Newsweek ran a Sunday story with the following headline, “Police Cruiser Strikes Breonna Taylor Protesters During Los Angeles March.”
But one might be inclined to take issue with the conclusion Newsweek’s headline draws, based on Twitter video the magazine includes in its story to illustrate the apparently heinous act.
The second video below is the clip Newsweek uses; its caption from self-described “Gonzo anti-fascist/anti-racist reporter” Vishal P. Singh tells an even more sinister tale: “LAPD just ran over two protesters at the Hollywood Breonna Taylor march.”
Let’s roll the tape, shall we? (Content warning: Profanity):
If you were expecting a speeding cop car walloping innocent protesters doing nothing remotely problematic during Saturday’s festivities, you might be disappointed about now. Instead the video Newsweek uses shows a pair of protesters standing in front of a police cruiser that’s inching forward, trying to get through an intersection:
The camera turns away from the scene momentarily as the sound of one protester pounding the vehicle’s hood is heard, which is shown in other videos. The camera turns back and shows the cruiser’s front bumper beginning to touch one protester’s leg as the vehicle continues inching forward:
As the cruiser continues inching forward, the protesters pound the hood again and climb atop it:
The cruiser accelerates, and the protesters begin to feel some Newtonian effects:
One protester is dispatched from the hood and easily lands feet-first on the street and smartly gets out of the way:
Alas, the other protester stays atop the hood as the cruiser drives down the street — with other protesters furiously chasing the cruiser on foot as one individual hollers, “Holy s**t!” and “Did you see that? They just ran two people over!” It isn’t clear from the video what became of the second protester.
Newsweek describes the video as showing “the police cruiser speeding forward, knocking off two protesters who had climbed onto the car’s hood” — and the magazine does not use any form of the word “strike” in its story.
As the video in question turns to another intersection, an individual close the camera is heard repeating the mantra: “LAPD just ran over two protesters!” And as the camera is trained on a line of cops, the same voice by the camera is heard saying, “You guys just ran two people over.”
Newsweek also quotes another tweet from Singh: “Ppl asking why the protesters who got hit by LAPD’s car jumped on the hood… uh… cuz when you’re getting hit by a car YOU DO NOT WANT TO BE UNDER IT.”
Here’s another Twitter video of the incident, this time from a “Notorious Lefty” who unsurprisingly parrots the same message:
The following clip offers perhaps the clearest vantage point that Newsweek’s choice to use “strikes” in its headline was perhaps far-fetched — as was the claim from the street that “LAPD just ran over two protesters!”
‘The sheer dishonesty’
Some folks on Twitter pushed back against Newsweek’s headline:
- “What gall, when there is a whole video. ‘Cruiser strikes protesters’ my ass,” one user wrote. “They hopped on the hood and started beating on the car after blocking its path. The sheer dishonesty.”
- “Fake news,” another commenter said.
Others took issue with Singh’s initial tweet:
- “No, LAPD did not run over two protestors, two protestors attacked a LAPD car, which for their own safety the occupants drove away,” one commenter said.
- “Are you so blind that you can’t even see who is at fault in this clip? What these 2 are doing is called Obstruction, it’s against the law,” another user wrote. “And the officer clearly did not run over them, they ran over him by jumping on his car. WAKE UP!”
- “‘Ran over’ is nonsense—they got in front of an accelerating car, then jumped on the hood and started beating on it,” another commenter observed. “What do you expect, for police to just sit there and let themselves be violently attacked? This is pure provocation, and has zero to do with ‘peaceful protest.'”
Anything else?
The New York Post also ran a story on the incident. And while its headline is accurate — “Protester clings to hood of LAPD car during clashes at Breonna Taylor rally” — the caption for the Post’s featured photo invokes that familiar word: “An LAPD cruiser strikes a protesters [sic] during a Breonna Taylor march in Los Angeles on Saturday night.”
Neither Newsweek nor the New York Post immediately responded Monday to TheBlaze’s requests for comment.
*story by The Blaze
