Green Party Co-Chair On #BlackLivesMatter: ‘The Violence Starts with Law Enforcement’

HOUSTON, Texas — A co-chair of the national convention of the Green Party of the United States said during a pre-convention press conference that the current violence on the streets begins with the police.

Breitbart Texas’ Bob Price asked Green Party media coordinator Scott McLarty about the Party’s position on the Black Lives Matter movement and the violence against police that has grown out of that movement.

Co-Chair of the Green Party National Convention, Andrea Merida stepped in for McLarty and said, “First of all, I need to re-calibrate that question because we need to focus on the violence that is inflicted on our communities every day in terms of houselessness, in terms of lack of employment, in terms of lack of access to health care,  et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.”

“The violence doesn’t start with people exercising their supposedly constitutionally protected First Amendment rights to redress grievances, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. The violence starts with law enforcement. I have to be very clear about that.”

She added, “And it really is engendered from the system in part, in terms of that economic violence, et cetera, first of all.”

“The Green Party of the United States has declared very loudly, very plainly, that Black Lives Matter. We’re not going to fall-back from that position, and we believe that Black Lives Matter, in the streets, in the educational environment, in justice, when it comes to fair housing, in every way, shape, and form. We’re not going to recoil from that position.”

The U.S. Army veteran says she is “an active participant and ally of the Black Lives Matter movement in Denver, in the periphery.”

Merida is the current co-chair of the Denver Green Party and is a steering committee member of 15NowColorado, a ballot initiative to get a $15/hour minimum wage statewide and to allow cities to set their own minimum wages. She is a former elected member of the Denver Board of Education, and Denver’s first elected Green Party official.

Bob Price serves as associate editor and senior political news contributor for Breitbart Texas. He is a founding member of the Breitbart Texas team. Follow him on Twitter @BobPriceBBTX.

Lana Shadwick is a contributing writer and legal analyst for Breitbart Texas. She has served as a prosecutor and associate judge in Texas. Follow her on Twitter @LanaShadwick2.