Pat McAfee reacts to apparent Last Supper mockery at Olympics opening ceremony causing global uproar
Pat McAfee, a former Indianapolis Colts punter-turned ESPN radio host, took issue with the Paris Olympics opening ceremony as he talked about the Summer Games on Monday.
The opening ceremony featured several controversial segments, with many viewers taking issue with the apparent mockery of The Last Supper, a moment in Christianity that followers of the religion revere. It caused an uproar among world leaders and athletes alike.
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McAfee didn’t appear to be upset with the content but said the ceremony should revolve around sports and spoke of Thomas Jolly, the ceremony’s artistic director.
“There’s a lot of people that are saying, ‘What Thomas Jolly put together was incredibly disrespectful.’ And I think that is certainly a way to view things. That is a way to take it. And there’s a lot of people that have said that and for good reason,” McAfee said. “I have no idea how any of these things are the start of the Olympics or to announce that the Olympics are taking place.
“It was a form of artistic expression that was paying trib… whatever. We just want it to revolve around sport. And we can’t have the opening ceremony be a reason why people won’t watch these athletes who have sacrificed everything about their lives to be great at something and only get to experience and celebrate once every four years.”
Jolly told The Associated Press that making a parody of The Last Supper wasn’t his intention.
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“My wish isn’t to be subversive, nor to mock or to shock,” he told The Associated Press. “Most of all, I wanted to send a message of love, a message of inclusion and not at all to divide.”
McAfee said his biggest issue was that the ceremony needed “people who love sports, being a part of sports happenings.” He didn’t find Jolly was one of those people.
“Can’t have the opening ceremony starting a war, starting a protest,” he said. “So, I hope the next time around we go ahead and think about that – how sports are a (unifier)… and we can’t have things that aren’t part of it be the reason why people won’t watch it because when you watch it, it’s magic.”
Paris 2024 official Anne Descamps told reporters on Sunday that the purpose of celebrating “community tolerance” was achieved.
“Clearly there was never an intention to show disrespect to any religious group. On the contrary, I think (with) Thomas Jolly, we really did try to celebrate community tolerance,” Descamps said.
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“Looking at the result of the polls that we shared, we believe that this ambition was achieved. If people have taken any offense we are, of course, really, really sorry.”
Pete Buttigieg dared Americans to look up crime data. I did and it’s not pretty for Democrats
Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg declared on “Fox News Sunday” this past weekend that Republicans are offering a “false message” about the nation’s crime crisis. He scolded Fox News for “trying to make people think that crime is up when crime is down under Joe Biden and crime was up under Donald Trump.” He said this isn’t reported on Fox News, “so if you’re watching this at home, do yourself a favor and look up the data.”
While Democrat-paid social media influencers celebrated Buttigieg, he should probably stick to creating electric vehicle propaganda videos for social media. Anyone reviewing the data would know he’s using a politically dishonest statistical sleight of hand–blaming Trump for crime going up thanks to the very policies Democrats instituted, then crime going “down” after the policies were reversed.
Major cities across the country, mostly run by Democrats, saw a tumultuous period of crime rates spurred by progressive “criminal justice reforms” and police defunding thanks to Democrats who acquiesced to the demands of Black Lives Matter radicals. As I write in my book, “What’s Killing America: Inside the Radical Left’s Tragic Destruction of Our Cities,” the result was an unmitigated disaster.
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As police departments were defunded, the nationwide murder rate surged 30% in 2020, making it the largest single-year increase in over a century. The next year, we saw a 4.3% increase in murders nationwide. Prior to the reforms, under Trump, violent crimes were going down.
Leveraging the COVID pandemic as a pretext, Democrats either stopped booking criminals or released them early, claiming they’d face imminent death from COVID if they were to stay locked up. For example, Cornelius Haney was released from prison early over COVID when he was arrested for the murder of a 21-year-old woman in Denver. Two days after Jerry Crawford was released from prison to reduce the spread of COVID, he was arrested for shooting an 18-year-old man to death.
