Charles Barkley called Ferguson looters "scumbags" on a radio show Tuesday morning, praised police working in black neighborhoods, and went on record supporting the grand jury's decision not to indict police officer Darren Wilson for fatally shooting 18-year-old Michael Brown in August.
"Them jacka***s who are looting — those aren’t real black people, those are scumbags. The real black people, they’re not out there looting," he
told Philadelphia’s 97.5 The Fanatic.
"There is no excuse for people to be out there burning down people's businesses, burning down police cars."
He then went on to talk about the specifics of the evidence presented to the grand jury.
"The true story came out from the grand jury testimony," said the former NBA star. "Three or four witnesses, who were black, said exactly what [Darren Wilson] said."
He blamed the media for not focusing on the true facts of the case, and turning the narrative into a race issue — all to garner ratings.
"I can't believe anything I hear on television anymore. And, that’s why I don’t like talking about race issues with the media anymore, because [the media] love this stuff, and lead people to jump to conclusions. The media shouldn’t do that. They never do that when black people kill each other."
The TNT commentator also praised the cops who work day in and day out in black neighborhoods.
"We have to be really careful with the cops, because if it wasn’t for the cops we would be living in the wild, wild West in our neighborhoods. We can't pick out certain incidentals that don’t go our way and act like the cops are all bad . . . Do you know how bad some of these neighborhoods would be if it wasn’t for the cops?"
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