Reports recently emerged that Seahawks defensive end Michael Bennett was racially profiled in Las Vegas. Bennett said he feared for his life as cops threatened to “blow [his] fucking head off” when he was in town for the Floyd Mayweather/Conor McGregor fight in August.
Conservative-leaning, ex-ESPN reporter Britt McHenry, who's known for being a manner-less human being and having controversial and provocative opinions, has written an article for The Federalist, in which she defends the Las Vegas Police Department.
McHenry mentions Colin Kaepernick’s decision to kneel during the national anthem—which she is squarely against—and Bennett’s decision to join him in the protest, before launching into a rather peculiar takedown of Bennett. She suggests that Bennett somehow benefited from being handcuffed and roughed up by Las Vegas police.
McHenry points to Bennett’s statement titled “Equality,” wherein he accuses the police officers of using excessive force and recounts how he felt during the ordeal.
“I felt helpless as I lay there on the ground handcuffed facing the real-life threat of being killed. All I could think of was ‘I’m going to die for no other reason than I am black and my skin color is somehow a threat.’ My life flashed before my eyes as I thought of my girls.”
McHenry believes his statement “fits neatly into his decision to kneel for the anthem,” insinuating that he's now “equipped with personal experience” to “continue Kaepernick’s protest this season.” In other words, McHenry takes away both Bennett's reasoning and the power behind the protest, chalking it all up to attention-seeking.
Las Vegas Police Department Undersheriff Kevin McMahill has said he sees “no evidence that race played a role in this incident.”McHenry backs up that claim, arguing that the "LVPD body-camera footage shows many African-American casino patrons were in the officers' vicinity. Thus, it’s difficult to imagine one person in that crowd being singled out solely for the color of his skin." As if police ought to go after every "African-American casino patron" in the interest of fairness.
McHenry does concede that Philando Castile and John Crawford are examples of unjust deaths that prove American’s law enforcement system “isn’t perfect.” Nevertheless, she believes that the “hatred towards law enforcement that’s grown in our country is a sad phenomenon,” lamenting about the difficulty of police officers’ jobs.
Finally, she makes a pretty wild statement: “Vitriolic public perception of law enforcement is as great a problem facing our society as the racial inequities within our justice system.” As if exercising one’s first-amendment right to criticize police officers who overstep their boundaries is the same thing as constantly fearing for your life at any moment merely because of the color of your skin.