While Buttigieg and other Democrats try to memory-hole reality, we saw a terrifying rise of left-wing political violence perpetrated by activists, including Antifa, with criminals taking advantage of soft-on-crime legislation, such as a ban on police vehicular pursuits in Washington state and downgrading serious felonies by George Soros-backed prosecutors in Los Angeles, San Francisco and New York.
When Biden took office, cities like Philadelphia and Indianapolis broke all-time records with 561 homicides and 271 homicides respectively. Portland, Oregon, meanwhile, hit its all-time homicide high in 2022.
It wasn’t just homicides that soared.
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Overall, crime was on the rise in New York, marked by a historic explosion of assaults hitting nearly 28,000 for the first time in recorded history. Thanks to state law that offers only misdemeanor charges for theft under $950 in value, Los Angeles and San Francisco saw the nation’s top two highest organized retail theft, leading to billions in losses for the city’s business communities. Motor vehicle thefts in 2022 compared to 2019 saw triple digit percentage increases in Denver (179%), Chicago (136%), and St. Louis (109%). Washington state saw an astonishing 10,000% increase in catalytic converter theft between 2019 and 2022.
Ironically, crimes including murders were undercounted in the aftermath of Democrat criminal justice reforms, thanks to the change in how the FBI collects and reports data. It was missing data from thousand of law enforcement agencies, including those in New York, Chicago, and New Orleans.
As crime rates soared, public sentiment shifted towards re-evaluating the efficacy of these reforms. By late 2022, many cities began to rollback these policies and restore funding to their police departments. The reintroduction of these more stringent policing measures and increased police presence led to a noticeable decline in crime rates in 2023-2024.
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After murders surged by 43% in 2022 compared to 2021, the San Antonio Police Department unveiled a “very simple strategy” by sending officers to proactively police in the neighborhoods with the most 911 calls for violent crimes. After refunding the Portland Police Bureau, the city saw a 22% drop in overall shootings and 23% decrease in homicides in 2023. These strategies were the exact opposite of what Radical Left activists demanded.
But crime going down from record highs doesn’t mean crime is down to pre-reform levels, which is precisely what Buttiegeg would have you believe.
Annual homicides in Denver dropped 4% in 2023 (with 72). It’s still 14% higher than what it was in 2019 (63). Homicides in Albuquerque saw a 21% dip in 2023 (95). Yet that’s still 86% higher than in 2018 (51). Washington D.C., meanwhile, had more homicides at 274 than in any other year in the two decades. Seattle, where I’m based, experienced a precipitous rise in homicides in 2020, but hit an all-time high in 2023.
The next time Democrats want to celebrate a Biden administration official for dunking on Fox News Fox News, it would behoove them to have a grasp on the facts, not left-wing talking points better suited to the left-wing echo chamber that is MSNBC.
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The hard truth is that their policies led to unprecedented spikes in crime, and only a return to sensible, stringent policing measures has begun to mitigate the damage inflicted by their ideological missteps.
Democrats don’t deserve credit when a crisis they created starts to subside after returning to policies that flourished under Trump.
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Black male voters have surprising reaction to question about support for Trump
A group of Black voters told MSNBC that they each personally know of at least one Black man that is committed to voting for former President Trump over Kamala Harris in November.
MSNBC legal analyst Charles Coleman conducted a roundtable discussion with four Black male voters ranging in age about the upcoming presidential election and how having Harris as the presumptive Democratic nominee has affected their vote in a network special that aired over the weekend.
“How many of you know a Black man who has expressed to you that they’re committed to voting for Donald Trump?” Coleman asked in the MSNBC special, “Black Men in America: The Road to 2024” that aired Sunday on “Velshi.”
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All four men raised their hands. “For the brothers who have told that to you, has the emergence of Kamala Harris changed that?” he asked.
“No,” they replied unanimously.
One respondent said his friend was voting for Trump because of the “stimulus checks.” Another said the Black men he knew that support the former president are doing so because they’re concerned about “interest rates.” They believe “Trump is going to lower the rates.” The sentiment among that group is, “I just need that guy in there,” he told Coleman.
