The CNN anchor, who once claimed to be “black on the inside”, spoke directly to the whiteness of his audience as he offered his take in the wake of the deaths of Daunte Wright and Adam Toledo.
During a segment on his show, Cuomo lashed out at white Americans who have resisted calls for police to face accountability, particularly those who have sought to justify the shootings of 13-year-old Adam Toledo in Chicago and others who have died at the hands of police, exclaiming: “Shootings? Gun laws? Access to weapons? Your kids start getting killed, white people’s kids start getting killed?”
“Those start piling up? [Then it will be:] What is going on with these police?!” Cuomo continued.
The brother of New York Governor Andrew Cuomo was criticized by some for his controversial statement.
“They ARE getting killed. There just aren’t riots every time. And what about cops getting killed?” said New York Post columnist Miranda Devine on Twitter on Saturday.
“Forget that police are trained to deal with non-compliance with force that is not lethal. Hey, comply or die,” Cuomo said during his show on Friday.
His remarks came following days of protests in Minnesota and Chicago over the deaths of Daunte Wright last Sunday and Toledo in March, which was captured on body camera footage released last week that revealed that Toledo appeared to be surrendering when he was fatally shot by an officer.
The name of the officer involved in Toledo’s shooting has not been released, while the officer involved in Wright’s shooting resigned last week and was charged with second-degree manslaughter after police claimed that she mistakenly drew her gun instead of a Taser.
Last month, Cuomo faced a backlash for his comments about race while speaking to his colleague Don Lemon.
He was singing the theme song to the TV show “Good Times” and when he was asked how he knew the lyrics well, he responded “you know I’m black on the inside.”
Mass protests erupted in streets across the the nation last week over the police killings of Toledo and Wright.
Protests demanding justice for Toledo and Wright have turned violent in different parts of the country as clashes broke out in Chicago, NYC, and Minnesota.
Thousands of people gathered peacefully across America to demonstrate against police on Friday, but as the night went on tensions grew.
Dozens of people were arrested and several injured following clashes between BLM protesters and cops.
Demonstrators gathered in Logan Square Park, Chicago, to demand justice for Adam Toledo, a 13-year-old who was shot dead by cops on March 29.
Many said they were protesting to demand police reform and Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s resignation, claiming the current system does not work.
As the event came to an end at around 10pm, a small group of protesters began clashing with police officers.
Protests began across Chicago after bodycam footage of Toledo’s death was released on Thursday.
Toledo was fatally shot in an alley after running from police around 2.30am on March 29.
Video footage clearly shows the teen putting his hands up before he was shot.
The arrest reports published by Civilian Office of Police Accountability (COPA) indicated that the teen posed an “imminent threat of battery with a weapon” as pressure mounted for the footage to be shown.
Protests against police brutality and racism erupted across the nation last year following the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis. In addition to Wright’s shooting, that community remains on edge ahead of an expected verdict in the murder trial for the officer involved in Floyd’s death in the coming weeks.
