Cop Charged With Killing Cyclist Was Watching Transphobic YouTube Video At The Wheel

Matt Walsh is a far-right agitator, self-described fascist, and virulent transphobe, so it's only natural that the United States' most aggrieved and insecure icons of state-sanctioned violence are big fans of his. In fact, some cops love Walsh so much that they're apparently happy to watch his videos while driving, paying such rapt attention to his blithering inanity that they forget they're in control of a motor vehicle and mow down a roadside cyclist. At least, that's what one Vermont cop allegedly did, according to court documents. 

Kyle Kapitanski, a sergeant in Shelburne, Vermont, had a Matt Walsh debate video playing in his cruiser when he hit and killed cyclist Sean Hayes, according to the Burlington Free Press. Kapitanski was driving 40 mph in a 35 zone at 2:40 AM, and didn't hit his brakes until 85 feet after he hit Hayes. The officer is being charged with "grossly negligent operation" of his cruiser, according to NBC 5, and has already plead not guilty. His attorney is making the case that, although Kapitanski had YouTube clips playing for 11 minutes in his cruiser, he wasn't actively interacting with the screen — just watching a YouTube video instead of the road is, apparently, not negligent at all. 

Kapitanski was driving a Ford Explorer cruiser, according to VTDigger, a vehicle with a front-end height known to increase pedestrian fatalities. You'd think a driver in such a vehicle — an officer theoretically dedicated to protect and serve, no less — would maybe want to keep an eye on where they're going, rather than watching a man who wants trans people "erased from the earth" for being "abusers" with "proclivities towards sin." Apparently not, though, given that Kapitanski clearly thought this 58-second portrait-oriented clip was more important than Hayes' life. 

It's obvious that police think of civilians as some sort of lesser species, existing only to be exterminated at the slightest provocation, but rarely do we see it spelled out so clearly. Kapitanski was so enraptured by the speech of a man whose media presence is entirely built on bloodlust that he killed a man in an instant, and is now working with attorneys to argue that such a situation doesn't even qualify as gross negligence. This is how cops think. They are not here to help you.