Morning Wire - Violence Shakes The Nation | 7.6.22

Episode Date: July 6, 2022

Violence shakes the nation, a police-involved shooting in Ohio sparks protests, and the summer box office is back. Get the facts first on Morning Wire.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

July 4th, celebrations were marred by violence, from a mass shooting at a parade to dozens of shootings across the U.S. We discussed the latest developments and the trend of rising violence in our cities. I'm Daily Wire editor-in-chief John Bickley with Georgia Howe. It's Wednesday, July 6th, and this is Morning Wire. A deadly police-involved shooting of a black man in Akron, Ohio led the city's mayor to issue a state of emergency. There was a gun recovered from Mr. Walker's vehicle. At the time of the shooting, he was on all. Did police use excessive force or was the shooting justified?

We discussed the explosive case. And are summer blockbusters finally back? From minions to Maverick, we look at what's driving audiences back to theaters this season. Thanks for waking up with Morning Wire. Stay tuned. We have the news you need to know. This show is sponsored by Thuma. Hey, all, producer Colton here. We all know the struggles of trying to put together a new bed, whether you don't have the right tools or lost track of that last screw.

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a string of violence shook the nation, with dozens killed or injured in shootings around the country. Over the last 24 hours, more details have emerged. Here with the latest is Daily Wire Senior Editor Cabot Phillips. Cabot, let's start with the mass shooting in Illinois that left several people dead. What have we learned now? Well, as we reported yesterday, on Monday morning, Highland Park, a suburb just north of Chicago, was holding their annual Fourth of July parade

when a 21-year-old man opened fire. Police have now confirmed that he fired from a rooftop overlooking the parade route. On Monday, the reported death toll was six, but that count has now risen to seven people dead, with 25 more wounded from gunfire. According to police, after firing more than 70 rounds, the shooter came down from the building and blended in with those running away.

Authorities say at the time, he was actually wearing women's clothing. After escaping, he returned to his mother's home and fled in her car, but thankfully within a few hours, police had released a description of him and the vehicle, and he was spotted and detained by the evening after a brief high-speed chase with police. Now, we don't reveal names of mass shooters on Morning Wire, but what more have we learned about the suspect?

Well, from what we've been told so far, there did seem to be a number of warning signs before the shooting. The shooter was an aspiring rapper and had recently posted music videos online with lyrics like, quote, I need to just do it, it is my destiny. As a cartoon figure resembling him, appeared with a gun in tactical gear,

and carried out a mass shooting in the music video. And on Tuesday afternoon, police said that they'd had two prior encounters with the shooter back in 2019. Once after a suicide attempt, and then again, after a family member said that he'd threatened to kill them. Police responded to his residence.

The police removed 16 knives, a dagger, and a sword from Kuh,'s home. At that time, there was no probable cause to arrest. There were no complaints that were signed by any of the victims. The Highland Park Police Department however, did immediately notify the Illinois State Police of the incident. Now, even though Highland Park passed an assault weapons ban back in 2013,

police say the rifle use in the attack had been legally purchased in Illinois and that the shooter had been carefully planning for weeks in advance. And sadly, there were a string of other violent incidents this weekend as well. What more do we know about those cases? Yeah, we saw dozens more people killed or injured in cities across the country this weekend. Late Monday night, for example, three people were killed and seven months. more injured after shooting broke out following a fight at a block party in Gary, Indiana. Hours before that, eight people were shot at a Fourth of July gathering in Minneapolis. Then on Sunday night, three people

were killed and four injured after a man opened fire during a fight at a house party in Surprise Arizona. In total, since Friday, there were 18 shootings with at least four victims around the country. In Chicago alone, there were 57 people shot over the weekend, nine of them fatally, and in Philadelphia, two police officers were shot during a gathering outside of the city's famous museum of art. Now, it is worth noting that all of these shootings appeared to be the result of fights, gang violence or domestic disputes, and not mass shootings as we commonly define them, like the one we saw in Highland Park. But regardless, it's indicative of the rising violent crime rate that we've seen nationwide. Well, one thing's for certain. We're all desperate to see a reversal at this trend in violence.

