“The Daily Show” issued an apology on Twitter to San Bernardino County District Attorney Mike Ramos on Friday for likening the death of a black man in Victorville at the hands of sheriff’s deputies to the fatal shooting of Michael Brown.
In a “Daily Show” segment Monday about the recent events in Ferguson, Missouri, Stewart included 36-year-old Dante Parker — who died in August while in the custody of law enforcement — on a list of deadly police shootings involving black men that were deemed “isolated” events.
“This is an isolated incident, like the police shooting of Tamir Rice in Cleveland, or Dante Parker in San Bernardino County,” Stewart said, beginning the list that also included Kendrec McDade, the 19-year-old man who was unarmed when he was shot and killed by Pasadena police officers in 2012.
Stewart argued the fatal shootings represented a pattern. He continued: “The point is, these shootings are clearly not a manifestation of systemic inequality and mistrust between the African American community and the somehow always justified police American community. But these are merely an unending, bizarrely similar series of isolated incidents.”
Two days after the segment aired, Ramos posted a video to YouTube in which he excoriated Stewart for incorrectly stating the facts of the Parker case.
In the video, Ramos said deputies didn’t shoot Parker, they used a Taser on him.
Parker was allegedly attempting to assault a deputy after he was suspected of committing a burglary, Ramos stated.
The Taser was used when a female deputy was “losing that struggle” against Parker and “fighting for her life,” according to Ramos.
Parker – who was stunned multiple times with a Taser during his arrest — was taken to the hospital after he began having difficulty breathing while sitting in a patrol vehicle, the Los Angeles Times reported back in mid-August, when the incident occurred.
He was taken to a hospital where he later died.
“We later learned that he was under the influence of many types of drugs, which was the cause of his death,” Ramos said.
An autopsy performed by the Riverside County coroner’s office revealed that Parker died of a combination of acute PCP intoxication and hypertensive cardiovascular disease from high blood pressure, according to the L.A. Times.
Ramos concluded, “I really believe that we need to get our facts straight before we start making statements” like Stewart’s.
On Friday, the Daily Show issued an apology to Ramos on its official Twitter account.
You’re right re Dante Parker,” a tweet to the DA’s office read.” Sloppy to put him in our list of shootings…Larger point still stands.”
“The Daily Show” does not air on Fridays, and the account stated that a formal television apology would be issued on its next broadcast Monday.
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