Fox News host Harris Faulkner called for equal outrage toward police officers being harmed amid violent protests related to the death of George Floyd.
“We should be just as viscerally moved when we hear about a police officer shot in the head amid these protests that have gone sideways in some places and turned so violent that sideways doesn’t even describe it,” Faulkner said during Fox News’s Outnumbered. “Where is the outcry now?”
Several police officers across the country were injured during the protests that turned violent Monday night. In St. Louis, four police officers were shot during the protests, suffering non-life-threatening injuries. St. Louis Police Chief John Hayden decried the actions, calling those who fired the shots “cowards.” In Las Vegas, a police officer who was shot in the head is now on life support.
Multiple police vehicles have been destroyed, smashed in, and set on fire throughout several days of protests. In Minneapolis, the 3rd Precinct police station, where four officers involved in the detainment of Floyd worked, was set ablaze last week.
The protests began following the death of Floyd, a black man, after a white police officer kneeled on his neck for nearly nine minutes until he was unconscious. The officer, Derek Chauvin, was charged with third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter. Three others involved were fired but have not yet been charged.
Protests voicing outcry over racial injustice and police brutality have escalated into episodes of looting, arson, and even shootings in some places.
“We all should have the same kind of reactions today when we see the attempted murder of police officers that we do when we see other people being harmed,” Faulkner said. “That is how we go forward. It should break our hearts just as much to see someone take a vehicle and ram it into a cop that’s out there for public safety.”
Faulkner, who is the only woman of color to anchor a weekday show on any of the three major cable news channels by herself, also condemned the history of systemic racism as it relates to Floyd’s death.
“All of it is about Americans, all of it,” Faulkner said. “American and George Floyd — and yes, the history of systemic racism and problems, and I don’t like the word ‘bad apples’ because it makes it sound tasty. This is not about fruit. … There are some people who are evil and racist, and we need to root them out.”
