‘Burn that s*** down’: Sister of Milwaukee shooting victim’s ‘call for peace’, according to CNN

THIS TV station has been forced into an embarrassing retraction after it made a very sneaky edit to a news broadcast.

The sister of the Milwaukee police shooting victim.

CNN has been forced into an embarrassing retraction after a clip showing how it misleadingly edited a news broadcast about the Milwaukee riots went viral.

The video, which has received nearly half a million views on YouTube and more than 5500 comments on Reddit, juxtaposes a CNN news broadcast claiming the sister of police shooting victim Sylville K. Smith was “calling for peace”, when in fact she called for rioters to “burn down the suburbs”.

“Don’t bring the violence here and the ignorance here,” the sister says in the clip, part of a broadcast covering the Milwaukee riots in which gunshots were fired, six businesses were torched, 17 people were arrested and four police officers injured.

Smith was stopped by police on Saturday afternoon for behaving suspiciously but fled on foot. The 23-year-old was carrying a stolen handgun which he refused to drop, and was turning towards police with the gun in his hand when he was killed, police said.

Amid the violence following the shooting, Smith’s sister fronted the media. “Burning down s*** ain’t gon’ help nothing,” she said in her full comments edited from the broadcast. “Ya’ll burning down s*** we need in our community. Take that s*** to the suburbs. Burn that s*** down.”

Sylville K. Smith, 23, was shot by Milwaukee police on Saturday.

After footage of the clip went viral, CNN amended its online story to read: “An earlier version of this story mischaracterised what the victim’s sister was trying to convey. She was calling for peace in her community, urging the protesters to go elsewhere.”

CNN correspondent Ana Cabrera tweeted: “We shorthanded sister’s quote. Unintentionally gave the impression she was calling for peace everywhere.”

We shorthanded sister’s quote. Unintentionally gave the impression she was calling for peace everywhere. Correction: https://t.co/CUroBoxj60

— Ana Cabrera (@AnaCabrera) August 16, 2016

Users on Reddit were sceptical. “I don’t think any rational person would conclude that there was anything resembling a ‘call for peace’ in that lady’s speech, but CNN still wants to push that narrative,” wrote Owl_Paramour.

“How about you don’t ‘characterise what the victim’s sister was trying to convey’ at all, CNN? How about you just report exactly what someone said, and I’ll interpret what they were attempting to convey all on my own, since I actually speak English myself?”

At a rally in West Bend, Wisconsin on Tuesday, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump condemned the riots, the media and Democratic rival Hillary Clinton, who he accused of setting herself “against the police”.

Donald Trump in Wisconsin. Picture: Darren Hauck/Getty Images/AFP

Trump has spent much of his campaign warring with what he calls the “dishonest media” and in particular CNN, which he refers to as the “Clinton News Network”.

“The main victims of these riots are law-abiding African-Americans living in these neighbourhoods,” he said. “Those peddling the narrative of cops as a racist force in our society [ ...] share directly in the responsibility for the unrest in Milwaukee.

“They have fostered the dangerous anti-police atmosphere in America [and] do a direct disservice to poor African-American residents who are hurt by the high crime in their communities.”

Last month, two days after 25-year-old Micah Xavier Johnson ambushed police in Dallas, Texas, killing five and wounding six, Clinton tweeted: “White Americans need to do a better job of listening when African-Americans talk about the seen and unseen barriers you face every day.”

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