Union chief: Black Lives Matter is an ‘anti-police hate group’

June 10, 2020 – Exclusive: Jim Breslo interviews LA Protective League’s director about mayor’s ‘killers’ comment

By Jim Breslo

On the heels of the death of George Floyd, we hear calls around the country to “defund” police departments. Los Angeles was the first to announce it intends to do exactly that. Mayor Eric Garcetti said he plans to divert about $150 million dollars, almost 10% of the budget, from the police to “our black community here in Los Angeles, as well as communities of color, and women and people who have been left behind,” (From his statement, it is not clear whether Asians qualify as a “community of color,” whether affluent “women” qualify, or whether poor whites are included in people “left behind.”) Garcetti explained he had no choice: Defund the police or continue to be the “killers that we are.”

Jamie McBride, head of the Los Angeles Police Protective League, called Garcetti mentally unstable and said he is simply playing politics in a desperate attempt to be liked. In an exclusive interview on my “Hidden Truth Show,” McBride doubled down on his previous comments about Garcetti. “He has failed the leadership test. Two days earlier he praised us for our service and dedication and our work, and then he is calling us killers,” he said. “He might be able to manage a city like San Fernando, which is a square mile, but he definitely cannot handle managing LA. He is stressed out. He does not know what to do. He is trying to do anything he can do to get people to like him,” McBride said.

He also is critical of Police Chief Michel Moore. “He is under the thumb of the mayor,” McBride said. “When the mayor got vocal against the police department, Moore started to change his tone. Initially, he was leading during the civil unrest; unfortunately, that changed a little bit, and his messaging got confused. Garcetti is not allowing Moore to run the department.”

McBride also called attention to the recent violence perpetrated on the LAPD. “We had an officer shot during the civil unrest. We had officers have objects hit them in the head and fracture their skulls and wound up in the hospital,” he said. “So, these guys he is calling murderers are giving everything they have to protect us.”

He called Black Lives Matter an “anti-police hate group.” “It is just a front,” he said. “It is a modern-day Black Panthers organization.” He noted that looters were hiding behind the name. “Black store owners were begging, ‘Please, don’t loot my store. I am black.’ And they didn’t care and went in there and stole everything.”

McBride says that contrary to what is being portrayed, “the black community in South Central loves the LAPD. They want us there. It is a small portion that is complaining,” he said. “They love the police. They want to live in an area free of crime. They don’t want people breaking in and shooting people.”

Movements like Black Lives Matter do not seem to take this into consideration. They only focus on the very rare event of when police take a life, not the millions of lives they protect. Rather than making a unilateral decision to defund the police, just as he made a unilateral decision to lock down all Angelenos due to COVID-19, perhaps Garcetti should first poll the whole black community, not just the activists, and ask whether they want police removed from patrolling their neighborhoods.

The full interview with Jamie McBride can be seen here.