White House Official Calls Out ‘Eroding’ Trust in Police Over Ronald Greene Bodycam Footage: ‘I Thought Back to George Floyd’

Biden Administration senior adviser Cedric Richmond compared Ronald Greene’s fatal 2019 arrest to the murder of George Floyd as he spoke of the deteriorating public trust in the police.

In a wide-ranging interview on Sunday with CNN’s Dana Bash, Richmond spoke of the Biden administration’s focus on hate crimes, including the recent uptick in anti-Semitic incidents. This segued to Richmond being asked about Greene’s death, which was caught on newly-released body cam footage as Greene was tased and physically abused by the police.

“We are very concerned about the relationship between the police and the communities they police,” Richmond said. “The baseline has to be in this country is that we get transparency and accountability in instances like this, and the president is committed to seeing that happen.”

Richmond and Bash both noted the fact that the actions filmed were nothing like how it was described in the police report on the incident.

“What went through your mind?” Bash asked Richmond on that point.

“When I saw the video, I thought back to George Floyd, another incident where the police report didn’t match,” Richmond answered.

“We hold police officers in such high esteem that we usually take their word. And the problem is this is eroding the confidence and trust in our police officers. It takes police officers that are gonna have a duty to intervene and call inaccuracies and lies lies, but we have a long, long way to go…It’s a problem when we can’t believe what the police say, and by the way, those police reports that they write out are under oath. And so we have to do this work.

Watch above, via CNN.

New: The Mediaite One-Sheet Newsletter
Your daily summary and analysis of what the many, many media newsletters are saying and reporting. Subscribe now!