Coleman told MSNBC host Alex Witt Sunday morning that his biggest takeaway from his discussions with the key voting bloc is that Black voters are “not a monolith.”
“It’s an intergenerational conversation that I was able to have, really inviting a bunch of different perspectives about what the enthusiasm has been since Kamala Harris has entered the race for president, and then also for some people, how it hasn’t changed,” he said.
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“I heard from young people who talked about their issues, not necessarily being wowed by the significance of Kamala Harris as a Black woman, because their frame of reference for the presidency is President Obama. So they’ve had a Black president,” Coleman added.
He said some Black voters are feeling pressure to get behind Harris regardless of her platform or policies on issues that matter to them.
“One of the things that I learned was that there is a sense from some people to just get on the bandwagon regardless of what she is talking about because of the fact that she is a Black woman. I thought that was a very interesting dynamic,” Coleman said.
In another segment of the MSNBC special, Coleman asked the same group of Black male voters if they feel a community obligation to support Harris at the top of the ticket.
“Rather significantly….we have already seen that push and that call for us to rally behind her,” Corey Alexander, a teacher, responded. “She already had my vote… the Biden administration actually campaigned on forgiving student loans and they forgave my wife’s – that was a direct benefit for me. So they had my vote solidified on that. But I do feel like the symbolism of the moment does urge us a little bit more even without hearing the platform to get behind her.”
Curt Quillen, who works in financial management, said he feels like anyone who questions Harris’ positions is made out to be a “villain.”
“It is kind of doubled for me, personally, because it is kind of like you are almost a villain if you have a question. It is almost like, you are anti- something, because you are questioning something,” he told Coleman. “Politically, because it is such a finite timetable of when you have to make a decision, it doesn’t leave room to have a real in-depth conversation. You are almost put in a place where you have to just say, come on, let’s go.”
FOCUS GROUP OF BLACK MEN SLAM THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY’S MESSAGING, COMPARING IT TO ‘PANDERING’
MSNBC host Joy Reid recently said that Black people will look “real weird” and “real crazy” if they do not vote for Harris in November.
When asked whether they believed Harris could defeat Trump in November, three out of the four participants said yes. “I want her to, but I don’t think so,” the fourth replied.
The Democratic Party has enjoyed overwhelming support among Black voters for decades, but Trump is seemingly chipping away at the key demographic.
Biden won 87% of the Black vote in 2020, compared to Trump’s 12%. But Biden’s hold on Black and Hispanic voters was slipping prior to his announcement that he would no longer seek re-election.
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Only 69% of Black voters in a Fox News Poll from early July — before Biden ended his campaign — said they would vote for Harris in a match-up with Trump. New surveys have shown Harris could improve on Biden’s dwindling numbers with Black voters against Trump.
‘White Women For Kamala’ speaker tells viewers to never correct Black women
One of the speakers in a Zoom meeting rallying support for Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign among White women went viral for her patronizing tone as she chided listeners never to “correct” women of other races.
The “White Women: Answer The Call” Zoom meeting gathered 164,000 White women last week, breaking the world record for the largest Zoom call. The massive remote meeting to rally support for Harris featured multiple celebrity guests like U.S. Women’s Soccer star Megan Rapinoe, musician Pink, and actress Connie Britton, the last of whom jokingly dubbed the meeting, “Karens for Kamala.” The Thursday gathering was inspired by a previous Zoom call directed at Black women last Sunday that was organized by activist group “Win With Black Women.”
Arielle Fodor, a teacher turned TikTok “influencer” with over 1.3 million followers, went viral for her contribution to the Zoom meeting. Fodor, known as Mrs. Frazzled on TikTok, makes content where she uses what she describes as a “teacher voice,” speaking as if addressing children while correcting people about things like “mansplaining.”
After being introduced Thursday as someone who could help “gentle parent” the group through the 2024 election, she said, “BIPOC women have tapped us in as White women to step up, listen, and get involved this election season. This is a really important time and we all need to use our voices and influence for the greater good. No matter who you are, you are all influencers in some way.”
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She then went on to share some “dos and don’t’s for getting involved in politics online and navigating the toxicity that comes with it.”
