“Four years ago ... rioters threw a brick at my face and knocked out my teeth. Why? Because I was a police officer. And what did Kamala Harris do? While America’s cities were burning, Kamala was defending peaceful protests. She raised millions to help bail rioters out of jail. And supported defunding our police, making us all less safe. Kamala Harris is dangerous.” So says retired Minneapolis police officer Scott Creighton in a pro-Trump ad released last week. A similar ad, which features a police officer identified as “Paul,” attacks vice presidential candidate Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, for his handling of the situation. Creighton makes misleading claims about Harris. The ad does not mention that he was the first defense witness to testify for police officer Derek Chauvin, who was convicted of murdering George Floyd and sentenced to 22½ years in prison, reports the Washington Post Fact Checker.
Floyd was murdered on May 25, 2020 . After video of the incident went viral, Protests — and riots — erupted across the U.S. In Minneapolis, a police station was burned to the ground, and Walz, the governor then as now, called in the National Guard on May 29 to restore order. Creighton was called by Chauvin’s defense team because in 2019, not quite a year before Floyd’s death, he had initiated a traffic stop and arrested Floyd, who had been in the passenger seat, for drug possession. “The passenger was unresponsive and uncompliant to my demands,” Creighton testified. “I then had to physically reach in because I wanted to see his hands.” In the ad, Creighton ignores that Harris condemned the riots, even as she said people had a right to protest peacefully. Creighton's charge that Harris raised millions to help bail rioters out of jail cannot be verified.
Creighton is referring to a tweet, from then-Sen. Harris, on June 2, 2020, just weeks before Biden selected her as his running mate: “If you’re able to, chip in now to the @MNFreedomFund to help post bail for those protesting on the ground in Minnesota.” There’s no way to know how much money was raised because of Harris’s tweet. Harris, a former prosecutor, never supported the “defund the police” movement, though she called for “reimagining public safety.”