Fox News trotted out African American contributor Ted Williams to fear monger that criminals are taking over control of this country thanks to Black Lives Matter.
Neither Williams nor host Jon Scott specifically mentioned Black Lives Matter. But when Williams said that crime is rising because police are afraid to do their jobs, the inference was clear.
The discussion began with Scott citing some rising crime statistics in Chicago and New York. He followed up by asking Williams, a former homicide detective, “What in the world, Ted, is happening?”
Williams replied, “When you have, like in Chicago, over the Father’s Day weekend, when you have 104 people shot, 14 fatalities and a three-year-old child shot, you’ve got to wonder what is going on in these cities?”
If you're a Fox News viewer, you probably already "know" it's the fault of Black Lives Matter and/or Democrats. For some reason, Democrats were let off the hook in this segment.
WILLIAMS: And I can tell you, it is as simple as this: The criminals are taking over. Law enforcement officers are really in a pickle these days, Jon. They’re somewhat scared to do their job because if they do their job, they may see themselves either arrested or terminated from the police departments in which they serve. And so, when you have a jittery law-enforcement force out there like that, it’s unfortunate but this is the reason a lot of criminals are running wild in these major metropolitan cities.
Now, I could see that police may well feel they’re in a pickle. But that does not automatically mean crime rate spikes.
But instead of asking Williams for proof of correlation, Scott upped the fear mongering:
SCOTT: How do you have a functioning society without police, Ted?
WILLIAMS: Jon, you cannot have a functioning society without police.
Williams also went after the protesters in the autonomous zone in Seattle, where there were two shootings over the weekend. “Seattle is lawless, it needs to come under control and I think that they need to let Chief [Carmen] Best do what she does best and that is going in and take over this so-called autonomous zone,” he said.
I am not an anarchist and I certainly think it’s awful that people got shot. But for one thing, Williams and Scott failed to mention that the Seattle protest has been largely peaceful. For another, the protesters are demanding major changes in policing, justice and maintaining community safety. Going in and “taking over” is not going to solve the problem.
You can watch Fox News deliberately ratchet up fear and divisiveness below, from the June 22, 2020 Bill Hemmer Reports.