Political comedian Bill Maher said Wednesday evening that he understands what is driving black people to shoot white police officers.
In an interview with MSNBC’s Chris Matthews, the host of “Real Time” said that after years of reports and videos of black people being “brutally assaulted” by police without justification, he is “surprised” that somebody “did not fire back sooner.”
While he said “there’s never any excuse for what happened,” referring to last week’s shooting in which a sniper shot a number of police officers, killing five of them, Maher added, “I understand the motivation.”
“I mean how many videos can you see? How many years can go by when this is going on when black people are brutally assaulted? The last guy was just right on the ground and he put a slug in him. I’m surprised somebody did not fire back sooner,” Maher said.
Earlier in the interview, Maher said “we never really got race right” in the U.S., attributing the root of the problem back to slavery.
