Late-night comedian John Oliver criticized President Joe Biden on Sunday for his call for peaceful protesting as opposed to violence in response to recent fatal police-involved shootings of minorities.
The host of HBO’s Last Week Tonight was responding to the deaths of Daunte Wright, a 20-year-old black man, and Adam Toledo, a 13-year-old Mexican American, which he said fell into a “depressingly familiar cycle.”
Biden was “insisting on peaceful protest, which is so often just another way to prioritize over righteous dissent and to protect property over human lives — and those calls were especially galling given law enforcement’s anything-but-peaceful response, as police fired tear gas, rubber bullets, and flash-bang grenades at protesters, creating more tension and anxiety in an already emotionally exhausted city,” Oliver said.
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On April 12, Biden said he wanted to know the results of the investigation into Wright’s death before making conclusions about the fault of the officer.
“The question is: Was it an accident, was it intentional? That remains to be determined by a full-blown investigation,” he said, adding, “But in the meantime, I want to make it clear again: There is absolutely no justification, none, for looting. No justification for violence; peaceful protest is understandable.”
The deaths of Wright and Toledo have sparked a renewed wave of demonstrations, which have led to dozens of arrests.
The unrest is similar to what transpired around the country last year after George Floyd, a black man, died in Minneapolis police custody. A trial for the former officer accused of killing Floyd, Derek Chauvin, concluded Monday, and jury deliberations will ensue. Chauvin was charged with second-degree murder, third-degree murder, and second-degree manslaughter.
Rep. Maxine Waters, a California Democrat, told protesters in Minnesota that if the jury did not return a guilty verdict that protesters should “get more active. We’ve got to get more confrontational,” comments which led the judge on Monday to say the trial could be overturned on appeal.
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“The fact is, it’s once again been made painfully clear that we — and when I say we, I mean white America — have to stop talking about fundamental change in policing and actually make it happen because this cycle of state violence against Black lives has to be stopped,” Oliver added. “So put on your shoes, leave the house, march in the streets, and demand a better country — one in which black people are treated with fundamental respect.”
