Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke (D) said that the Black Lives Matter protests have been”turned into a political construct” and are “nothing more than an attempt to try to energize and mobilize the black vote through the 2016 election” on Monday’s broadcast of the Fox News Channel “O’Reilly Factor.”
Clarke said the renewed protests in Ferguson were “nothing more than a return to the scene of the big lie, the hands up, don’t shoot, this whole Black Lives Matter movement. This false narrative that came out Ferguson. They destroyed the town. Look, a bunch of thugs, a bunch of creeps, criminals, race-hustlers, with a scattering of some law-abiding people, converged in this are and ripped the town up. I would like to think that this phony movement would have come back to Ferguson one year later to apologize to the people, the good law-abiding people of Ferguson, Missouri. But instead, we get this whole phony movement that’s just been turned into a political construct, Eric, I think you know that. This is nothing more than an attempt to try to energize and mobilize the black vote through the 2016 election. And there’s no better way for them to inflame it than to bring race and police together in the same narrative because it’s an explosive issue.” And “You know, I’ve renamed this movement after Baltimore ‘coming to a city near you.’ And it’s also happened in other cities. Yeah, they’re going to keep this thing going. It’s an unfortunate thing because, look, this isn’t Selma, Alabama, this isn’t Montgomery, this isn’t the Civil Rights movement. Mike Brown was engaged in felonious conduct. This is a slap in the face to people like Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King Jr. They ought to go back and study Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. I don’t remember gunfire and rioting breaking out at a protest rally or protest movement that he held.”
Clarke concluded, “the whole thing is phony. Look, if there are problems in some of these cities, and there might be, those things should be dealt with on a local level. This is not a national movement, Eric. They’re trying to turn it into [one]. Let the people at the local level work through their problems, and if problems do exist with the police, let them work it out at that level. But instead, like I said, this is a political construct now. This isn’t about civil rights. This isn’t about making — improving relations between minority communities and police. This is about mobilizing and energizing the black vote for the 2016 election.”
Clarke also stated of the handling of the Ferguson protests, “I’m glad that they called the state of emergency early. You have to preempt this sort of thing. They have to have the resources in place, and they have to be able to, and ready to, act quickly. I think in the first round. And I thought — saw this in other cities, there was an over-reliance by the police on avoiding confrontation. Look, the police are not looking for confrontation. But if someone’s going to bring the fight, then they have to respond quickly. If there’s looting, if there’s gunfire like last night, there’s rioting, there’s other sort of criminal behavior, law enforcement has to take the resources that they have, make sure they have them in place, make sure they have a solid plan, respond quickly, and crush and don’t — and give the impression to these individuals early on, that this stuff’s not going to stand.”
Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett