On Saturday, MSNBC host Joy Reid jumped on her Twitter account to smear Gov. Ron DeSantis as a “segregationist” for warning any looters in the aftermath of Hurricane Ian that they should remember they might face armed resistance since “we’re a Second Amendment state.”
DeSantis said, “we want to make sure we’re maintaining law and order,” and warned “Don’t even think about looting. Don’t even think about taking advantage of people in this vulnerable situation.”
Reid compared this to “segregationist” Miami sheriff Walter Headley, and to Trump for saying “when the looting starts, the shooting starts.” It didn’t matter that this isn’t what DeSantis actually said. She smeared DeSantis with the idea that he was returning to his “form” of segregationism.
Where are the “fact checkers”? Reid has only four evaluations on PolitiFact, the latest in 2018. The last one was a “True” for stating after the Parkland mass shooting “One-third of Floridians own guns.”
“When the looting starts, the shooting starts.”—segregationist Miami sheriff Walter E. Headley, 1967
Didn’t take DeSantis long to return to form.https://t.co/8FJKyzQY1G https://t.co/uS5jbrx29S
— Joy-Ann (Pro-Democracy) Reid 😷 (@JoyAnnReid) October 1, 2022
Reid also linked to an NPR.org story by Barbara Sprunt trashing Trump when he said “when the looting starts, the shooting starts” in late May 2020 as violence began after the death of George Floyd.
In 1967, Miami police Chief Walter Headley used the phrase “when the looting starts, the shooting starts” during hearings about crime in the Florida city, invoking angry reactions from civil rights leaders, according to a news report at the time…
According to [leftist professor Clarence] Lusane, Headley may have borrowed the phrase from Eugene “Bull” Connor, who had been the notorious public safety commissioner in Birmingham, Ala. Connor was a segregationist who directed the use of police dogs and fire hoses against black demonstrators.
Underneath this tweet, “Sunny McSunnyface” replied to Reid: “Or, you know, Democratic governors in 2005 saying looters will be shot.” It included a link to a 2005 article on Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco warning of “shoot to kill” orders after Hurricane Katrina.
linked to a 2005 article.