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Fox News host Tucker Carlson has come under fire for accusing the media of “lynching” Derek Chauvin, the Minneapolis police officer on trial in the death of George Floyd.
Claiming that most Americans “still cannot say with any specificity just how” Mr Floyd died, Mr Carlson added: “The closing arguments are a chance to assess actual evidence in the case, and you would think that would be good news, more facts, which we could always use.
“But, no, said the media. Facts no longer matter, not when [Black Lives Matter’s] founding myth is at stake. Evidence only counts in countries that have due process, something they are now telling us is an ugly relic of institutional racism,” Mr Carlson said on his Monday night show.
He continued: “When unpopular people seem guilty, you just go ahead and punish them, that’s the new rule. Years ago we called this lynching, now we call it equity.”
Video footage of Mr Chauvin kneeling on Mr Floyd’s neck for nine minutes and 29 seconds has been one of the major pieces of evidence in the trial. The prosecution has argued that Mr Chauvin shunned his police training when he inflicted deadly force on Mr Floyd.
The defence team of Mr Chauvin has instead claimed that Mr Floyd died because of underlying health problems and because there were drugs in his system.
Twitter users were quick to blast the cable news host, with Joshua Benevides writing: “Tucker’s White Power Hour just keeps getting more and more explicit.”
Anonymous user “Moose” called Mr Carlson a “silver spoon manchild”.
Matt McNeil tweeted: “At this point, I’m surprised Fox News isn’t advertising wearable sheets and crosses ready to burn on Tucker Carlson’s show.”
Mr Carlson called out CNN legal analyst Laura Coates, who wrote on Twitter Monday: “Defense begins the closing by defining reasonable doubt, not with why Derek Chauvin is innocent. Think about that.”
“Well, as it happens, we have thought about that. We’ve thought about it because that is the core principle of our entire justice system,” Mr Carlson said.
“In the United States, you are not required to prove your innocence. That’s China. In the United States, the government has to prove your guilt. If they can’t prove your guilt, they have to let you go. That’s the American system. There’s no other system that you would want to live under.”
Philip Stokoe tweeted that Mr Chauvin is “on trial, in front of a jury. It is, in no way, shape or form, anything like a lynching. After he knelt on a man’s neck for 9+ minutes and that man died. Tucker Carlson can go f**k himself”.
The Independent has reached out to Fox News for comment.
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