Black Lives Matter Founder’s Mea Culpa Not Enough

As I write this column, the city of Minneapolis is once again experiencing riots following a fatal police use of force when officers from a US Marshals service task force confronted an armed suspect who failed to comply with the officers’ lawful commands once again to take him into custody. The investigation is still ongoing but rather than wait for all the facts to come out, cop-hating agitators from Black Lives Matter took to the streets and rioted. This has become the automatic default from these goons. Before learning what happened, they simply react to circumstances. They do this in part because they know they can riot, loot businesses, burn things down and destroy property with impunity because of ineffective tactics employed by law enforcement that would prevent property damage and preserve the peace because they have been neutered by feckless police commanders with hold the line and stand down orders.

According to the Minnesota State Bureau of Criminal Apprehension that is conducting the investigation, several law enforcement groups involved in the task force were pursuing who they described as a “fugitive” because of a felon in possession of a firearm case. The suspect’s family described him as a musician who appeared in comedy videos. They mentioned nothing of his violent criminal lifestyle that led him to becoming felon in the first place and therefore not eligible to even possess a firearm. That “community members” (read that to mean Black Lives Matter), continue to embrace these misfit criminals and hold them up as if they are people to be admired and role models on how to live your life is part of the cultural rot and cultural dysfunction that plagues the black community. As a black man myself, I find this shameful and embarrassing.

The irony is that this occurred on the day the city of Minneapolis began to dismantle a makeshift memorial in the intersection where George Floyd resisted arrest while geeked up on fatal levels of fentanyl and met his untimely demise. You may recall that this is the same George Floyd who did time in prison for a home invasion robbery where he held a loaded gun to the stomach of a pregnant woman while threatening to shoot her. It was a year ago when Floyd died and numerous Black Lives Matter and cop-hating advocates marked the day as if it was a national holiday. This made me want to puke. We should not use George Floyd as a marker for anything in the United States except maybe as a lesson on how not to lead your life. Referring to his death as an anniversary disparages the term. The death and destruction through rioting that followed his death is nothing I want to remember and the sooner we put Floyd in our collective rear view mirrors of life, the better off the nation will be.

That brings me to another story related to Black Lives Matter that begs for honest analysis. The founder of the St. Paul, Minnesota chapter of Black Lives Matter recently in a video announced that he was quitting the movement after learning what he called the “ugly truth” about the group’s priorities. While numerous conservative news cites fawned all over the opportunity to interview him, my reaction was, hold on just a dog-gone minute.

Let’s drill down into this mea culpa. Rashard Turner founded a chapter of BLM in St. Paul, Minnesota in 2015. That means he led and participated in the rioting that followed the death of George Floyd in neighboring Minneapolis. Those riots led to hundreds of billions of dollars in property damage, businesses and jobs lost and law enforcement officers attacked and injured. The only “ugly truth” about Black Lives Matter is that they have always stood for contempt and hate of police officers. They have advocated for the death of law enforcement officers and were the original architects of the defend and abolish the police movement leading to massive cuts in public safety budgets triggering spikes in violent crime in many major cities. BLM-inspired surrogates murdered two law enforcement officers in New York City in 2015, three officers from the Baton Rouge, Louisiana police department and five assassinated in Dallas, Texas in 2016. BLM supporters blocked the emergency entrance of a hospital as an ambulance carried a LA County Sheriff’s deputy who had been shot. The crowd cheered the shooting.

BLM is a Marxist movement that advocates for the destruction of the black nuclear family. BLM has always been a hateful racist movement. These have always been their priorities from the very beginning so when exactly did BLM St. Paul chapter founder Rashard Turner have this epiphany? Nobody interviewing him post epiphany bothered to ask him. Well, I am.

Rashard Turner has blood on his hands. The blood of police officers. He didn’t even have the decency to apologize for all the death and destruction caused by his founding a chapter of Black Lives Matter. If he wants to atone for his sins, he should start by opening up a GoFundMe account and begin raising money for all the business owners whose life fortunes were lost in the rioting in Minneapolis. He should go to the local and state police officer’s memorial monuments honoring cops killed in the line of duty and apologize and say a prayer, if he even prays. After all, Marxists are atheists. And he should invite the local media so all the other scumbags from Black Lives Matter can witness it. This would be just a start. He has a lot of penance to do.

Rashard Turner has in no way atoned for his creation of a movement of hate. He has not yet comprehended the error of his ways. He’s an opportunist and still a dirtbag.

Sheriff David A. Clarke Jr. is former Sheriff of Milwaukee Co, Wisconsin, President of AmericasSheriff LLC, Board member of the Crime Research Center, author of the book Cop Under Fire: Beyond Hashtags of Race Crime and Politics for a Better America. To learn more visit www.americassheriff.com