The folks at MSNBC exhibited a sick sense of "humor" on Friday.
As Gateway Pundit's Kristinn Taylor reported Friday afternoon, the network posted "a video to MSNBC’s Facebook page that mocks police over a criminal dragging a police officer by a car as he attempted to flee ..." The post asked the following question, which was also tweeted: "Does it count as a police chase if you take the cop along for the ride?"
As seen here and here, the Facebook post and tweet were pulled shortly after Taylor noted their existence.
Late Friday afternoon, as Taylor noted, MSNBC tweeted an "apology" which contained no detail about why it was necessary:
A video tweeted from @msnbc Friday evening has been removed. The material was inappropriate. It should not have been posted and we're sorry.
I guess the following, though accurate, was just too difficult to admit: "We re sorry we made fun of an officer who was dragged by a fleeing suspect's car and could have been seriously hurt. We ask you to believe that our apology is sincere, even though we have been attacking cops for targeting and killing black youths for over nine months, giving air time to people who want to take their weapons away and place them under federal control, and emboldening black suspects who interact with cops to resist their lawful orders."
Here's more from Taylor's original post, wherein we learn that MSNBC spliced off the video's closing seconds to minimize chances that its tiny audience might sympathize with the victimized officer (bolds are mine):
The MSNBC video uses security and police body-camera footage from an incident on May 9 in Savannah, Georgia. The video was released by police on Wednesday and hit the national media the next day.MSNBC added circus clown music to the video and the caption “Does it count as a police chase if you take the cop along for the ride?”
The 38 second video notes the driver, Brandon Adams, escaped but later turned himself in and that the police officer was “going to be okay.”
Missing from the MSNBC video mocking police is the horrifying footage and sound from the police officer’s body camera of the officer falling off the car, hitting the ground and tumbling to a halt as the driver got away.
Also missing from the MSNBC video is footage from the surveillance camera that shows the officer hitting the pavement.
Here is the full 49-second video in question, carried at HLNtv.com:
A separate gas station video which captured when the officer fell from the car from a distance shows how fortunate he was that he wasn't seriously hurt.
I'm also not at all impressed with how HLNtv.com, which is affiliated with CNN, handled the matter.
The site's headline: "OMG video: Watch cop get dragged by fleeing suspect!" Did they really need to add an exclamation point for "excitement"?
The site's video description: "A Savannah, Georgia, police officer gets the ride of his life when he gets dragged by fleeing suspect. The whole ordeal is caught on the officer's body camera." Well, at least they called it an ordeal. But "the ride of his life"? The officer, who reportedly "returned to work the next day," is lucky to be alive and not seriously uninjured.
The suspect, Brandon Adams, has since turned himself in.
Cross-posted at BizzyBlog.com.
