Fox News host Sean Hannity seized on the mass shooting at a Colorado supermarket on Monday to undermine protests last summer that raised a banner for racial justice.
“Obviously very scary, horrific shooting in Boulder,” Hannity said, hours after at least ten people including a police officer, were killed on Monday in an attack at a grocery store in Boulder, Colorado, according to authorities.
But the horror of the deadly Colorado shooting, which came just days after a suspected Georgia man shot and killed 8 people, including 6 women of Asian-descent in Atlanta-run spas, quickly turned to an attack on protests from last summer opposing police brutality that Republicans have claimed as a diversion tactic to avoid addressing a fresh wave of calls for gun reform.
“You know, we’re often reminded and then we forget. Remember, ‘What do we want? Dead cops. When do we want them, now. Pigs in a blanket. Fry them like bacon.’ Bottles, rocks, bricks, molotov cocktails. They’re not riots we were told all summer to over 2,500 cops injured but these are the cops that go put themselves in harms way and in this case we lost one tonight,” Hannity said.
After invoking last summer’s protests, the Fox News host invited frequent guest Dan Bongino, a former Secret Service agent and New York Police Department officer, to join in on bashing those who have called for police reform in the aftermath of the death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police last May.
“Yeah, Sean, don’t forget with this defund the police crowd, that wasn’t a social worker that walked in there,” Bongino said, appearing to reinforce law enforcement who secured the area during the attack.
“Everybody else is racing to get the hell out of there,” Hannity chimed in. “They’re going up in the other direction. And now we’re going to defund the police, disparage the police, quiet all summer long as they’re hit with rocks, and bricks, and bottles, and molotov cocktails.”
The comments, characterizing last summer’s protests as a riotous mess of thrown bricks and an effort to do away with police, comes after Republicans have sought to portray Democrats as a threat to the very existence of law enforcement.
That effort, to paint Democrats as a menacing force angling to gut funding to police, comes as House Republicans last week voted against a resolution to award Congressional Gold Medals to honor the officers who risked their lives to defend the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6.
