of "murdering" many black men: "They see what's going on in the black and brown communities -- they see they're murdering us at an enormous rate -- and there's nothing really being done about it with no accountability. Nothing is changing fast enough..."

A bit later, she reiterated Harlow's suggestion that Wright's death was just about expired vehicle registration:

We need everyone to push together to get these laws changed because a man who's just driving with an expired license in a pandemic -- the pandemic -- there are so many people out there with expired license -- and why would you pick one, this young man, and why -- it doesn't breed death just because he has an expired license. He should not have even been stopped.

Even though it was reported on Wednesday by Fox News that Wright's legal problems originated with an armed robbery attempt from December 2019, in addition to other gun charges from last year, leading to a warrant for his arrest, Harlow went along with her guest's premise that police tried to arrest the 20-year-old with little justification as she recalled her own harmless experience of being stopped for expired tags: "Well, I've said this before on this program, but, look, I've been pulled over for expired tags, right? And the outcome was completely different."

This deceptive episode of CNN's New Day was sponsored in part by Clear Choice. Their contact information is linked.

Transcript follows: 

CNN

New Day

April 15, 2021

POPPY HARLOW: When you get back to the root of what precipitated the deaths of all of these black man in America at the hands of the police, so many of them -- I mean, your son, Eric Garner from Staten Island not far from where I'm standing now, was selling loose cigarettes -- for Daunte Wright, it was expired tags -- for George Floyd, it was a counterfeit $20 bill -- Alton Sterling, I could go on and on and on. So I think my question to you this morning, Gwen, is: Has anything meaningful, from a mother's perspective, changed in policing in America?

(...)

The White House is standing down on their policing commission that they promised -- they say it's up to Congress to make change. Do you have confidence in Congress at this moment to make that meaningful change?

GWEN CARR, MOTHER OF ERIC GARNER: Well, they need to look at the situation, and it should be like, "Hey, yeah, we have to make change." They see what's going on in the black and brown communities -- they see they're murdering us at an enormous rate -- and there's nothing really being done about it with no accountability. Nothing is changing fast enough, so this is why we've got to keep out there. We can't do it by ourselves -- we need Congress -- we need the people.

We need everyone to push together to get these laws changed because a man who's just driving with an expired license in a pandemic -- the pandemic -- there are so many people out there with expired license -- and why would you pick one, this young man, and why -- it doesn't breed death just because he has an expired license. He should not have even been stopped.

HARLOW: Well, I've said this before on this program, but, look, I've been pulled over for expired tags, right? And the outcome was completely different.

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