Dan Bongino slams Geraldo Rivera’s ‘dopey comments’ during heated exchange on Minneapolis police shooting

The exchange came after Rivera said the death of Wright on Sunday was “horrible” and that “you can’t reach for your Taser and take out your 9 mm and shoot somebody and expect everybody to go kumbaya.”

“There’s a situation in this country now where, I swear to God, and I’m speaking with deep experience, too many black mothers are more fearful of the police that they are of crooks when their sons go out. A 20-year-old should not end up dead because of an expired registration,” Rivera said. He added that there is a “gulf between how a regular, white family reacts and how a black family reacts.”

DAUNTE WRIGHT SHOOTING WAS ‘ACCIDENTAL,’ OFFICER MEANT TO USE TASER, POLICE CHIEF SAYS

Bongino responded that he shouldn’t base his opinion on being friends with a few police officers.

“Don’t start minimizing my experience,” Rivera responded.

“Can you shut up for two seconds?” Bongino said.

“I’m an expert witness tonight,” Rivera responded.

“I’m tired of this guy. He never shuts up. He’s always got something to say,” Bongino said, adding that Rivera is entitled to his opinion but not “entitled to a certain set of facts.”

Bongino added that “we don’t have all the facts” on Wright’s killing and that Rivera was “injecting race into this, which you do on these police issues constantly when you have none of the data. ”

“You’re making me the issue again,” Rivera said. “Don’t you have an argument to make that doesn’t concern me?”

“I’m responding to your dopey comments,” Bongino said. “You have no idea that there’s a racial undertone to this at all. And you’re saying, ‘Oh, black parents have to worry because.’ You have no data to back that up at all.”

“How about people like you that don’t credit the humanity of half the country?” Rivera shot back. “They are running scared, and they are scared of cops.”

“Stop pontificating and produce some actual data. You’re a reporter, right?” Bongino said.

“You think all of this rage, Black Lives Matter, you think all this happened, defund the police, all this happened because of some fanciful liberal notion? It didn’t. It happened because of the pain,” Rivera said.

In the summer of 2020, in the aftermath of George Floyd’s death in police custody and the height of the “defund the police” movement, 81% of black people either wanted to retain their current local police presence or increase the police presence.

Wright died in a Minneapolis suburb during a traffic stop after police tried to arrest him, following them discovering he had an outstanding warrant for his arrest. Wright was seen struggling with police and attempting to flee in his car.

Wright had failed to appear in court on charges that he fled officers in June and was in possession of a gun without a permit, according to court documents.

Police Chief Tim Gannon of the Brooklyn Center Police Department said Wright’s death was an accident because the officer who shot him meant to fire her Taser but instead used her handgun.

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His death quickly spread on social media and sparked riots in the area, with police deploying rubber bullets and tear gas on the crowds Sunday night. Protests and riots also spread to other parts of the country, including Portland, on Monday night.