On Tour

Fox News Reporter Taunted With 'F-k Fox News' Chants as Protests Continue Nationwide

Both and CNN felt some of the protesters’ frustration as they gathered and marched across the country for a fourth straight night over the killing of in Minneapolis.

Late Friday night, Fox News reporter Leland Vittert was taunted with “Fuck Fox News” chants near the White House while on-air. Vittert acknowledged the heckling during the broadcast, saying, “We have some media critics out here.” He was then followed by protesters who continued to scream expletives at him after his report was interrupted.

The front of the CNN Center in Atlanta was also met by protesters who damaged the building, vandalized the station’s logo, broke windows and, according to CNN, a SWAT team was called to control the crowd. During the live coverage, a protester tossed a firecracker, causing a loud explosion, leading one of the on-scene reporters to yell “shit” during CNN’s broadcast.

At least 20 states saw organized protests on Friday. Some were peaceful, but many turned dangerous as protesters expressed outrage in the wake of police brutality and a lack of charges for the other officers involved in the killing of Floyd.

In Atlanta, protesters burned a police car, and officers dodged smoke bombs during protests around the city. Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms denounced some of the crowd’s actions, calling the protests “chaos.”

“What I see happening on the streets of Atlanta is not Atlanta. This is not a protest. This is not in the spirit of Martin Luther King, Jr. This is chaos,” Bottoms said.

Related

Related

Georgia’s governor Brian Kemp activated 500 National Guard troops, “to protect people & property in Atlanta,” the governor announced Twitter.

In New York City, hundreds gathered outside the Barclays Center in Brooklyn where protesters threw bottles and several demonstrators set a police van on fire. According to the Wall Street Journal, dozens were arrested and both officers and protesters were injured.

Late Friday night, New York Mayor Bill de Blasio called for calm while tweeting, “We don’t ever want to see another night like this.”

In Washington, D.C., the White House was placed on lockdown as demonstrations continued after 3 a.m. Eastern Time. According to the Washington Post, the crowds gathered there were chanting “Black lives matter” and dispersed after U.S. Park Police and uniformed Secret Service officers “used what appeared to be gasses and sprays” to push the protesters out of Lafayette Square Park near the White House.

Protests also continued in Minneapolis, where Floyd was killed, and the president ordered active-duty U.S. military police units standby to deploy to the city.

On Saturday morning, President Trump tried to delegitimize the protesters on Twitter, calling them “so-called ‘protesters’” while praising the work of the Secret Service. He then went on to say that the protesters “would have been greeted with the most vicious dogs, and most ominous weapons, I have ever seen” had they successfully broken through the White House fence. He also accused D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser of not letting Metropolitan Police get involved, which was not true. According to CNN, D.C. police were on scene in addition to several other law enforcement agencies.

It is truly disturbing that a time when our nation is suffering from a global pandemic and systemic oppression, the president is stoking the flames and doing everything he possibly can to divide the country in two, deliberately pushing it toward violence.