Cleveland Cop Responds To Baton Rouge Shooting: "Obama Has Blood On His Hands"
If I am Officer Loomis, after publicly ridiculing Obama, and rightly so, I would make sure to have a bodyguard, a food taster and an up to date life insurance policy. But kudos to him for having the guts to speak the truth. -W.E.
ZeroHedge
When it comes to reactions in response to Obama's increasingly more frequent, politicized speeches on the topic of police shootings, one expects republicans to express disgust and to accuse Obama of race baiting and hate-mongering: indeed, it barely registers.
But when members of the very police force whose supreme commander resides in the White House accuse the same "commander" of having "blood on his hands" for his pandering rhetoric, suddenly visions of a countrywide police mutiny start to emerge.
In fact, such visions may be warranted right now, because following this morning's latest police shooting in Baton Rouge, that killed three officers and injured at least three others, Cleveland Detective Steve Loomis who was invited on Fox to describe the unfolding situation, unleashed on none other than the president. As The Hill reports, Loomis - who is also president of the Cleveland Police Patrolmen's Association - didn't hold back from assigning blame during his interview with anchor Harris Faulkner.
"It's absolutely insane that we have a president of the United States and a governor of Minnesota making the statements they made less than one day after the police-involved shootings," said an emotional Loomis.
"And those police-involved shootings, make no mistake, are what absolutely have triggered this rash of senseless murders of law enforcement officers across this country. It's reprehensible. And the president of the United States has blood on his hands that will not be able to come washed off."
Since there has been a barage of
breaking, deadly news in the past two weeks, readers may be forgiven if
they have forgotten the subject of Loomis' anger: the detective was
referring to statements made by President Obama and Minnesota Gov. Mark
Dayton, a Democrat, one day after the shooting of Philando Castile in
Falcon Heights, Minn., by a police officer during a traffic stop.
"When incidents like this occur, there’s a big chunk of our citizenry that feels as if, because of the color of their skin, they are not being treated the same, and that hurts, and that should trouble all of us,” Obama said in a statement the following day. “This is not just a black issue, not just a Hispanic issue. This is an American issue that we all should care about.” Dayton's comments caused an even bigger stir after he asked: "Would this have happened if the driver were white, if the passengers were white? I don’t think it would have.”
The same week, at a protest against police violence in Dallas, five officers were shot and killed by a lone gunman who was reportedly targeting white police officers. Loomis cast blame against the media, celebrities and athletes later in the interview with Faulkner.
"How the hell did we ever become the bad guys in this country?" he asked of police officers. "I cannot imagine how we got here. It's the irresponsible reporting of the media. “And the irresponsible statements of people that are credible like the president of the United States," added Loomis, who also pointed a finger at celebrities and athletes for "pushing a false narrative" against police officers.
More to the point, and ahead of this week's main event, the Republican convention in Cleveland, Ohio which begins on Monday, Loomis implored Ohio Gov. John Kasich to ban the open carrying of guns in Cuyahoga County this week. That, however, won't happen, as moments ago Kasich said he won't restrict guns around the Republican National Convention, saying idea is legally impossible.
We hope that that particular decision doesn't result in the worst bloodshed yet. It will be close: as Reuters reported on Friday, police in Cleveland say they aim to avoid mass arrests at the protests planned for next week's Republican National Convention, but preparations by the city's courts to process up to 1,000 people a day. In short, while not publicized, local authorities were preparing for the worst case scenario, and that was before today's latest dramatic turn of events.
