On CBS's
Face The Nation today, 2016 GOP Presidential contender and New Jersey Governor Chris Christie
falsely accuses the #BlackLivesMatter movement of encouraging the murder of cops.
NBC New York:
The Black Lives Matter movement is creating an environment that can put police officers at risk, Republican presidential candidate Chris Christie said Sunday, accusing President Barack Obama of supporting the movement, encouraging "lawlessness" and not backing up law enforcement.
"I don't believe that movement should be justified when they are calling for the murder of police officers," Christie said on CBS' "Face the Nation." Told that some individual members have been recorded calling for the deaths of officers, Christie replied that the environment is "what the movement is creating."
Black Lives Matter was established after the 2012 shooting of Trayvon Martin, an unarmed teen, by a neighborhood watch enthusiast, and has become an issue in the 2016 presidential campaign. The group said on its Facebook page in September that conservatives are trying to turn the movement into a danger to officers.
"We're targeting the brutal system of policing, not individual police," the movement said in its statement. "The Black Lives Matter Network seeks to end the system of policing that allows for unchecked violence against black people."
David Edwards at The Raw Story:
According to the New Jersey governor, the president’s embrace of Black Lives Matter was just a symptom of his lawlessness, which Christie said included sanctuary cities.
“That type of lawlessness sets a tone, and then when you have liberal mayors like Bill de Blasio in New York who are basically tying one hand behind the back of police officers, and then we have folks — murder rate up 11 percent — police officers in New York City being murdered,” Christie argued. “I’ll be the type of president who will back up law enforcement, back up the police officers because I was a law enforcement officer.”
He's playing the blame Obama and de Blasio card here.
The Guardian:
Christie, the governor of New Jersey and a former US attorney, presents himself as a tough voice on law and order issues. He is nonetheless well down in polls regarding the 15-strong Republican presidential field.
On Sunday he said Black Lives Matter was “creating” an environment, as, he said, some of its supporters had chanted for the death of police.
Obama last week defended Black Lives Matter, urging the nation to take police treatment of black Americans seriously.
“We, as a society, particularly given our history, have to take this seriously,” Obama said.
The
truth is that the #BlackLivesMatter movement is about ending the rampant police brutality directed at the African-American community and on
criminal justice reform proposals, and NOT about advocating the deaths of law enforcement officials, in contrast to what #BLM opponents (
aka the #PoliceLivesMatter/#BlueLivesMatter/#AllLivesMatter crowd) led by the conservative media would like to believe.
Kamilah Muhammad at The Odyssey Online on debunking the right's lies about #BlackLivesMatter:
The media frenzy would have one believe that the uproar Black Lives Matter is creating is inciting people to go out and kill police officers. In reality, the shooting of police officers is down 16 percent this year. What the media does not display is the surge of black men and minorities in general killed by police officers.
The Cops' Lives Matter campaign that has recently sprung up all over social media is not a reasonable one, because cops' lives evidently do matter. When there is a manhunt that goes on for days and days using thousands of on- and off-duty officers, as well as volunteers, it is obvious that policemen's lives matter -- as they should. There is no doubt that cops' lives matter. The question is whether black lives matter, and therefore there is a need for a slogan, campaign, and movement. Thousands show up in honor one of their fallen cop coworkers, but after the murder of Michael Brown, his blood still stained the ground and only a cone stood in the place where his body lay for hours.
And while all lives should certainly matter, the need to specify and highlight black lives is clear. Unarmed Black men are disproportionately killed by police officers and are almost never charged and even more rarely convicted.
And this past week,
President Obama defended the movement in no uncertain terms.
From the 10.25.2015 edition of CBS's Face The Nation: