National Action Network’s Reverend Al Sharpton tweeted that he would be attending the White House meetings on Ferguson and law enforcement that President Barack Obama is hosting.
The controversial Sharpton is an adviser to the president on the Ferguson matter. Riots were sparked in Ferguson, Missouri last week when the St. Louis grand jury did not indict Darren Wilson, the Ferguson police officer who shot and killed 18-year-old Mike Brown in August. Wilson recently resigned from the Ferguson Police Department.
According to the NY Post, Sharpton arrived at the shooting site three days after the incident and began to brief the White House immediately thereafter.
“There’s a trust factor with The Rev from the Oval Office on down,” a White House official told Politico in August. “He gets it, and he’s got credibility in the community that nobody else has got. There’s really no one else out there who does what he does.”
Sharpton met with the Brown family in Ferguson and reported directly to White House senior adviser Valerie Jarrett. According to Politico, Sharpton was instructed by the administration to seek out specific information, including what the Brown family wanted from the White House.
New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio is scheduled to be at the meetings at the White House as well, according to a press release from de Blasio’s office on Sunday night. The White House told the AP that Obama’s cabinet discussion will focus on his administration’s review of federal programs that provide military-style equipment to local law enforcement agencies.
Rev. Sharpton told an audience on Sunday at the Friendly Temple Missionary Baptist Church in St. Louis that, in death, the Brown event would help alter police behavior, KSDK reported. “You won the first round Mr. Prosecutor, but don’t cut your gloves off, cause the fight’s not over,” Sharpton said.
Missouri Lieutenant Governor Peter Kinder, though, does not want de Blasio listening to Sharpton.
“In my view, they should not be working with him,” Lt. Gov. Peter Kinder told The NY Post on Saturday.
“He is an inciter of mobs and he demands mob justice,” Kinder said of Sharpton, who has been drumming up protests before TV cameras in Ferguson and New York.
The de Blasio administration is currently dealing with an NYPD case in Staten Island similar to the Wilson-Brown August incident. A grand jury is expected to decide the fate of police involved in the choke hold death of NY resident Eric Garner.