A report Sunday by Baltimore Fox affiliate WBFF has resulted in Gawker describing the station as “slimy”, and activists in Baltimore calling for protests outside the station’s studios tonight.
The story, by reporter Melinda Roeder, was part of team coverage on the murders of two New York City police officers. “Given this anti-police officer sentiment that has spread across the country,” Roeder said, the danger for police “is growing.”
Roeder then cited protests and anger following the deaths of Eric Garner and Michael Brown, especially, Roeder said, “in minority communities.” Roeder aired a portion of a YouTube clip from a Washington protest march, suggesting that protesters had chanted “kill a cop.”
The protesters say in fact, they were chanting nothing of the sort. The group Baltimore Bloc says the chant “is well-known to local activists…we won’t stop/we can’t stop/’til killer cops/are in cell blocks:'”
Fox45 chose to edit the video to cut out the last bit of the chant (“are in cell blocks”), and described the video as follows: “At this rally in Washington, DC, participants chanted, ‘We can’t stop, we won’t stop, so kill a cop.” They then cut away to footage from the aftermath of the murders of two New York police officers, saying, “The anti-police sentiment reached a turning point this weekend in New York, when two officers were gunned down in cold blood.”
This editing and the anchor’s words deliberately link not only the anti-brutality movement in general, but specific local activists to the murders of police, thereby endangering the safety and lives of those activists.