‘Where Are the Good Apples?’ Trevor Noah Breaks Down in Tears While Speaking Out Against Police Brutality
Trevor Noah broke down in tears Wednesday night, questioning where the “good apples” are in United States law enforcement, after an unarmed Black man — Daunte Wright — has been killed by the police.
Noah ditched his usual remote broadcasting set up for his iPhone while addressing police brutality on Wednesday — condemning the nation’s broken police system for discouraging cops from intervening when their colleagues kill Black people.
“We’re told time and time again that these incidents that Black Americans are experiencing are because of bad apples, right?” he said. ”‘There are bad apples in these police departments who are doing these things. They use chokeholds that are not allowed. They use excessive force. They’re violent in their words and in their actions to the people they’re meant to be protecting and serving.’”
“My question, though, is where are the good apples?” he continued. “If we’re meant to believe that the police system in America, the system of policing itself is not fundamentally broken, then we would need to see good apples.”
Noah specifically cited George Floyd’s police killing, questioning where the good cops were when Derek Chauvin put his knee on Floyd’s neck for almost 10 minutes.
“We don’t see a mass uprising of police saying, ‘Let’s root out these people,'” he added. “We don’t see videos of police officers stopping the other cop from pushing an old man at a Black Lives Matter protest or from beating up a kid in the street with a baton. We don’t see that. So my question is, where are the good apples?”
Noah then said that while there are good people that join the police force, as they want to protect those in need, they are deterred from speaking up against the actions of other cops because “they themselves know that if they do something, they’re going against the system.”
“We’re not dealing with bad apples, we’re dealing with a rotten tree,” Noah said bluntly.
The host cited Cariol Horne, a Black former police officer in Buffalo, NY, who was fired in 2006 for trying to stop a White officer from using a chokehold on a handcuffed suspect. Horne will receive a pension and back pay, a court ruled this week.
Noah’s comments come days after Kim Potter, a former Minnesota police officer, shot 20-year-old Wright at a traffic light, and amid Chauvin’s trial, which is taking place just 10 miles away from where Wright was killed.
Watch above, via YouTube.