Fodor went on to warn her fellow White women “that some toxicity can come from us too.”
“Don’t make it about yourself. As White women, we need to use our privilege to make positive changes,” she said. “If you find yourself talking over or speaking for BIPOC [Black, Indigenous, and other people of color] individuals or, God forbid, correcting them, just take a beat and instead we can put our listening ears on.”
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‘THEY TAKE US FOR GRANTED’: BLACK AMERICANS SOUND OFF ON MISCONCEPTIONS DEMOCRATS HAVE ABOUT THEM
She encouraged listeners, “Do learn from and amplify the voices of those who have been historically marginalized and use the privilege you have in order to push for a systemic change. As White people, we have a lot to learn and unlearn. So do check your blind spots. You are responsible for your algorithm, believe it or not. Intentionally seek out and share content from BIPOC creators, activists, and thought leaders. They should be the leaders of conversations about race, injustice, and equity.”
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The remarks were shared widely on X, with conservative figures taking aim at Fodor’s speaking style, calling it condescending and cringe-inducing.
“Next-level cringe,” X owner Elon Musk wrote about it.
Fodor posted her entire remarks to the call on her TikTok account and called it the “speech that launched a million haters.” In them, she encouraged listeners to try to persuade Trump supporters in their orbit because “you are all influencers.”
“Being an ally means being willing to be uncomfortable, and no one is more uncomfy than someone talking to their bigoted family members,” she said, smiling.
Fodor didn’t respond to a request for comment.
WH website lauds lifetime SCOTUS appointments as Biden seeks term limits
President Biden’s official White House website continues to praise the lifetime appointments of the Supreme Court, despite his recently announced intentions to alter the system.
In the About section of the website, an informational page about the Judiciary Branch praises the lifetime appointment system as a bulwark against “temporary passions of the public.”
“Judges and Justices serve no fixed term — they serve until their death, retirement, or conviction by the Senate,” the White House website states. “By design, this insulates them from the temporary passions of the public, and allows them to apply the law with only justice in mind, and not electoral or political concerns.”
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A White House spokesperson told Fox News Digital that the website’s text praising lifetime positions on the Supreme Court is an artifact carried over from former President Trump’s administration and “outdated.”
“That language is outdated and left over from the Trump Administration’s website. The point of view that presidents should be allowed to commit crimes without legal consequences, or that the Supreme Court can self-police conflicts of interest is outdated and hurting the American people and our Democracy,” spokesman Andrew Bates told Fox News Digital.
He continued, “Instead, President Biden agrees with the wide range of Constitutional experts, many of whom are leading conservatives – including retired federal judges who were nominated by Republican presidents, Ronald Reagan’s solicitor general, and officers at the Federalist Society – who know that all of the goals mentioned on that page would be better met by 18-year term limits and a binding code of conduct for Supreme Court justices.”
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Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris – who is now running at the top of the presidential ticket for Democrats in November – declared support for Supreme Court term limits, ethics rules and a constitutional amendment to limit presidential immunity on Monday.
Biden, in an op-ed published in the Washington Post, said he has “great respect for our institutions and separation of powers” but “what is happening now is not normal, and it undermines the public’s confidence in the court’s decisions, including those impacting personal freedoms. We now stand in a breach.”
Biden and the Democratic Party have repeatedly accused the Supreme Court of having been corrupted by originalist and textualist jurists appointed under conservative presidents. These characterizations increased after Trump was given a rare opportunity to appoint three justices in one term – Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett.
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The conservative bloc does not always vote together, but Democrats in Congress and in the White House have claimed that the Republican-appointed majority has compromised the integrity of the court.
The move marks a nearly 180-degree pivot for Biden, who had generally bucked plans even from within his own party to make such massive changes to the high court.
Influencer’s trip to the West Bank to see if Palestinians support Hamas takes wild turn
Comedian and social media influencer Zach Sage Fox traveled to the West Bank to see if Palestinian people truly support the Hamas terror group. He almost didn’t make it out alive.
Fox, who went viral earlier this year when his “Gaza Graduation” video featured anti-Israel protesters in New York City struggling to correctly answer basic questions about the Israel-Hamas war, has been on a crusade to educate his followers since the terror attacks of October 7. He recently brought his popular man-on-the-street style interviews to the West Bank, a contentious territory that Palestinians hope to establish as an independent state along with the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip.
Fox, a “loud and proud” Jewish American, was in Israel to create content when a member of his production team offered him the opportunity to enter the West Bank alongside a Muslim producer and cameraman. Fox knew it could be a dangerous project but was interested because American journalists are rarely able to secure unfettered access to Palestinians.
“Israelis are literally not allowed into Palestine; they’re not allowed into the West Bank. However, I’m not Israeli, I’m an American Jew, and it doesn’t say ‘Jew’ on my passport. So, I was told, ‘As long as you don’t say you’re Jewish, you know, they’re not going to kill you on the spot,’” Fox told Fox News Digital.
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“I really looked in the mirror that night and I said, ‘I think I could pass for Italian,’” Fox continued. “I’m going to take the risk.”
To get ready for the daring trip, Fox removed his signature flair, such as jewelry and nail polish, and wore the most “masculine” outfit he had. He didn’t tell most of his friends and family back in America about his plans, explaining that they would likely have talked him out of it.
During the journey, Fox told anyone who asked he was an Italian American and was able to cross the border into the West Bank without issue, which he felt was “kind of shocking.”
Fox began his time in the West Bank with a prearranged interview with a man who was described to him by his Muslim producer as a “very smart and civil,” “somewhat moderate” thinker who holds a Master’s degree and speaks good English. They sat down at a coffee shop in Ramallah, the Palestinian “capital” located near Jerusalem.
The man denied that “innocent Israelis” were killed during the attacks of October 7, expressed support for Hamas and suggested rape never occurred during the barbaric attacks.
“I realized quickly, if this is someone being presented to me as one of the more educated people, I might be in for a real shock,” Fox said.
Then he hit the streets to find locals and recorded a series of spontaneous interviews while walking around Ramallah. But Fox said “things got very contentious very quick” once he hit the streets.
“It was like one after another, massive love and support for Hamas,” Fox said.
“I was specifically looking for younger people thinking, OK, someone here is not going to support Hamas. And they all do,” he continued. “It really ranged from sympathy to actual love and admiration for Hamas…. I thought I would find at least some people who were not diehard Hamas supporters, and I couldn’t find one.”
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Fox found several people walking West Bank streets who were quick to express support for the Hamas terror group and declared Israeli hostages should not be released. He said things grew particularly dicey when he tried to interview a woman whose hair was fully covered.
“This Palestinian man comes up, and he starts screaming in Arabic, and my translator and producer tells me he’s very upset,” Fox said.
Fox recalled the man yelling “something about modesty,” and that females shouldn’t speak for all Palestinians. Fox attempted to ignore the man, but he only grew more agitated and started calling additional Palestinian men for support.
“They start screaming in Arabic, and I’m still just trying to be professional and go on and interview people. Eventually, my producer tells me he’s threatening to hurt us if we don’t delete the footage. I’ve never had anything like this happen in my entire career… never, no one threatened violence,” Fox said.
“Then that violence turned into death threats very quickly,” Fox added, noting that he initially pushed back and refused to delete the footage. “The Arabic started getting louder, more men started coming.”
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Fox said he’s probably “crazy,” and wanted to continue to stand his ground, but pivoted when his Muslim cameraman said he was terrified for his life.
“Eventually I cave because my cameraman tells me they’re threatening to kill us… we deleted a bunch of the footage in front of him,” he said.
“Then my producer and my cameraman grab my arm, we run to the car, and it was a pretty eye-opening experience,” he continued. “We really bolted out of Palestine… luckily they didn’t chase us to the car.”
Fox enlisted a team of IT specialists who were able to recover some of the footage, and every interview that was salvaged made the viral “Wild West Bank” video. He lost some valuable footage but said he’s “happy to be out of there alive” and is thrilled he recovered enough footage to make an impact.
