Ray Lewis on MSNBC
MSNBC’s Chris Hayes was practically giddy with excitement this Saturday morning. Not only had the morning news host snagged retired Philadelphia police Captain Ray Lewis (whose arrest during Occupy Wall Street’s “Day of Action” last week made for some great copy and even better photojournalism), but he was able to start off his segment with a bunch of Star Wars references. Zoinkers!
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Captain Lewis seemed unamused by Mr. Hayes enthusiasm: not only does he correct the host on his date of arrival at Zuccotti (“I didn’t come down Thursday, I came down Monday to assist the movement”), but he drops a big wet blanket on the leading question of his treatment at the hands of the NYPD.
Chris Hayes: The question that I guess that I’m dying to know is what your interactions with the NYPD was like. Presumably it was a little different than if I had been down there arrested, or someone else. Obviously, you were dressed like this…what was the interaction like?
Captain Ray Lewis: It was exemplary professional conduct, with me and every protester that I witnessed.
Chris Hayes: Ah. Interesting.
This clearly wasn’t the sensationalist story of special treatment from the NYPD (nor an across-the-board condemnation for New York’s finest) that Mr. Hayes was looking for. We could have told him that Captain Lewis had his soundbites ready about his arrest before the weekend began.
What strikes us as more interesting (and which the show completely glosses over,) is Captain Lewis’ “special project” involving a Fracking protest upstate. Can we here more about that, please? Also, Captain Lewis gets all his information from the Internet and refuses to check other news sources? Is he part of Anonymous? These are the hard-hitting questions we want answered!
(And FYI: Don’t think we didn’t notice that you used the photos from Johnny Milano which first appeared on our site, MSNBC.)
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I really wish they would have let former Capt. Lewis speak a little more. He obviously has some insight that others may not, and understands the complexity and difficulty of policing protests. We all know that there are plenty of problems with the way police are treating protesters AND the way protesters are treating the police, but it takes somebody on both sides to help us understand what those problems are and what we could do to try and fix them. I have no idea if writing this does anything, but I hope Mr. Lewis continues speaking to the public, even if it’s through a written statement or a video unaffiliated with any news organizations.
I don’t think Lewis could have added anything more. He’s not a professional speaker and he’s not a professional on this subject… regardless of his former police captain status, he clearly didn’t take one side or the other. Unfortunatly, it takes someone who is not only politically savvy but certainly in tune enough to be able to decipher these issues enough to ‘correctly’ and ‘carefully’ convey this message. He, in my opinion, backed off from really stating it like it really is.. he was playing middle ground, and that’s not acceptable. It’s either one side or the other. Some points he made were understandable, but not making statements about the clear abuse going on is 100% unacceptable. He would have been better off standing in uniform and keeping his mouth shut. It was enough of a ‘symbolic’ gesture to be involved. The interviews didn’t need to happen. He’s not experienced enough to handle these interviews and he’s clearly not politically savvy enough to have made any kind of difference.
There were tens of thousands that crossed the Brooklyn Bridge. Why can’t anyone FUCKING get this straight. MSNBC is a 1% news corp. News reporting has gone to shit. Not all of it. 99% percent of it.
I like how you refer to yourself in the plural “us”, who exactly is the “us”? Is that some colleagues or is that your right_wing_corporate_America good_ol_boys?
Of course a paper like yours is going to have questions like this… I mean your founder was an investment banker and isn’t the current chief a real-estate mogul? Uh huh? Way to think for yourself, it’s pretty clear who owns you.
Learn how to spell “hear.” It’s only four letters long, genius.
Hey, Chris Hayes, “positionality”? Seriously?
“Also, Captain Lewis gets all his information from the Internet and refuses to check other news sources? Is he part of Anonymous?”
If he did so, which I certainly doubt, it would put him in the front seat to replace Rush Limbaugh or become an anchor for FOX NEWZ!!
This may be the worst written article I have ever read
The New York Observer aka FAUX NEWS!!!!!
He’s a retired Police Captain. It doesn’t mean he’s a PHD. I also don’t like his sticking up for the police like he did. The police have been much more in the fault than not. Seems his attitude has changed since he first went down. Chris Hayes did the right thing, he thanked him and got him off the show.
“I’m worried about confrontations with police becoming [...] a sign post of the movement, as opposed to its content about the 99% message. “ Confrontations with police are the forefront of a struggle against the ruling rich classes power hold. When a retired officer takes this position it’s seen like a turn-coat in a war. The difference is his perspective isn’t supplying valuable military weaknesses, but rather supplying valuable truths about effectiveness in minimizing problems during protests. Why is Occupy so special with this reaction? At what level can we fix these problems?
if writting is your job…. then quit