Yes, we are. Thanks, Kabbitt. Anytime. That's Daily Wire senior editor, Kavitt Phillips. Coming up, a police-involved shooting prompts an Ohio mayor to issue a state of emergency. You can get this show and all of the content you love wherever you are, all on the Daily Wire app. Even if you're not a Daily Wire member, you'll be the first to know what's trending with mobile notifications for the latest news, and you'll get content from all of your favorite Daily Wire shows. Download the Daily Wire app and keep up with the facts no matter where your day takes you. Protests have erupted in Ohio over the police shooting of Jailand Walker, a 25, year old black man who was shot by police last week.

Body cam footage of the incident was released Sunday while an investigation continues. Daily Wire investigative reporter, Maraida Lorty, is here with more details for us. So, Marade, can you tell us what we know about this case so far? Of course. Jaland Walker was shot dead by police on June 27th in Akron, Ohio, after police tried to pull him over for a traffic stop. The day of the shooting, Akron police said they chased Walker because his car was connected to a crime the previous day. Police say Walker refused to pull over, sped through a residential neighborhood, and actually opened fire on police from his car.

Then he jumped out of the car while it was still moving. According to police, Walker was wearing a black ski mask and fled from them on foot, at which point he was reportedly unarmed. Police did find a handgun in his silver Buick after the shooting, though. According to police, initially two officers attempted to stop the suspect using tasers, but they were unsuccessful. Akron Police Chiefs Steve Milit said that during the foot chase, video shows Walker appearing to reach for something at his waist and turn toward officers before

they fired at him. The eight officers present on the scene shot Walker several times in his face, torso, and legs. Now, some reports claim he was shot 60 times. Right, but that's still under investigation. We're actually not sure yet. Here's police chief, Milet, describing the footage of the shooting. In the still photos, there's a picture that appears to all of us that Mr. Walker is going down to his waste area. Each officer independent of each other related that they felt that Mr. Walker had turned and was motioning and moving into a firing position. Before that, traffic camera footage shows a muzzle flash coming from Walker's car and a shell casing was found in that area, according to the Akron Fraternal Order of Police. Okay, so police are claiming Walker shot at them first.

That's correct. The issue is that he was unarmed at the time he fled his vehicle, which is when he was shot. Now there's been a lot of backlash to Walker's death. Tell us about the protests taking place in Akron. That's right. Protests erupted after the body cam footage of the shooting was made public this week. The protests include the Akron chapter of the NAACP, which spearheaded a march and a rally downtown on Sunday the day the body cam footage was made public. A smaller group of protesters grew violent, breaking windows and setting a dumpster on fire. About 50 adults were arrested, and as a precaution, city officials called off Akron's annual 14th. of July, Rib White and Blue Festival.

Walker's family has also spoken out saying they want peace to be maintained and calling for police reform in the wake of the shooting. Their lawyer of Bobby DiCello called the body cam footage brutal and said the footage would stir up some passion. There was no lethal threat and to have eight officers with spawn

with over 90 rounds, more than 60 of which took my client down, is again, absolutely in the scene. Meanwhile, the police department has placed all eight officers who were involved in the shooting on paid administrative leave. Ohio's Bureau of Criminal Investigations has already begun looking into the incident. All right. Well, it looks like there's still a lot of questions to be answered here.

There are, and that's what those investigations intend to do. All right, Marad, thanks for reporting. That was Daily Wire investigative reporter, Marade Allorty. For the first time since the pandemic began in 2020, monthly domestic box office revenues reached $1 billion. This is leading some Hollywood analysts to proclaim that movies are finally back in a big way. Here to break down, which films are leading the way and which ones are struggling to keep up is Daily Wire Culture Reporter Megan Basham.

