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Cori Bush roasted after she quotes MLK Jr to defend Missouri jail riot: 'Some Dems are ok with some riots'

The first-time Democratic lawmaker had slammed former president Donald Trump over the violence that broke out at Capitol on January 6

Cori Bush, who created history last November by becoming the first Black Congresswoman to get elected from Missouri, has courted controversy in less than a month since taking oath by defending the violence that broke out at a jail in her state that saw one officer dead. She even quoted Martin Luther King Jr to defend the event. 

The riot broke out in the early hours of Saturday, February 6, after an allegedly defiant inmate got into a scuffle with a guard at the City Justice Center in St Louis. Soon after, the prisoners set things on fire and engaged in vandalism, throwing furniture out of the windows. The incident saw the involvement of more than 100 inmates and St Louis Public Safety Director Jimmy Edwards called those trouble-makers detained as “very violent and aggressive”. It took hours for the guards to regain control of the facility by using tear gas. The riot reportedly took place over concerns regarding the spread of the coronavirus and restrictions on the visitors and court proceedings as a result of the pandemic.

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Bush, who defeated 10-year incumbent Lacy Clay in the Democratic primary in Missouri’s first district and then Republican Anthony Rogers in the general election, quoted MLK Jr to tweet: “A riot is the language of the unheard”

“​I want to talk to my constituents in the window. Their lives and their rights must be protected​. ​My team and I are working to ensure that the urgent needs of people who are incarcerated are not ignored,” the 44-year-old lawmaker said. 

Bush accused of double standards

Bush was slammed for her tweet with many accusing her of showing double standards by pointing out that she had taken a different stance in the wake of the riot that broke out at the Capitol on January 6 in protest to the victory of Joe Biden in the 2020 presidential election. Even Marjorie Taylor Greene, the controversial GOP Congresswoman who has recently been removed from her committee assignments for making violent statements in the past, did not spare Bush. In a tweet, she asked the Democrat whether she supported riots.

Bush slammed Trump over Jan 6 Capitol riots

Bush, a mother of two, slammed former President Donald Trump over the January 6 riots at the seat of the Congress. In a tweet then, she said: ​“I’m in the Capitol. I’m safe, and my team and I are sheltering in place. The President of the United States has incited a riot that has now stormed the Capitol. There are rioters roaming the halls of the Capitol. I saw them with my own eyes. Our country deserves better.”​​

Conservative radio host Mike Opelka also reacted to Bush’s tweet on the prison riot, asking in a post on Twitter: “Is there ANY self-awareness in the Democratic Party? Also, Jan 6th.” Jason Rantz, host of the conservative radio show in Seattle, responded to Bush’s tweet in a sarcastic tone:  “Some Democrats are okay with some riots.”

Another user by the name Boomielieaks tweeted other portions of the MLK Jr quote that Bush partially cited in her tweet on riots. The user said: “Riots are socially destructive and self-defeating... So I will continue to condemn riots, and continue to say to my brothers and sisters that this is not the way. And continue to affirm that there is another way.”
Dr. MLK Jr. (in the same speech Cori Bush is quoting)”

The quote is from MLK Jr’s ‘The Other America’ speech delivered at Stanford University in April 1967.