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In April of 2021, Black Columbus, Ohio teenager Ma'Khia Bryant was fatally shot by a White police officer after she lunged at another Black teenage girl with a knife. Nearly one year later, a grand jury has cleared officer Nicholas Reardon of any criminal wrongdoing.
At the time, the police-officer involved shooting drew immediate media outcry, accusations of racism and even murder.
Body cam footage showed Columbus teen, Ma 'Khia Bryant armed with a knife directed at another teenage girl. (Columbus Police Department)
George Washington University law professor and defense attorney Jonathan Turley criticized the media for their rash and irresponsible takes on this case, in a blog post Monday.
"I wrote earlier that I believed that the shooting was justified under departmental rules and legal precedent. Nevertheless, the shooting of the teenager was decried as murder in the media," Turley wrote.
He specifically called out "The View" co-host Joy Behar, NPR and The Daily Beast for reciting incorrect information and inflaming tensions surrounding the case.
"[J]oy Behar insisted that, when the officer saw Bryant moving to stab another girl, he should have shot in the air. The grand jury clearly disagreed and refused to indict Officer Nicholas Reardon. At the time of the shooting, various media outlets like NPR posted misleading accounts of the shooting, which fueled anger in the city. (NPR later corrected its original account)," he wrote.
Some media outlets left key information out of their reports that ended up stoking racial tensions and present a false narrative of police brutality.
NBC News deceptively edited out a revealing portion of the 9-1-1 call, begging police to intervene, as caught by NewsBusters’ Nicholas Fondacaro.
‘NBC NIGHTLY NEWS’ UNDER FIRE FOR EDITING OUT KEY PART OF 911 CALL BEFORE MA’KHIA BRYANT SHOOTING
The Huffington Post posted a misleading video which failed to mention that Bryant had pushed another female to the ground and lunged at another with a knife when police arrived at the scene.
The New York Times and the Washington Post didn't inform readers that Bryant was armed with a knife, in tweets sent out by the major news outlets. The Times also initially edited out a false statement made by civil rights attorney Benjamin Crump, in their writeup.
MSNBC host Joy Reid slammed the shooting as a "murder" on her show "The ReidOut." Her guest, Rutgers University Associate Professor Brittney Cooper downplayed the violent actions by Bryant as the 16-year-old "having a bad day."
In response to the fatal shooting, MSNBC commentator Jason Johnson on "The 11th Hour" called for policing to be abolished altogether.
In a statement to Fox News Digital, Turley called the media's record in failing to report these sensitive cases accurately and responsibly, "deeply troubling."
"The record of the media in such cases remains deeply troubling. Time and time again the media has framed cases to fit a narrative as opposed to the facts. By the time that a jury acquits a Kyle Rittenhouse or a grand jury refuses to indict a Nicholas Reardon, the damage has been done in fueling divisions in the country. The fact is that stories that drive rage also drive ratings and readerships. These false accounts are coming from journalists, not commentators. The rise of advocacy journalism has blurred that line to a dangerous degree," Turley said.
LEFT-LEANING OUTLETS PUBLISH ‘DELIBERATELY MISLEADING’ VIDEOS ABOUT COLUMBUS SHOOTING
Officer Reardon's bodycam footage shows that as soon as police arrived, a young Black female tackled another Black female to the ground, having what appeared to be a knife in her hand. The girl, Bryant, then is seen lunging at another female while raising the knife in the air, when the officer opened fire.
The White House weighed in on the fatal police shooting at the time. White House press secretary Jen Psaki described the shooting as "tragic" and connected it to "systemic racism."
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