In what is looking to many in the law enforcement community like a snub, Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton has decided not to seek the endorsement of the nation’s largest police union. She has instead—rather conspicuously—sought the endorsement of Black Lives Matter activists, and her efforts have garnered mixed results according to Kerry Picket of The Daily Caller.
After holding meetings with BLM activists for almost a year, Picket reports that Clinton received the endorsement of the BLM-linked “Mothers of the Movement” but failed to secure the support of BLM co-founder Alicia Garza.
Garza recently slammed Clinton, saying the former secretary of state only “uses black people for votes” and “photo ops,” but doesn’t “do anything for black communities” after getting elected.
Nevertheless the Clinton-Kaine campaign touts the support she received during the Democratic National Convention from mothers of the Black Lives Matter movement.
The mothers of Michael Brown, Trayvon Martin and Eric Garner stood on stage in Philadelphia praising Clinton.
“Hillary Clinton has the compassion and understanding to support grieving mothers,” Sybrina Fulton, mother of Martin, said. “She has the courage to lead the fight for commonsense gun legislation. She has a plan to divide that so often exists between law enforcement and the communities they serve.”
On the other hand, the Clinton campaign appeared to string the Fraternal Order of Police (FOP) on for a period of time until staff told the union Clinton would not seek its endorsement, The Hill reported.
Chuck Canterbury, president of FOP spoke to The Hill after he and others union members went to Trump Towers Friday, to discuss Trump’s positions on law enforcement.
The union will not be meeting with Clinton, however, because according to Canterbury, the campaign did not want to fill out the questionnaire required for the police union’s endorsement.
“We were talking to the highest levels of the campaign, and we had all indications that she was going to return the questionnaire,” Canterbury said. “And on the deadline date we were advised that they declined.”
According To Canterbury, the union was only snubbed once before by a presidential candidate—John Kerry in 2004. The last time FOP endorsed a Democrat was in 1996, when the union endorsed Clinton’s husband, Bill.
Why would Clinton value Black Lives Matter’s endorsement over the Fraternal Order of Police?
Find out what Sheriff David Clarke thinks on the next page.
She’s “a straight-up cop hater” who sympathizes with the “criminal element” of the Black Lives Matter movement, Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke explained with characteristic bluntness on “Fox and Friends” Monday morning:
“It’s a huge miscalculation, a huge political miscalculation on the part of Mrs. Bill Clinton,” the sheriff said. “Look, everyone running for public office, at any level, knows that you want and you have to have the support of not only law enforcement but other first responders. But she has made it clear from the convention that she is all in with the criminal element. She doesn’t care about victims of crime, she’s a straight-up cop hater, and so she is, like I said, rolling the dice on not having the support of law enforcement.”
“The problem for her is that middle America, mainstream America, does not share her sentiment in having sympathy for criminals,” he said. “You’re talking a potential 3, 4, 5 million votes that she’s willing to risk just to get in bed with criminals.”
The outspoken sheriff said that “Donald Trump has made it clear he stands on the side of the American law enforcement officer, on law and order, victims of crime, and other law-abiding citizens.”
He added that “American police officers are “on their heels” and not engaging in the kind of “assertive policing” they should to keep crime and violence in check because they can’t rely on the support of the attorney general, the president, or even their local officials.
Clarke argued that Clinton “thinks that the criminals are victims of a racist criminal justice system, which is a lie,” and pointed out that law-abiding minorities are disproportionately affected by the violence.
“With her getting in bed with this Black Lives movement, this dangerous, hateful ideology, she is taking it out on good, law-abiding black people that live in the American ghetto,” he concluded. “They’re the ones who are victimized disproportionately by crime and violence.”
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