Lara Logan: Protesters shouting for ambushed police to die are ‘trained professional agitators’

The protesters who showed up at the hospital where two Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies were being treated after they were reportedly shot in the head while sitting in their patrol car on Saturday night are “trained professional agitators,” Fox Nation host Lara Logan told “Fox & Friends” on Monday.

The two Los Angeles sheriff’s deputies were shot in their patrol car around 7 p.m. Saturday by a suspect who “opened fire without warning or provocation” and now a manhunt is underway, authorities said.

On Saturday night, protesters were blocking the entrance to the hospital emergency room where the two deputies were undergoing surgery and yelled, "We hope they die," the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department said.

WSJ EDITORIAL BOARD: AFTER SHERIFF'S DEPUTIES SHOT IN LA, PROTESTERS CHANT 'WE HOPE THEY DIE'

“There’s a much more strategic objective here and those chants, ‘We hope they die,’ those are intended to incite,” the host of Fox Nation’s “Lara Logan Has No Agenda” said on Monday.

“These are agitators, they’re trained and professional agitators who know how to whip up a crowd and whose messages are designed to divide the country. They’re not designed to unite Americans.”

She went on to say that the “agitators” have been “trying to provoke a race war from the very, very beginning.”

The veteran foreign correspondent pointed out that “these are the kind of insurgent tactics that I saw used on the battlefield in Iraq, for example, where insurgents need to create the impression that they’re a much bigger force than they really are, so they do these kind of events and in front of the cameras, when they know people are listening.”

“They’re projecting power that isn’t real because they don’t really have that power,” Logan continued. “And they’re projecting fear because when police officers are afraid and under pressure, they’re more likely to make mistakes.”

The deputies, a 24-year-old man and a 31-year-old woman, were both in critical condition as they underwent surgery following the attack, which occurred outside a Metro rail station in Compton, according to the sheriff’s department.

Both deputies were shot in the head, the Los Angeles Times reported, adding that following surgery, they are now listed in stable condition and expected to survive. The two were sworn in just over a year ago and the female deputy is the mother of a 6-year-old boy, officials said in a news conference.

Sheriff’s officials announced a $100,000 reward for information leading to an arrest in the case. Authorities said they only have a “generic description” of the suspect seen on video opening fire with a pistol.

Fox News’ Brie Stimson and the Associated Press contributed to this report.

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