Fox & Friends Only Acknowledges Racial Bias In Ferguson Police Department To Blame Holder For Police Shooting

Written by Lis Power

Published

Fox & Friends highlighted the Department of Justice's finding of systematic racial bias in the Ferguson Police Department to blame Attorney General Eric Holder for the shooting of two police officers, after previously overlooking the racial bias findings when the report was first released in order to hype the lack of charges against Darren Wilson.

On March 4, the Department of Justice (DOJ) released the findings of their Ferguson investigation in two reports. One report stated that police officer Darren Wilson's "'actions do not constitute prosecutable violations' of federal civil rights law," while the second report found “systemic racial discrimination by the Ferguson Police.”

On the March 12 edition of Fox News' Fox & Friends, reporter Peter Doocy described the DOJ's finding of racial bias, emphasizing that Attorney General Eric Holder “floated the possibility” of dissolving the Ferguson police department as a result, while co-host Steve Doocy linked the DOJ report and Holder's response to the shooting of two police officers in Ferguson. Doocy described the shooting, saying, “a new wave of violence comes one week after Attorney General Eric Holder vowed to dismantle that city's police department,” and questioned whether it was “what he wanted.”

Co-host Elisabeth Hasselbeck asked Fox senior judicial analyst Andrew Napolitano whether Holder “fuel[ed] the flame,” and Napolitano asserted, “he probably did fuel the flame,” emphasizing that “the political environment in which this happened, obviously, the flames were fanned by” Holder.

The Fox show even took to Twitter to link Holder to the shooting:

But Fox & Friends characterized the findings of the DOJ investigation much differently when they were released, emphasizing the conclusion that Officer Darren Wilson would not be charged in the death of Michael Brown, while mostly ignoring the findings of systematic racial bias. The day after the findings were released, Fox's Heather Nauert reported that there were “fresh protests and clashes” in Ferguson “shortly after the Department of Justice announced it did not have enough evidence to prove racial bias in the shooting death of Michael Brown.”