Monday's 'Daily Show' to include apology for false claim of police shooting

Brett T. | 4:10 PM on December 06, 2014

President Obama will be a guest on “The Colbert Report” Monday night, possibly as a dry run to replace Colbert as host when he moves to CBS next year to take over for David Letterman. Comedy Central’s must-see event Monday isn’t President Obama’s interview, though; it’s been reported that “Daily Show” host Jon Stewart will actually apologize on-air for smearing cops in San Bernardino County.

For those who missed it last week, Stewart dropped his comic persona to angrily ridicule the idea that the shooting of Michael Brown was an isolated incident, “like the police shooting of Tamir Rice in Cleveland, or Dante Parker in San Bernardino County, or Kendrec McDade in Pasadena, or Armand Bennett in New Orleans,” Stewart said, adding sarcastically, “these are merely an unending, bizarrely similar series of isolated incidents.”

One big problem: Dante Parker was never shot by police. Following a burglary, Parker assaulted and was overpowering a female sheriff’s deputy when he was Tasered several times by police. Parker later died in custody, with an autopsy determining he died from heavy PCP use and hypertensive cardiovascular disease.

As angry as Stewart was in his rant, San Bernardino, Calif. District Attorney Mike Ramos pulled no punches in his video response to Stewart.

The Daily Show did issue a correction in the form of a tweet, though the “larger point still stands.”

.@sbcountyda: You're right re Dante Parker. Sloppy to put him in our list of shootings. TV apology coming Monday…Larger point still stands

— The Daily Show (@TheDailyShow) December 5, 2014