Grand jury's decision in Eric Garner case leaves Jon Stewart speechless
'I honestly don't know what to say,' Comedy Central host says
Like many of his fellow New Yorkers, Jon Stewart was left speechless by the grand jury's decision not to indict a white NYPD officer in the chokehold death of an unarmed black man during a videotaped arrest.
On Wednesday's powerful "Daily Show" segment, the comedian struggled to find any humor in the case in what appeared to be a spontaneous reaction.
"I don't know," Stewart said. "I honestly don't know what to say."
During the fallout from the Missouri grand jury decision's not to indict Ferguson officer Darren Wilson in the shooting death of Michael Brown, Stewart said, "We did our best here to process those events — even enjoyed actually a bit of fun at the expense of the St. Louis Rams and St. Louis Police Association's Twitter war."
The Comedy Central host said coming up with those bits was cathartic for the "Daily Show" staffers, part of a collective healing process.
But the process was short-lived, he said.
"If comedy is tragedy plus time," Stewart said, "I need more f---ing time, but I would really settle for less f---ing tragedy.
"I think what is so utterly depressing is that none of the ambiguities that existed in the Ferguson case exist in the Staten Island case," he continued. "And yet the outcome is exactly the same: No crime, no trial, all harm, no foul."
In Ferguson, "At least you had conflicting witness testimony, you had conflicting forensics, you had the specter at least of police self-defense," Stewart said. "Here there is none of that."
Toward the end of the segment, Stewart seems to lose his composure and says, "It just happened, so I have not had enough time to digest it." He then threw to a clip of one cat massaging another cat as a segue.
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