Jonathan Turley reminds us that Joy Behar thought the officer who killed Ma'Khia Bryant should have shot into the air

As Twitchy reported a couple of days ago, the police officer who shot 16-year-old Ma’Khia Bryant as she was charging another girl with a knife was (finally) cleared of any wrongdoing, even though at the time he was immediately convicted in the court of public opinion; LeBron James famously posted a photo of the officer to Twitter with the text, “YOU’RE NEXT,” an hourglass emoji, and the hashtag #Accountability.

No one seemed to give a thought to the black teen who was about to get stabbed. Still photos from the officer’s body cam clearly show Bryant getting ready to drive a knife into the other girl. But some people, even now, think that the officer should have handled the situation differently. People like “The View’s” Joy Behar, who argued that the cop should have fired a warning shot into the air. At a press conference, reportrs asked why police couldn’t be trained to shoot violent people in the leg. This advice came straight from the top: presidential candidate Joe Biden said he wanted police to shoot an “unarmed person coming at ’em with a knife” in the leg, a sentiment he repeated during an ABC News town hall.

Law professor Jonathan Turley writes about it on his blog:

“The View” co-host Joy Behar insisted that, when the officer saw Bryant moving to stab another girl, he should have shot in the air. The grand jury clearly disagreed and refused to indict officer, Nicholas Reardon. https://t.co/FAyriNlDev

— Jonathan Turley (@JonathanTurley) March 14, 2022

Turley writes:

We previously discussed the shooting of Ma’Khia Bryant, 16, in Columbus, Ohio. I wrote earlier that I believed that the shooting was justified under departmental rules and legal precedent. Nevertheless, the shooting of the teenager was decried as murder in the media. “The View” co-host Joy Behar insisted that, when the officer saw Bryant moving to stab another girl, he should have shot in the air. The grand jury clearly disagreed and refused to indict Officer Nicholas Reardon.

At the time of the shooting, various media outlets like NPR posted misleading accounts of the shooting, which fueled anger in the city. (NPR later corrected its original account):

The Daily Beast also ran misleading coverage, including a quote from “local Columbus activist K.C. Taynor of Exodus Nation” that “the latest police killing made it impossible to celebrate the Chauvin verdict. It’s another murder. They’re animals. They treat us like animals.”