Former New York Police Commissioner Bernie Kerik said he’s baffled as to how New York Mayor Bill de Blasio’s can lump together recent instances of black men dying during interactions with police.
"I'm not exactly sure what the current mayor is talking about," Kerik said Monday on
Newsmax TV's "America’s Forum," referring to
de Blasio’s comments Sunday on ABC’s "This Week" during which he remarked that former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani "fundamentally misunderstands the reality" black men face with police.
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"You cannot look at the incident in Missouri, another incident in Cleveland, Ohio, and another incident in New York City, all happening in the space of weeks and act like there’s not a problem," de Blasio said.
Kerik pointed out that there has not been "any shred of evidence that these confrontations were race based. Not one."
He suggested that civil rights leaders, politicians and legislators
stop the race baiting and focus their attention where it’s actually needed: the criminal justice system.
"We have people out there inciting others to go out and protest based on race and it's flipped this entire country on its back when in fact there are a number — to me, personally — there's hundreds of different criminal justice issues that they should be addressing, these civil rights leaders and mayors and legislators," he said.
"You want to really push civil rights issues? You need to look at the criminal justice system. But don't flip this entire country on its back based on three incidents in which there has been no race issue involved other than the cop was white and the suspect was African-American. But not one of these, not one shred of evidence has come out leading us to believe, anybody to believe, that these suspects were targeted because of race. Not one."
In the past 10 to 15 years, more than 1,000 people have been sentenced to more than 10,000 years in prison, according to Kerik, something he says is "a far greater issue."
"They should be focused on that," he said.
He also pointed out that in the New York case of Eric Garner, a black man who died during a chokehold by a white police officer, even Garner’s wife and daughter have said the incident
was not based on race. But that doesn’t stop those who have something to gain from parroting a narrative that says otherwise.
"There's a bunch of people out there that feel they have something politically to gain by pushing this race issue. They are demoralizing the police officers, degrading the police officers in New York City, who historically over the last 20 years have done nothing but help the African-American community, reducing crime, reducing violent crime, reducing homicides by the more substantial numbers in this entire country and they've basically been thrown under the bus by this administration," Kerik said. "I don't get it."
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