Dan Bongino: ‘Geraldo Is Not Telling You The Truth’ About Atlanta Shooting

On Thursday, Fox News contributor Geraldo Rivera shared a video on social media in which he noted that the police officers involved in the Rashad Brooks killing in Atlanta had been arrested. He noted that one was charged with “capital felony murder,” which he believed was instead just “manslaughter.”

Geraldo Says Officer in Atlanta Shooting were ‘Overcharged’ but Still Insists Race Played a Role

Geraldo said that the officers were “overcharged” but also implied Brooks being African American played a role in his death.

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That’s when conservative pundit Dan Bongino replied.

The two had argued about this issue during Fox News’ “Hannity” on Monday, but Bongino specifically addressed Rivera’s Thursday video with a video of his own.

Dan Bongino Fires Back at Geraldo

“Geraldo’s video here is total nonsense,” Bongino said. “He’s making two claims and drawing two conclusions, both entirely absurd, and based on nothing but his apparent eagerness to inflame the situation rather than fix it.”

“The first claim is that the office engaged in some type of a ‘manslaughter’ here, killing Mr. Brooks as he ran away, shooting him in the back on purpose,” Bongino continued. “That is not at all what happened.”

“Mr. Brooks violently resisted arrest, assaulted two police officers, stole a taser from one of them,” he explained. “Attempted to flee. He wasn’t engaged as he was fleeing, he was engaged after he pointed the taser at close range at the face of on of these officers and then fired it.”

“We don’t even know if the officer knew it was a taser at that point because it wasn’t his taser that was stolen, it was the other officer,” Bongino added. “And by the way, when you fire a taser, it sounds kind of like a gun. It’s also a deadly weapon. As, by the way, the district attorney who charged these officers had acknowledged a week earlier in another incident.”

Bongino went on to explain how these tragedies sometimes happen while doing police work.

“There were a number of incidents, sadly tragic, when people can be engaged with a firearm and sadly those rounds might hit them in the back,” he said. “In a number of incidents, turning a firearm at an officer repeatedly, attempting to jump a fence as we saw with the Brad James incident in 2012, when Officer James was pursuing a subject who then turned around while climbing the fence and fired rounds into his face.”

“There are a number of scenarios where subjects can be engaged, rounds would hit them potentially in the back,” he added.

“So Geraldo claiming otherwise, as if this is some kind of criminal incident, is absurd and offensive to every cop out there,” Bongino insisted.

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Bongino: ‘Zero evidence whatsoever’ that race played a role

Then the outspoken conservative addressed the issue of whether race played a role in this incident.

“Secondly (Geraldo) keeps brining race into this with zero evidence whatsoever, that either of these officers were motivated by any racial animus whatsoever He doesn’t know that,” Bongino said.

 

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“He has zero evidence of that,” he added. “But he keeps saying it and unnecessarily inflaming the situation. It’s ridiculous. Until he can produce some evidence that there’s some racial animus here, then he should keep quiet about it.”

Bongino noted how the officer who shot Brooks appeared to help try to save his life afterward.

“The officer who engaged and fired on Mr. Brooks performed CPR afterwards to save his life and begged him to keep breathing,” Bongino said. “That doesn’t sound like a racially motivated episode. A tragic one, but racially motivated? He’s just making that up and it’s nonsense.”

Bongino then said he would see Geraldo, presumably on Fox News, Thursday night.

“I’ll give it to him on the air tonight too, in person,” Bongino finished.