The right politicizes murders: How it exploited tragedy, told de Blasio how to raise his son

The right politicizes murders: How it exploited tragedy, told de Blasio how to raise his son

by Joan Walsh at Salon

http://www.salon.com/2014/12/22/the_right_politicizes_murders_how_it_exploited_tragedy_told_de_blasio_how_to_raise_his_son/

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The heartbreaking murder of two New York police officers Saturday night, by a mentally ill Georgia man who also shot his ex-girlfriend, saddens all decent people. But it’s the worst in demagoguery to blame the peaceful movement against police brutality that’s emerged nationwide, in the wake of multiple killings of unarmed black men, for the tragedy.


It shouldn’t be surprising that right-wing police defenders would politicize an outrage like this. Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association chief Pat Lynch continues to shame himself, by claiming Mayor Bill de Blasio has “blood on his hands” for expressing sadness at the killing of Eric Garner by police in Staten Island. What I find shocking is that de Blasio’s police critics are using the murders to tell the mayor how to parent his own son.

It turns out that Lynch and his allies were offended, in the wake of the grand jury decision not to indict the officer who choked Garner, that the mayor shared his experience raising his biracial son, Dante, he of the storied Afro — including his advice to exhibit care and caution in encounters with the criminal justice system.

“Because of a history still that hangs over us, the dangers he may face, we’ve had to literally train him as families have all over this city for decades in how to take special care in any encounter he has with the police officers who are there to protect him,” de Blasio said after the Garner verdict.



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