So, Megan, I know there have been a few breakout movies over the past few years. There was Spider-Man, No Way Home, F-9, a couple of others. But this seems like the most sustained streak of high performance from Hollywood in a long time. Yeah, that's exactly right. It is. And for some of these films,

we're actually talking about historically high revenues. So the latest movie in the Despicable Me franchise, Minions, The Rise of Gru, just broke the Independence Day record that was last set in 2011 by Transformers' Age of Extinction. So it earned about $125 million over the four-day weekend. That's domestically. Now, this is a big one because the one holdout group that hadn't returned to theaters by pre-COVID standards was families. A lot of people expected Pixar's Lightyear to be the movie,

that was going to bring them back. So when that film flopped, there was a lot of speculation that the animation genre would maybe just continue to struggle. Now, reasons for Lightyear's failure ranged from franchise fatigue to families permanently adapting

to streaming movies at home. What the Rise of Gru did was prove that none of that was true. Families are ready to come back to the movies. They just weren't particularly interested in Lightyear. So the film also hit big with Gen Z. They boosted it with this viral TikTok trend. Essentially what you have is a bunch of teen and tween boys

dressing up in formal suits and posting videos of themselves reacting to the film and then posting those with the hashtag gentle minions. So here's a viral video from TikToker Hutch Buckets who reportedly started that trend. We've started one of the biggest cults in the world. Everyone is a minion. So the gentle minions have a person. apparently been somewhat distracting to other moviegoers, so much so that some theaters are actually putting up signs saying that they're going to turn away groups of young men dressed in suits.

But I think what you could say is that theaters have turned a corner when they're actually having to turn away fans for being too enthusiastic. Right. I know I saw some of those videos. They were cute. Now, older demographics are also showing up to theaters as well. Yeah, absolutely. I think you have to say the big Hollywood story this summer is Top Gun Maverick. So it didn't just put up big numbers out of the gate. It has continued to perform incredibly well for five weeks now. So Maverick is the first billion-dollar movie of Tom Cruise's career. And then another movie that has put up some pretty big numbers since it released a little over a week ago is the new Elvis biopic. It not only opened above expectations, it also enticed older viewers back to theaters. Exit polling showed that about half the audience for that film was, over 45. Now, all of this success has prompted Tom Cruz to release a statement on behalf of the

entire movie industry, thanking the public for coming back to theaters. Now, you've reported in the past that a huge portion of Hollywood earnings actually comes from China. How much of this recent success is due to Chinese markets? Yeah, very little of it. And for that reason, I would say that the most unreported news about all of this is just how the success positions the United States in that international box office competition. So as you've said, we've noted in several previous segments that China surpassed the U.S. as the biggest movie market in the world in 2020. But now Chinese box office earnings are down year over year, whereas because of all these strong releases, the box office is way up domestically. So analysts are predicting that the American box office is once again going to

overtake China's by the end of this year. And that's with a number of big films, including Maverick, not playing in China at all. So I think the long-term impact of this may be to reorient studios thinking about just how important that Chinese market is to the bottom line. So this sounds like a lot of good news for Hollywood. Is that what you predict going forward?

Well, there's definitely a lot of strong fundamentals that studios are going to be able to build on, but the one drawback is they actually may not have been ready for all of this appetite for movies. We're going to enter fall with a little bit of a lull. So I think studios are going to have to gear up really fast if they want to capitalize on all this momentum. Well, I hope they do. I'm ready for it. Me too.

Megan, thanks for reporting. Anytime. That was Daily Wire culture reporter, Megan Basham. Other stories we're tracking this week. In an interview with Reuters, Pope Francis voiced support for the Dobbs Supreme Court decision, saying the ruling will protect the human being in the womb. He also stated that despite speculation, he does not intend to retire. anytime soon. Doctors report a sharp rise in men seeking vasectomies after the Dobbs decision.

One L.A. urologist reported a 300 to 400% increase in vasectomy consultations since the draft opinion in May. A series of state judges have temporarily blocked trigger abortion restrictions. Laws in Texas, Louisiana, Utah, Kentucky, and Florida are among those on hold. The last World War II Medal of Honor recipient Woody Williams, who passed away on Wednesday will lie in honor in the capital. Williams earned his medal after he went ahead of his unit in the Battle of Iwojima

and eliminated several Japanese machine gun positions while under heavy fire. Thanks for listening to Morning Wire. We created this show to bring more ballots to the national conversation. If you love our show

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