Trump has never apologized, telling reporters last year: “You have people on both sides of that.”Īnd he has even appeared to advocate for the rougher treatment of people in police custody, speaking dismissively of the police practice of shielding the heads of handcuffed suspects as they are being placed in patrol cars.īut Trump’s tone has changed in recent weeks as he has repeatedly expressed dismay at footage of the killing of Ahmaud Arbery, the 25-year-old black man fatally shot in February in Georgia while jogging. In 1989, he took out full-page newspaper ads calling for the death penalty for the Central Park Five, five young men of color who were wrongly convicted of a brutal assault on a jogger. Yet Trump has a long history of injecting himself into racially sensitive cases. Trump has, however, invoked those words on several occasions to mock political rivals, even bringing his hands to his neck for dramatic effect. Video of the encounter was viewed millions of times online, and Garner’s dying words, “I can’t breathe,” became a rallying cry for the Black Lives Matter movement. Trump has never addressed the 2014 death of Eric Garner, who was placed in a chokehold by police trying to arrest him for selling loose cigarettes. “This is something that is a local matter and that’s something that we feel should be left up to the local authorities,” then-White House press secretary Sarah Sanders said at the time. Trump has been silent on a number of high-profile police-involved killings, including that of Stephon Clark, a black man shot by Sacramento, California, police in 2018. “I think the difference is a November election.” Al Sharpton, a civil rights activist and Trump critic who has known the president for decades. “This is the first race-tinged case that I’ve ever heard him address” as president, said the Rev. But some activists doubt that Trump has suddenly evolved on the issue of police brutality and instead see election year political calculations. Once more likely to hew to the “blue lives matter” mantra, Trump, his allies and Republicans in elected office across the nation have been questioning the conduct of the officer who pinned Floyd down and calling for justice. 2 GOP House leader, said on Fox News Friday. “It seems like they’re carrying out a vendetta against the president,” Republican Rep. Twitter explained that it took action “in the interest of preventing others from being inspired to commit violent acts” but “kept the Tweet on Twitter because it is important that the public still be able to see the Tweet given its relevance to ongoing matters of public importance.”Įarlier this week, Twitter fact checked two of Trump’s tweets about mail-in ballots, drawing his anger. A user looking at Trump’s timeline would have to click to see the original tweet. “These THUGS are dishonoring the memory of George Floyd, and I won’t let that happen,” he wrote shortly before 1 a.m.Īlthough Twitter added the warning to Trump’s tweet, the company did not remove it, saying it had determined the message might be in the public interest - something it does only for tweets by elected and government officials. Trump, who has often remained silent in the aftermath of police-involved killings and has a long history of defending police, has been uncharacteristically vocal this time, saying earlier Thursday that he felt “very, very badly” about Floyd’s death and calling video capturing his struggle “a very shocking sight.”īut his language grew more aggressive as violence boiled over in Minneapolis on Thursday night. The move came a day after Trump signed an executive order challenging the site’s liability protections. Slapping back, the White House reposted Trump’s “shooting starts” message on its official Twitter account Friday morning. Trump didn’t clarify what he meant - Walz has already activated the National Guard - but the tweet drew another warning from Twitter for his rhetoric, with the social media giant saying he had “violated the Twitter Rules about glorifying violence.” Any difficulty and we will assume control but, when the looting starts, the shooting starts. He said he spoke to the state’s Democratic governor, Tim Walz, and “told him that the Military is with him all the way. Trump tweeted after protesters torched a Minneapolis police station, capping three days of violence over the death of George Floyd, who pleaded for air as a white police officer knelt on his neck. WASHINGTON (AP) - President Donald Trump on Friday threatened to take action to bring the city of Minneapolis “under control,” calling violent protesters outraged by the death of a black man in police custody “thugs” and saying that “when the looting starts, the shooting starts.”
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