On Friday (November 27), suspect Robert Lewis Dear allegedly opened fire in a Planned Parenthood clinic in Colorado Springs, killing three people (including a cop) and wounding nine others. While CNN reports that neither state nor FBI officers have reached a conclusion on Dear’s motive, Attorney General Loretta Lynch called the shooting a “crime against women.”
Dear was taken into custody peacefully, leading critics to cite a double standard when it comes to the way officers interact with people of color and their White counterparts.
The next day, the Colorado Fraternal Order of Police issued a statement via Facebook (which has been removed, but can be viewed via this screenshot) calling those critics “race baiting morons” and “delusional ignorant fools.”
The statement twice referenced the Black Lives Matter movement, first saying that “all lives matter,” then saying that “Hands up, don’t shoot” is a “false narrative.” It also makes claims that could be viewed as actually bolstering the arguments of critics. It says that “the shooter was given the opportunity to surrender. The choice to live or die was his.” Many activists argue that choice was not offered to notable Black victims of police violence, including Tamir Rice and Laquan McDonald.
The statement appears in full below:
This morning we saw a post from Ohio FOP admonishing some who have posted that the only reason the shooter in yesterday’s tragedy was taken alive is because he is White. We responded with the following statement:
“Sadly there are race baiting delusional ignorant fools with an agenda of hate that use any tragic event to peddle their corrupted opinion. What they don’t understand is our job is to preserve life not take it. You see for us all lives matter. That is the primary reason we join this profession. The standard we live by.
We here in Colorado do know the circumstances at the conclusion of the incident in Colorado Springs. In yesterday’s heroic police action the shooter was given the opportunity to surrender. The choice to live or die was his. He chose to live, laid down his weapon, complied with all commands and peacefully surrendered.
What the race baiting morons who believe that he was spared because he was White fail to acknowledge is that just this year alone there have been numerous shootings of police officers where the suspects were taken into custody. Many of those suspects were persons of color. They were not executed. They were taken into custody.
The delusional fools that would have the world believe otherwise promote their hate-filled agenda on the foundation of a national lie rooted in the Michael Brown incident. ‘Hands up don’t shoot’ is their mantra and a false narrative surrounding events in Ferguson. They are not worthy of the right to post on your page. Let them peddle their hate-filled, divisive rhetoric elsewhere. Thank you for your support brother.
Feel free to copy and paste this statement from the Colorado FOP as a response to any such post.
(H/t ThinkProgress)