Rep. Cori Bush (D-MO) praised the Black Lives Matter (BLM) activist who reportedly called for “death” for police officers in 2014 during a speech on the House floor Thursday.
The freshman Democrat spoke about Palestinian-American Bassem Masri’s actions during the 2014 police shooting of Michael Brown Jr. in Ferguson, comparing the situation in Israel’s West Bank with the Black Lives Matter movement.
Masri, whom Bush described as a “St. Louis Palestinian,” died in 2018. But Bush recalled how Masri livestreamed his confrontations with the Ferguson police following the 2014 death of Michael Brown Jr.
“I’m praying for your death and your death and your death and your death,” he reportedly told officers in one of his viral confrontations.
Masri was among those arrested in the Ferguson demonstrations in 2014. A month after his arrest, Masri tweeted, “Pigs in a blanket, fry ’em like bacon,” which became a notorious anti-police slogan among Black Lives Matter protesters.
“As a Palestinian, he was ready to resist, to rebel, to rise up with us as our St. Louis community mourned Mike Brown, Jr.’s state-sanctioned murder, and as we demanded an end to the militarized police occupation of our communities,” Bush told lawmakers on Thursday.
“Palestinians know what state violence, militarized policing, and occupation of their communities look like,” she continued.
Bush then proposed diverting foreign military aid to support the community in St. Louis.