A Fox News host has been slammed for his horrific views on homeless people, claiming those on the street with mental health problems should be euthanized.
While speaking about the tragic death of Ukrainian refugee Iryna Zarutska last month, Brian Kilmeade suggested killing homeless people suffering from mental health issues could be the answer as to how to prevent similar deaths in the future.
After boarding the late-night Blue Line train after it pulled into Scaleybark Station, not far from Downtown Charlotte, 22-year-old Iryna sat on an empty row of seats in front of Decarlos Brown Jr. - the suspect who has been arrested and charged with first-degree murder over the unprovoked attack.
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The 34-year-old was reportedly homeless and suffered with his mental health.
Kilmeade's remark, made during a recent Fox & Friends segment, came in an episode that aired on Wednesday morning (September 10).
Discussing the case with co-hosts Lawrence Jones and Ainsley Earhardt, Kilmeade said: “[Give them] an involuntary lethal injection - or something. Just kill them.”
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His comment was met with silence at the time but went largely unnoticed until a clip of the exchange began circulating on social media over the weekend.
Jones had earlier commented on the difficulty of addressing homelessness and mental illness through voluntary measures.
"A lot of them do not want to take the programmes. A lot of them do not want to get the help that is necessary,” he said.
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“You cannot give them a choice. Either you take the resources that we are gonna give you, or you decide that you are going to be locked up in jail. That is the way it has to be now.”
The clip has since been seen more than 20 million times, causing uproar online.
Virginia Representative Don Beyer is one of those. Taking to Twitter to blast Kilmeade, he wrote: "America’s homeless population includes over a million children and tens of thousands of veterans, many of whom served in Iraq or Afghanistan.
"Nobody deserves to be murdered by the government for mental illness or poverty. These Fox hosts are calling for mass murder - it is sick."
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Yesterday evening, Kilmeade addressed the controversy with an on-air apology.
“We were discussing the murder of Iryna Zarutska in Charlotte and how to stop these kinds of attacks by homeless, mentally ill assailants, including institutionalizing or jailing such people so they cannot attack again,” he said. “Now during that discussion, I wrongly said they should get lethal injections.”
“I apologize for that extremely callous remark. I am obviously aware that not all mentally ill, homeless people act as the perpetrator did in North Carolina, and that so many homeless people deserve our empathy and compassion.”
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His apology has also been blasted, with CNN data analyst Jonathan Reiner, a professor of Medicine and Surgery Interventional Cardiologist, taking to Twitter to condemn Kilmeade.
"Suggesting that homeless or mentally ill people should be euthanized is not 'callous'. It’s something much worse," he penned.
Topics: US News, Mental Health, Crime
Joe Yates