Activists Ignore Inconvenient Facts after Black Man Dies in LAPD Taser Incident

Welcome back to Forgotten Fact Checks, a weekly column produced by National Review’s News Desk. This week, we tackle a misleading narrative about police’s use of force, unpack more fearmongering on gas stoves, and hit more media misses.

Activists Omit Key Details in LAPD Use-of-Force Incident

When the cousin of Black Lives Matter co-founder Patrisse Cullors died earlier this month after being tased by Los Angeles police, a narrative quickly emerged among activists.

Comedian and writer Travon Free wrote on Twitter, “The LAPD murdered Keenan Anderson. A beloved high school English teacher and father who FLAGGED THEM DOWN FOR HELP after a car accident. He was a threat to no one. He needed help and it cost him his life. The LAPD must be held accountable for this at all costs.”

This was the story that emerged: A high-school teacher was killed by police after asking for help, seemingly for the crime of being black in America.

Qasim Rashid, an activist and attorney, similarly said: “Keenan Anderson — a 31-year-old high school teacher & father — stopped LA police for help after an accident. They instead cuffed him, pinned him, & tased him repeatedly as he begged them to stop. Keenan died of cardiac arrest from excessive tasing. His crime — asking police for help.”

Attorney Ben Crump: “On Jan. 3, Keenan Anderson was reportedly involved in a traffic accident, and when LAPD arrived, they restrained and REPEATEDLY tased him on the ground. The 31-yo English teacher died of cardiac arrest hours later at the hospital. Was this repeated use of the taser necessary?!”

But, as is so often the case, the truth was more complicated. 

Keenan Anderson first flagged down an officer for help with a traffic collision on January 3, police said last week after releasing police body-camera footage of the arrest. Anderson was “running in the middle of the street and exhibiting erratic behavior,” according to a police statement.

Others involved in the collision, which police described as a felony hit-and-run, said Anderson was at fault, police chief Michel Moore said last week. Someone involved in the collision said Anderson had tried to steal a vehicle.

Anderson was compliant at first but then attempted to flee the scene, running into the middle of the street when additional units arrived. Officers told Anderson to lie on his stomach but he ignored those instructions, at which point the officers pushed him to the ground and used their body weight to restrain him.

“They’re trying to George Floyd me,” Anderson can be heard yelling on body-camera audio. He can also be heard ranting incoherently.

Officers repeatedly threaten to tase Anderson before seemingly activating the taser at least six times. However, Moore said last week there was only a “single taser activation” because the first attempts were ineffective and a “series of dry stuns” followed the single full activation.

Anderson was transported to a local hospital where he died four hours later. He appeared to suffer a cardiac arrest, though a formal cause of death has not been determined. A preliminary toxicology report from the LAPD revealed Anderson had cocaine and cannabis in his body.

“Although initial reports indicate narcotic consumption, more information is needed from the coroner’s office before cause of death can be determined,” Moore said. 

“It appears Mr. Anderson was in an altered mental state,” he added.

Vice News reported that the “LAPD’s Release of Drug Tests Is Smearing Keenan Anderson, Groups Say.”

“Los Angeles police’s decision to release preliminary drug test results from Keenan Anderson is in line with a strategy often used by cops to smear victims of police brutality, according to civil liberties organizations,” the story says.

Headline Fail of the Week

The New York Times published a not-at-all alarmist opinion column this week titled “Your Gas Stove May Be Killing You. How Much Should You Worry?”

“The natural-gas-powered appliances in your home may be slowly killing you and everyone you love. That’s the bad news. The worse news is this: It’s not clear exactly what you should do about it — if anything at all,” columnist Farhad Manjoo writes.

The column cites a recent study that found that nearly 13 percent of cases of childhood asthma in the U.S. may be attributable to gas cooktops.

However, the study was funded by RMI, an environmental group that aims to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions by 50 percent within the next seven years, and the study’s lead author is part of RMI’s Carbon-Free Buildings initiative.

The study was not based on scientific research but on a mathematical formula that used information from previous studies in North America and Europe and data from the American Housing Survey about the number of children living in homes with gas stoves.

Media Misses

— The Daily Beast, in what could be a runner-up for Headline Fail of the Week, writes: “They Were Loving College. Then Ron DeSantis Got Involved.” The story centers on the governor’s recent appointment of six new board members at the New College of Florida and calls the school “the latest target in what could be the governor’s hate-fueled march to a Republican presidential nomination.” The story includes comments from a transgender student who said, “I got really sad and then just, like, laid down” after finding out about the announcement.

— Senator Ron Johnson (R., Wis.) and Chuck Todd clashed on Meet the Press this weekend amid a discussion of Republican efforts to investigate Hunter Biden’s foreign business dealings. Todd interrupted Johnson to ask, “Senator, do you have a crime that you think Hunter Biden committed? Because I’ve yet to see anybody explain. It is not a crime to make money off of your last name.” Johnson called the interview “a complete smear job against me.”

— CNN defended President Biden’s alleged mishandling of classified documents from his time as vice president by claiming that the end of the Obama administration was a busy time for Biden’s team and he was working very hard. “Those competing objectives — to use his office until the final minutes even as it was obliged to shut down — made for a muddled and hurried process that left aides packing boxes of documents and papers late into the night, even as more material kept arriving,” the report, written by four reporters, notes.