NEW YORK — Longtime Fox News host Bill O’Reilly this week criticized those protesting in Ferguson, Missouri during a phone interview with guest host Eric Bolling, saying they had blown the event way out of proportion because “only one kid died.”

“You can’t have people getting upset every time the police shoot a single unarmed Black man,” protested O’Reilly. “Nobody’s perfect. These things happen. Maybe if two or three children had been shot or a whole family, sure. But one Black kid? Come on, people.”

The Fox News host then argued that 2012 FBI statistics showing a ratio of 420 fatal police shootings compared to 12 million arrests proved that police were not unfairly targeting the African-American community.

“This is an infinitesimal situation. It doesn’t happen, and those people who run in to Ferguson or any other city and say that the police are hunting down young Black men are lying,” O’Reilly said. “They shot one kid. One! What’s the big deal?”

O’Reilly went on to suggest people needed to put the death of Michael Brown in perspective. “I mean when you compare this one measly shooting to all of the young Black men they’re not shooting, I just don’t see why everybody’s so upset.”

O’Reilly then went on to claim the protesters have ulterior motives. “‘No justice, no peace’?” he asked, referring to the slogan chanted by many of the protesters. “These people don’t want justice.

“They just want to get on TV, like everybody else,” he explained.