While the Democratic Party has attempted to distance itself from its advocacy of defunding the police, an MSNBC host said on Wednesday that he supports “abolishing the police” and “getting rid” of law enforcement “entirely.” He also asserted without evidence that officers deliberately “prey” on the same black families “over and over and over.”
“I have always made it abundantly clear I believe in abolishing police, getting rid of it entirely, starting from the beginning. We have done that before. We have done it with the Department of War,” said Jason Johnson, the guest host of “The Beat with Ari Melber.”
It was not the first time that Johnson, a professor of journalism at Morgan State University and frequent MSNBC contributor, had proposed eradicating the police force as the anchor of an MSNBC show. While filling in for Melber on June 24, Johnson affirmed, “I’m on the abolish the police side” of the debate, as contrasted with those who merely wish to “reform” the system.
His comments could hardly have come at a less opportune time for Democrats, who have desperately tried to deflect criticism over the nation’s rising crime rate, which followed a year of police funding reductions in Democrat-controlled cities.
A meager 18% of Americans support the movement to defund the police, according to an Ipsos/USA TODAY poll released in March. The survey also found only 28% of black Americans and 34% of Democrats wish to “Defund the Police.” Abolishing the police likely attracts lower support yet.
As a result, White House spokesperson Jen Psaki and other Democrats have accused Republicans of defunding the police, a claim The Washington Post’s fact-checker rated “Three Pinocchios.” Johnson’s comments make that fallacious assertion even less tenable.
Johnson and his guest continued their character assassination against police officers by claiming that U.S. law enforcement has been designed to repeatedly victimize the same innocent black families.
Johnson’s latest remarks came while reporting that the uncle of Darnella Frazier, the teenager who filmed the death of George Floyd, tragically died after getting into a car accident with a police officer. “George Floyd’s girlfriend used to teach Daunte Wright,” he said. “The police seem to prey on the same black people over, and over, and over again.”
His guest, Brittany Packnett Cunningham, agreed, saying, “The lesson the nation needs to learn in this moment is that the system is working precisely as it was designed.” The alleged choice of law enforcement officers “to revisit the same black families, black people, and black communities is not happenstance. It’s not an accident. This is intentional. This is a choice.”
“What we need to understand is that this system, this system that continues to visit and revisit black people with intention, is working precisely and exactly as it was designed,” she concluded.
“Exactly, as always planned,” agreed Johnson, ending the show.
Neither one explained how the “system” supposedly arranged the automobile accident, which occurred while officers were pursuing an active carjacker.
But both guests have a history of spreading misinformation about the police. In April, Johnson told “The 11th Hour” host Brian Williams, “I’m just as likely to get shot by that cop as I am with a potential intruder. That’s just the reality. That’s the reality of it that I live with every day.”
Late last month Brittany Packnett Cunningham, whom former President Barack Obama appointed to his Task Force on 21st Century Policing, told MSNBC’s Stephanie Ruhle that “this rising crime … is actually the fault of the police.”
The views expressed in this piece are the author’s own and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.