For some reason, Massachusetts senator and 2020 presidential hopeful Elizabeth Warren can’t stop calling police violent, racist murderers.
And now, after yet another comment where Warren slammed police, one chief in Massachusetts is challenging her to come and see what it’s really like to work in the world of law enforcement.
Warren took to Twitter last week to once again antagonize police and further the divide between members of law enforcement and the communities they are sworn to protect. Five years after Ferguson, Warren is still pushing the same false narrative.
5 years ago Michael Brown was murdered by a white police officer in Ferguson, Missouri. Michael was unarmed yet he was shot 6 times. I stand with activists and organizers who continue the fight for justice for Michael. We must confront systemic racism and police violence head on.
— Elizabeth Warren (@ewarren) August 9, 2019
The spread of misinformation and false stories is continuing to put officers in harm’s way, with criminals all across the country lashing out angrily at police in violent attacks and acts of hate.
After Warren posted the flat-out lie, one that was retweeted nearly 7,000 times, a police chief in Yarmouth, Massachusetts decided he couldn’t bite his tongue any longer.
Yarmouth police Chief Frank G. Frederickson called out his state’s senator for her actions, especially in the wake of so many officers being attacked both on and off-duty.
“This is not about politics. This is about standing up for our officers,” Frederickson said. “This is about one issue: I don’t want to see another officer unnecessarily murdered. It’s that simple.”
Frederickson took it a step further and issued an invitation to the senator, asking her to spend some time around real officers in real departments “to see what actually takes place.”
Elizabeth Warren: “5 Years Ago Michael Brown Was Murdered by a White Police Officer in Ferguson, Missouri.”
Dear Liz:
You are a law professor, right? Well, I’ve got a legal question for you:
Isn’t the above claim both a lie and a libel?https://t.co/8XxeK65l4u
— VDARE (@vdare) August 10, 2019
The Massachusetts chief said it’s incredibly upsetting that an elected leader from his very state would have it out so bad for the people who risk their lives every day to protect the public.
“This hurts, and every chief feels the same way.”
Other law enforcement officials in the state got together to issue a statement condemning Warren’s comments.
The Boston Herald reported that Hamilton Police Chief Russell Stevens, president of the chiefs group, wrote in his letter to Warren that what she tweeted was “based on false information” and the DOJ ruled “Michael Brown was not murdered.” He urged her to read the report.
“Your reckless tweet will only serve to create hatred towards Police Officers and place them in danger of more assaults and perhaps death,” Stevens added in his letter. “Having had two Police Officers murdered in your own state, in the past 18 months, we expect our elected Officials to condemn the murder and assaults of Police Officers. Instead on multiple occasions, you choose to fan the fires of divide for you own political gains. Shame on you!”
So will Warren accept the invitation? It seems highly unlikely. She almost never appears in interviews unless it’s her idea. And our guess is that if she showed her face, she would walk out of that experience with an entirely new perspective on the world of a police officer.
That probably wouldn’t play well with her anti-police presidential campaign.
Other police critics who call out officers for their split-second decision making have undergone a similar challenge. A few years ago, a prominent activist within the Black Lives Matter community took police up on a challenge to undergo a training scenario regarding use of force.
It didn’t turn out like he planned.
Maybe Warren should undergo the same type of scenario?
These LEOs aren’t the only ones who are outraged by the hateful and untrue statements from Warren.
Sherry Graham-Potter is a surviving spouse of an officer that was murdered in the line of duty. She had some choice words for the senator after her tweet went viral.
Today is the 14th anniversary of the death of my husband Deputy Tim Graham, who sacrificed his life in the line of duty protecting his community. Today should, for my friends and family, be a day of commemorating the life of an extraordinary man.
We should be poring over photo albums, retelling favorite stories and celebrating the life of a wonderful man who willingly gave his life in service to others.
Instead, I am sitting alone in front of my computer writing this letter to you, because, in simple terms, I am fed up.
I am sick to death of the lies. I am sick to death of the rhetoric.
I am sick to death of people, such as yourself, who are willing to push a false narrative regardless of how many times it has been debunked.
Why? Simply because you are so sullied by political ambition that you are willing to blatantly lie to the American people about an incident that was investigated by the Department of Justice of an administration that did not bother to hide it’s contempt for law enforcement, yet STILL exonerated Officer Darren Wilson of any wrongdoing, and concluded that the shooting was justified, WELL within the parameters of self-defense.