“Wild West Bank” has been viewed over 4.7 million times on X alone.
Fox noted that many Jewish people don’t refer to the West Bank as “Palestine,” but he decided to use that moniker in his video and subsequent conversations about it for “kumbaya purposes.”
“Obviously there’s a land that Palestinians are living in, and the dream would be that there’s a two-state solution, at least for me. However, once I got there, I realized that dream seems further than ever,” Fox said.
Last month, the Department of State urged Americans to avoid the West Bank because of “terrorism and civil unrest.”
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US tennis star in tears after argument over chair umpire’s call, falters at Paris Olympics
Coco Gauff suffered an emotional ouster in the Paris Olympics singles tennis tournament on Tuesday, falling to Croatia’s Donna Vekić in straight sets, 7-6 (7), 6-2.
Gauff was left in tears after an argument with the chair umpire over a ruling in the match. The incident happened two games from the end of the match.
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Vekić’s return on a serve from Gauff landed near the baseline. A line judge initially called Vekić’s shot out before Gauff could send it back. However, chair umpire Jaume Campistol believed the shot was in and awarded a point to Vekić.
The Croatian tennis player took a 4-2 lead at that point.
“I never argue these calls. But he called it out before I hit the ball,” Gauff told Campistol. “It’s not even a perception; it’s the rules. I always have to advocate for myself.”
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Gauff was seen in tears amid the argument.
It was a tough day for Gauff, who initially held a 4-1 lead over Vekić in the first set. But the Wimbledon semifinalist came back and defeated her in a tiebreaker.
Vekić kept the momentum from there.
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It’s not the end for Gauff, who is the reigning U.S. Open women’s champion. She’s still in the women’s doubles competition with Jessica Pegula and mixed doubles with Taylor Fritz.
Fisherman arrested after catching 14 oversized striped bass
A Massachusetts man is under arrest after illegally catching and keeping a total of 14 oversized striped bass.
Authorities had received tips about the angler not releasing catches from his boat while he fished off of the coast of New Hampshire near New Castle and Rye, the Portsmouth Herald reported.
“NH Fish and Game officers conducted a thorough investigation and lengthy interview with the individual that resulted in a ‘caught red-handed’ confession!” officials with the New Hampshire Fish Law Enforcement Division and Operation Game Thief (OGT) posted on Facebook.
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“His intent was to sell his catch under his Commercial Striped Bass Permit in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts,” the post continued.
The man fled the scene after several anglers yelled in his direction, threatening to report him to the fish and game agency.
“As our officers searched, they included Maine Marine Patrol, Massachusetts Environmental Police, and local police to BOLO (be on the lookout) for the suspect vessel and operator,” the OGT’s post said.
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“Portsmouth Police Department successfully located him after he had loaded his boat onto a trailer and was in the act of ditching the fish.”
The fish in question ranged from 37-47 inches in length, which is above the reported legal maximum striped bass requirement in the state of New Hampshire.
“New Hampshire only issues a recreational license for saltwater fishing, which allows for one Striped Bass per angler per day that must be 28 inches to less than 31 inches,” OGT officials wrote on Facebook.
Following the arrest, the Massachusetts angler was charged with licensing violations and taking and illegally possessing the striped bass.
If the man pleads guilty to the charges, he will lose his fishing license in New Hampshire and be fined for each of the 14 illegal fish he caught, Fish and Game Colonel Kevin Jordan told the Portsmouth Herald.
“If the fisherman pleads not guilty, he could go to trial in Portsmouth District Court, facing Fish and Game prosecutors,” Jordan continued.
The illegal fish are currently being held in freezers in case the fisherman goes to trial. The fish may then be introduced as evidence.
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“They’ll freeze them in the meantime and they could be provided to a food bank or a donation center so they don’t go to waste,” Jordan said.
The OGT thanked the fishing community for diligently reporting the matter. The agency also thanked local law enforcement for quickly jumping into action “to curtail this abuse of natural resources.”
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Fox News Digital reached out to New Hampshire Fish and Wildlife for comment.