Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke (D) said that he was “insulted” by comments on racial profiling by police officers made “out of line” Attorney General Eric Holder on Saturday’s “Justice with Judge Jeanine” on the Fox News Channel.
“He’s [Holder] way out of line…he hasn’t produced one shred of evidence that law enforcement officers or agencies either systematically, institutionally, or through policy initiatives engage in racist practices. So, for him to want paint this broad brush or use a broad brush, I should say, and indict every law enforcement officer in America, I reject that, I’m insulted by that, and I’m going to continue to stick up for the men and women who put on the uniform and go out and protect and defend their communities” Clarke declared. He also argued that Holder had refused to offer a concrete definition of racial profiling so he could “move the goalpost” in order to avoid having his claims against law enforcement rebutted.
The discussion then turned to the Michael Brown and Eric Garner deaths, which Clarke said were “two very different cases” that had the common thread of individuals not cooperating with lawful commands of officers.
Regarding the specific details of the Garner case, he stated “I don’t know all of the facts of that case and I’m just looking at a couple of slides. But, these things don’t happen in a linear fashion. When you go to get somebody into custody who does not want to be taken into custody, it’s all over the place. You end up with body parts, you end up grabbing people in places that you didn’t intend to do because they’re moving all around. You can see that Mr. Garner there did not want to be taken into custody. He’s a large man. You know, you hold things down, I don’t know hand on his shoulder, hand on the head. But when the individual continues to resist arrest, you do what you have to do to get him into custody. I think it’s a tragedy that both of these men died, there’s no doubt about that, these cops didn’t enter into this situation wanting to use deadly force in either of those cases.”
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