Reporters on Monday reprimanded Brooklyn, Minnesota police chief Tim Gannon for using the term “riot” to describe the violence that took place Sunday night after the deadly shooting at 20-year-old Daunte Wright by a police officer.
Violence erupted in the Minneapolis suburb in response to the shooting, which Gannon said was a mistake by the officer who confused her gun with her Taser and shot at Wright as he tried to drive his car.
Demonstrations outside the Brooklyn Center Police Department turned violent when rioters threw objects at officers and looted several areas.
However, it appears that Gannon unleashed reporters at Monday’s press conference about his description of what he saw overnight.
NBC PAYS REPRESENTATIVES NOT TO USE WORD ‘RIOTS’ IN GEORGE FLOYD COVER
“What was your decision to issue a distribution order while they were protesting peacefully in front of the police station?” asked a reporter before noticing that ‘CO2 containers and gas’ are also used on the crowd.
“Just so everyone was clear, I was at the forefront and central during the protest, during the riot,” Gannon began.
“Do not do that,” one reporter intervened.
“There was no riot,” another one pushed back.
“It was,” Gannon doubled. “The officers who inflicted their damage are thrown with frozen cans of pop, they are thrown with concrete blocks. And yes, our helmets were on and we had other protection and equipment, but an officer was injured and hit the head with a “brick … so we had to make decisions. We had to disperse the crowd because we can not allow our officers to be harmed.”
Last year, after the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis police custody, NBC reportedly told its journalists to refer only to unrest in Minnesota as ‘protest’ and not ‘riots’.
The MSNBC host and co-anchor Craig Melvin sheds some light on how the network set up its reporting at the time.
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“This will guide our reporting in MN,” he tweeted. ” While the situation on the ground in Minneapolis is fluid, and there has been violence, at the moment it is most accurate to describe what is happening there as ‘protest’ and not riots. ‘
Critics who accused the network of underestimating the violence that took place in the city after Floyd’s death in May 2020.