Fox News Edits Video to Remove Police With Guns Drawn, Cuffing Innocent Black People

A local Fox affiliate ran a story about a family flagging down law enforcement to protect a business from looters, but when police arrived on the scene, the officers handcuffed them. Fox News, however, when broadcasting the affiliate’s report, removed the part of the footage where police drew their guns and put the family in handcuffs.

On Monday night, a video of Los Angeles citizens and a local reporter flagging down police while trying to stop alleged looters went viral. The video showed several officers arriving on the scene and immediately drawing their guns. The police then handcuffed three people who had alerted the police to the situation in the first place, two of whom were black.

Monet, the woman who was cuffed, told a Fox News local affiliate that she was surprised when the police put restraints on her, her husband and her brother-in-law, especially because the local reporter, Christina Gonzalez, who helped flag down the police, kept yelling to them that they had the wrong people.

“I was handcuffed, thrown up against a wall with my husband and brother-in-law, and I’m like, ‘What the hell?’” she said. “The news people are here and telling you it’s not her, she’s trying to stop the situation.”

This is one of the most absolutely insane moments I’ve ever seen on live television. pic.twitter.com/Uvzig8YGSa

— Timothy Burke (@bubbaprog) June 2, 2020

But on Tuesday, Fox News used the story from their own affiliate and selectively edited out all of the police’s mistakes and aggressive tactics. Instead, the network singled out only the good samaritan portions of the report to fit their own narrative.

pic.twitter.com/PZQp8Xuov4

— PoliticsVideo23 (@politicsvideo23) June 3, 2020

Fox News has focused heavily on violence and looting during the recent nationwide unrest, mostly ignoring or defending the violence coming from the police, even when police initiate conflict during peaceful demonstrations. But here, the “news” network went out of its way to create a scene through selective editing that showed the police as nothing but helpful, which simply was not true.