On Monday afternoon’s CNN News Central, chief law enforcement and intelligence analyst John Miller and chief media analyst Brian Stelter offered two ridiculous reactions to last month’s brutal murder in Charlotte, North Carolina of a Ukrainian refugee allegedly at the hands of a thug with 14 prior arrests.
For the latter, it was a lack of government-funded mental health care while the latter bemoaned those outraged have been dabbling in racism.
Fill-in co-host Danny Freeman huffed at the top in a tease: “Fueling a political firestorm. How a video of a deadly stabbing in Charlotte has turned into a flashpoint as the administration pushes its crime crackdown.”
Notice how it’s always painted as a negative and political when CNN’s enemies blow the whistle on something being a problem.
After a set-up from co-host Brianna Keilar and sound of President Trump offering his condolences to the family of Iryna Kartuska, Miller went first and described the video then chalked it up to “someone who has a mental health history” and “clearly fell between the cracks in terms of the kind of treatment he was getting and this terrible, terrible crime.”
Keilar didn’t focus on the record of this individual, but instead lamented to Miller the “attack…has set off a political firestorm about crime in Democratic-led cities.”
Miller callously painted Charlotte as safe and seemed to commiserate with the alleged murderer by arguing not enough taxpayer dollars were spent on helping those like him:
Stelter started with the observation that “most murders in the U.S. never become national news” and this murder, like “the times when civil rights groups have raised attention about police-involved shootings,” this murder went from a local to national story because of “the energy from pro-Trump activists” and “influencers…posting up a storm about this case.”
“Really, over the weekend, Elon Musk, Charlie Kirk, other Trump aligned figures succeeded in making this senseless death a symbol of big city crime…This story has trickled up from so from local news to social media and now to the President’s attention and it’s being used, as you said, Brianna, as a political symbol with MAGA media calling for more forceful punishments and more incarceration,” Stelter fretted.
Again, the horror concern is raised about what one could argue was an abuse of the justice system to allow someone with over a dozen arrests to roam freely!
Then came the cry of racism and a modicum of admission there are real questions about this tragedy:
I have to say, some of the replies to Musk, some of the comments around this story are baldly racist, stoking fear of African Americans because this man attacked a white woman. The open racism on sites like X today — it’s eye popping, but there are also legitimate questions about this so-called career criminal. Someone who had been a repeat offender and those questions, I hope they’re not lost amid all of the cesspool kind of comments on social media.
To see the relevant CNN transcript from September 8, click here.
