Former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich (R) is warning it is a “very dangerous time” with what he believes are increased efforts to “weaken the police.”
Fox News host Sean Hannity mentioned on Monday night the protests that have broken out in response to the fatal shooting of Daunte Wright, a Black man, in Minnesota on Sunday.
Gingrich explained this is not the first time the nation has experienced unrest like what it is seeing now.
“I think that the danger we’ve got which we’ve had before. The Black Panther movement in the late ‘60s for example, engaged in fairly large-scale rioting. There were 2,500 bombs that went off from 1969 to ’70,” Gingrich said.
He continued, “There were riots in an amazing number of cities in the 1960s. Part of what you have here is that the society can’t decide whether or not it favors law and order in the classic sense.”
Watch his interview below:
Arguing there is evidence of people “taunting” and “attacking” the police, Gingrich added, “We have made being a policeman dramatically more dangerous. Historically that’s very unhealthy.”
Gingrich noted “the bias historically” had been those who risk their lives to protect the American people deserve “the benefit of the doubt” and deserve “the support of the community.”
He explained, “I think this is a very dangerous time for the country and we need to understand that the more we weaken the police, the greater the likelihood of really serious crime and the greater the likelihood that innocent people are going to be killed or hurt.”
In response to a video of a man taunting a police officer, Gingrich told Hannity the real question is “why isn’t he arrested?”
The former speaker of the House warned, “If we are going to back off and we are going to apologize and we’re going to allow the forces of crime and the forces of hostility to dominate the streets, then we’re going to get what we are now getting which is in every major city … a dramatic rise in crime.”
He went on, “Who does that hurt? It hurts the innocent. It hurts minorities. Who are the largest number of victims of these kind of criminals? They are African-Americans.”
Calling it “madness,” Gingrich argued there has to come a time where society has to decide “we are in favor of the law. We are in favor of the police.”
Acknowledging law enforcement must be trained and an investigation is necessary when something goes wrong, he claimed: “On balance a strong, effective, trained police force is better for the poorest people and better for the minority groups than any other situation.”
