Fox News host Tucker Carlson has been met with fierce backlash after appearing to defend a teenager charged with killing demonstrators in Kenosha.
Kyle Rittenhouse, a 17-year-old from Antioch, Illinois, 20 miles south-west of Kenosha, was taken into custody on suspicion of first-degree intentional homicide after two people were gunned down in Wisconsin during a third evening of protests over the police shooting of Jacob Blake, a 29-year-old black man.
The killings were carried out by a young white man who was caught on mobile phone video opening fire in the middle of the street with a semi-automatic rifle.
“I just killed somebody,” the gunman could be heard saying at one point during the shooting rampage that erupted just before midnight.
In the wake of the killings, Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers authorised 500 members of the National Guard to support local law enforcement around Kenosha, doubling the number of troops sent in. The governor’s office said he was working other states to bring in additional National Guard troops and law officers.
Addressing the incident during his Tucker Carlson Tonight show on Wednesday night, Mr Carlson said that Mr Rittenhouse’s alleged actions were not surprising given the unrest that has gripped Kenosha in recent days.
“Kenosha has devolved into anarchy because the authorities in charge of the city abandoned it. People in charge from the governor of Wisconsin on down refused to enforce the law. They stood back and they watched Kenosha burn,” he said.
He continued: “So are we really surprised that looting and arson accelerated to murder? How shocked are we that 17-year-olds with rifles decided they had to maintain order when no one else would?”
But Mr Carlson's comments prompted a swift backlash, with several social media users quick to condemn the TV host, who has a long record of making inflammatory statements.
“He just justified murder,” tweeted the New York Times journalist Nikole Hannah-Jones.
Meanwhile, CNN commentator Keith Boykins commented: "An innocent black guy is killed by police and Tucker Carlson calls him a thug. A guilty white guy murders two people and Tucker Carlson calls him a patriot,” added CNN commentator Keith Boykins.
Robert Reich, a former secretary of Labor under former US President Bill Clinton, added: “If they don’t take action after this, every one of Fox News’s executives, directors and advertisers is complicit in Tucker Carlson’s racist, murderous rants."
The fallout meanwhile came as authorities named the officer who shot Mr Blake on Sunday evening.
The Wisconsin Justice Department said Rusten Sheskey, a seven-year veteran of the Kenosha Police Department, shot Mr Blake while holding onto his shirt after officers first unsuccessfully used a Taser.
State agents later recovered a knife from the driver’s side floorboard of the vehicle, the department said.
The man who said he made the widely circulated mobile phone video of Mr Blake’s shooting has said he heard officers yell, “Drop the knife! Drop the knife!” before the gunfire erupted.
He said he did not see a knife in Mr Blake’s hands. State authorities did not say Mr Blake threatened anyone with the knife.
Mr Blake was shot in the back seven times as he leaned into his vehicle, in which three of his children were seated. Kenosha police have said little about what happened other than that they were responding to a domestic dispute.
Mr Blake is conscious and recovering in hospital but his lawyers said it would take a "miracle" for him to walk again.
His case has meanwhile prompted widespread outrage, fuelling the protests in Wisconsin and prompting three NBA play-off games, three Major League Baseball matches, three WNBA fixtures and five Major League Soccer games to be called-off after player-led actions over the incident.
Tennis star Naomi Osaka also withdrew from her semi-final at the Western & Southern Open in New York, scheduled for Thursday, saying “before I am an athlete, I am a black woman”, with the tournament later announcing it would suspend play for the day.
