Joe Scarborough Blasts ‘Disgusting’ Footage of Violent Traffic Stop for Black Lieutenant: ‘Absolutely Offensive’

Morning Joe expressed outrage at the shocking video of a black U.S. Army lieutenant who was held at gunpoint by police officers during a violent traffic stop.

Lt. Caron Nazario is suing the cops who arrested him, and the newly released video from the December incident shows him being threatened, pepper-sprayed, and had guns pulled on him during the heated encounter. The video stunned the public over the weekend, and as Morning Joe played it on Monday, Mika Brzezinski led the conversation by saying “we’d be afraid to get out if two cops were pointing loaded guns at us screaming at the top of their lungs.”

“This escalated because there was so much fear involved from the get-go,” she added. “Fear that didn’t need to be there.”

Joe Scarborough took it from there by saying he also would’ve been afraid of getting out of the car if he was confronted by someone as “out-of-control” as Joe Gutierrez, the arresting officer whose employment has been terminated since the incident. Scarborough also demanded a continued investigation into the encounter as he further pronounced it “disgusting” and “this was just absolutely offensive.”

“This officer was so amped-up, out of control, crazy, that if I were afraid, being in that position, what about a Black man who has seen time and again throughout his life that Black men, especially, are treated differently than other Americans, when it comes to being stopped in the car?” Scarborough asked. “They drew their guns on a guy, on a lieutenant! For God’s sakes! A lieutenant! Serving our country!”

From there, Eddie Glaude remarked that between the video, the Derek Chauvin murder trial, and the latest fatal police shooting of a Black man, “it’s very difficult for black folk in this moment to give police officers the benefit of the doubt that they’re going to treat us like human beings.” He became further emotional as he stressed that America must address why the policing of African Americans is more confrontational than it is with white people.

Watch above, via MSNBC.

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