5 years ago Michael Brown was murdered by a white police officer in Ferguson, Missouri. Michael was unarmed yet he was shot 6 times. I stand with activists and organizers who continue the fight for justice for Michael. We must confront systemic racism and police violence head on.
— Elizabeth Warren (@ewarren) August 9, 2019
Yet your tweet showcased either your stunning level of ignorance, or your blatant willingness to misrepresent an incident, regardless of the truth, and regardless of the innocent lives of law enforcement officers and their families that it could potentially affect. Frankly, whichever is true, your recklessness and blatant disregard for the safety of some of the greatest Americans in this country is abhorrent.
Are you so blinded by your desire to reside on Pennsylvania Avenue that you are willing to pander to the American people to this degree? To unabashedly prey upon people that you know can be emotionally manipulated? Have you any shame?
You either chose to ignore the highly detailed investigative DOJ report exonerating Officer Wilson, or you have read it, and are still choosing to falsely represent its findings. Either way, I repeat, shame on you. I’ll attach it here, perhaps you might peruse it while flying across the country in your private jet to attend another event where you will, no doubt, continue to lie to another gathering of American people.
Michael Brown was not murdered. He died because of the choices he, and he alone made that day. And do you know who paid the price? Ferguson business owners. Law abiding citizens, whose lives were endangered during the violent riots. Police officers dispatched from agencies across the state.
Are you aware that Officer Wilson’s family had to go into hiding after the riots? That his life was destroyed, even though he did absolutely nothing wrong?
That he endured endless death threats to himself and his family? That he can no longer do the job he worked so hard and sacrificed so much to do?
That he feels the need to disguise himself when he goes out? That his wife had to check in under an assumed name when she went to the hospital for the birth of their daughter?
That they struggle to make ends meet, while the Brown family raked in a settlement of $1.5 million dollars, and undisclosed amounts from a book publishing deal (although the book is allegedly non-fiction, it is anything but) and countless other ventures.
Are there mistakes and hiccups you could pull out of Officer Wilson’s file and hold up to the light? Certainly. He was human.
Just like every other man or woman who puts on that star or badge every day. But in the climate today, flaws, missteps or mistakes are seemingly unacceptable for a law enforcement officer.
It doesn’t matter how much good they do on the street, how many lives they have touched, how much trauma they have endured over their career of dealing with the absolute worst that society has to offer.
Are you aware of how many messes that officers must clean up on a daily basis? How many fights they break up, how many dead bodies they have see?
How many abused children, drug addled teenagers, beaten spouses, horrific suicide aftermaths, death notifications they have made?
How many death threats they have received themselves? The hurled insults, the threats to their spouses and children of rape and murder.
The being spit upon, vomited on, urinated on. The bodily fluids that are hosed out of their patrol car and onto residential streets every night after a twelve-hour shift?
The laundry they refuse to allow to co-mingle with baby blankets and toddler onesies? Do you have any idea what it is like to watch the person you love most in this world walk through the door at night with the weight of all that upon their shoulders?
Can you even conjure up an iota of compassion for what that must be like to carry that around over a thirty-year career?
Do you have any idea of what the families of officers who responded to the riots went through in the days following the incident? I am, I’ve spoken to many, who kissed their spouses and parent goodbye on the way out the door, dread eating their insides, only able to conjure up the worst-case scenario of what their loved ones were walking into?
Do you know some of those officers went days before they had the ability to check in with their families?
Do you know the agony of having to wait for confirmation that the person you love most in the world has not been injured or killed? Of course you don’t. Because you don’t care. You don’t care about anything but the quickest path to the position that holds the most power. And that is EVERYTHING that is wrong with politicians in this country today.
I know you won’t see this. I know you won’t read it. I’m a tiny little meaningless fish in a big pond that you use to feed your ego and addiction to power and influence. But maybe other people will.
Maybe people who will actually use reason and logic to look at the case you reference, and make their decision to base their conclusion upon the actual facts of the case, rather than relying on the manipulative tactics of a presidential candidate, who clearly is willing to dispose of any integrity or honesty in order to manipulate Americans to further an agenda.
