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Former NYC Mayor Giuliani Claims Black Lives Matter is Racist

HeadlineJul 11, 2016

A handful of former politicians and pro-police groups have lashed out against President Obama and the Black Lives Matter movement in the wake of the Dallas shootings. On Friday, the head of the National Association of Police Organizations, William Johnson, accused the Obama administration of waging a “war on cops.” This comes despite the fact fewer cops have been killed on average under President Obama’s presidency than the average number killed annually under Presidents George W. Bush, Bill Clinton, George H.W. Bush, Ronald Reagan and Gerald Ford. In fact, the safest two years for police officers over the last century were during the Obama presidency—the years 2013 and 2015, which also coincided with the rise of the Black Lives Matter movement. Meanwhile, former New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani issued a tirade against the Black Lives Matter movement while speaking on CBS’s “Face the Nation.”

Rudolph Giuliani: “When you say black lives matter, that’s inherently racist. Black lives matter. White lives matter. Asian lives matter. Hispanic lives matter. That’s anti-American, and it’s racist. Of course, black lives matter. And they matter greatly. But when you focus in on 1 percent of less than 1 percent of the murder that’s going on in America and you make it a national thing and all of you in the media make it much bigger than the black kid who’s getting killed in Chicago every 14 hours, you create a disproportion. The police understand it, and it puts a target on their back. Every cop in America will tell you that, if you ask them.”

During another part of this interview, Giuliani falsely claimed that a New York City police officer who killed Amadou Diallo in 1999 was sitting in jail for 25 years. In fact, all four officers charged in Diallo’s death were acquitted.

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