Trevor Noah Rips the Police: “They Have the Same Code That a Gang Does”

A week and a half after Trevor Noah delivered an impassioned speech about the death of George Floyd, The Daily Show host has taken the police to task yet again. On Monday night, Noah ripped police officers for committing “even more police brutality” against protestors, and he dismiss the narrative that there are simply “a few bad apples” within an otherwise-pure force. “[Police] have the same code that a gang does,” said the late night host. “Above all, you are loyal to your crew. That is a culture that is within every police department.”

Noah was off last week for a pre-scheduled hiatus, but he came back with a vengeance on Monday night. “Never before in American history has there been an uprising like this,” said the Comedy Central host at the top of the broadcast. “You have huge numbers of people coming out every single day, in every single state in the country.”

After spending a few minutes praising protestors, The Daily Show host turned his attention to the police. “People have been comparing this moment to the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s. And much like the 1960s, law enforcement officers have met these calls to end police brutality with even more police brutality,” he said, before playing a harrowing montage of officers enacting violence against protestors.

The host noted that “the police department got this heavy duty equipment to fight terrorists” after 9/11, but it’s unclear why they need it now. “I’m sorry, what about these people screams ‘terrorist’ to you?” asked Noah. “Maybe I have forgotten my history, but I don’t remember the part where al Qaeda attacked America with cardboard signs.”

“I don’t care who you are, those images have to be upsetting to watch,” Noah said of videos showing police beating and attacking peaceful protestors. “Because these images are the antithesis of what America is supposed to stand for. This is supposed to be the country where you have the freedom to say whatever you want. A democracy. You can say whatever you want, whether it’s ‘Black Lives Matter’ or ‘Let’s all drink bleach,’ the government is not supposed to physically punish you for that.”

Noah went on to reference the viral video of Buffalo police officers knocking an unarmed elderly man to the ground and stepping over him as his blood pooled below his head. “Once the truth got out and those cops were punished, the entire team resigned to protest those police being held accountable,” he explained, adding that this culture of unyielding support, regardless of the circumstances, disproves authorities’ narrative that there are just “a few bad apples” committing violence against Black Americans.

“If good police are willing to look the other way or even join in when the bad police have abused their powers — you can make new rules and regulations all you want but if it won’t matter,” he concluded. “America’s not going to be able to fix this problem until we have police whose first priority is protecting and serving the people instead of protecting and serving themselves.”

Watch Trevor Noah take down the police in the clip above.

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