A grand jury in Minnesota found Derek Chauvin guilty of all three charges related to the murder of George Floyd. While it is hardly justice due to the fact that Floyd lost his life, it is an exceedingly rare example of a police officer being held accountable for their actions in the United States of America.
In the aftermath, there were celebrations in some cities, but there were no riots, something that apparently surprised some people. Fox News personality Tucker Carlson used his show on Tuesday night to more or less throw a fit in response, baselessly theorizing that jury members were intimidated into handing down a guilty verdict and melting down when a former law enforcement official said that Chauvin did, indeed, use excessive force.
Stephen A. Smith saw this and issued up a response on Wednesday’s edition of First Take. Smith, who has been on Fox News in the past and has mentioned that there are personalities and shows he enjoys, called out Carlson specifically for being wildly off base.
Stephen A. Smith calls out Tucker Carlson over his coverage of the Derek Chauvin verdict pic.twitter.com/Hk0wIvJkAD
— Gifdsports (@gifdsports) April 21, 2021
“Tucker Carlson is an entirely different matter altogether,” Smith said after mentioning the things he likes on the network. “I’m not going to engage in name-calling or anything like that, that would be inappropriate and unnecessary and unfair to him. But what I will say, when you literally intimate that the jury found Derek Chauvin guilty because they were afraid, ok, essentially of riots taking place and things of that nature, you just wonder sometimes if this is the kind of thing that leads to the divisiveness that we’re talking about.”
Smith went on to say that he believed that Carlson said Chauvin acted out of line in the past, and then dove into the ways that this sort of rhetoric fans the flames.
“These are the kind of things that make people shake, and make people shiver,” Smith said. “Because you realize that in the face of such obvious, flagrant evidence, conspicuous evidence, there’s still gonna be somebody that opens the subject to debate, when there are certain things that are simply not debatable. We saw what Derek Chauvin did! Saw it! The world saw it! There were protests all over the world because of what happened to George Floyd! And yet he goes on national television last night and says that. That’s a problem. I’m not gonna disrespect him, I’m just saying that’s a damn problem.”
It stands to reason that Carlson — who exists in a world where, despite his wealth and status, the worst thing anyone can be is mean to him specifically — will have a response about this sometime this week.
