NYC BLM leader on policing: 'Cops have screwed up a lot'
NYC Black Lives Matter Chapter Co-Founder Hawk Newsome tells the 'Brian Kilmeade Show' police nationwide should accept the fact they've done wrong and correct it, not dig in their heels
Police officers across the nation are acting "like a bunch of big babies," Greater New York Black Lives Matter president Hawk Newsome asserted on the "Brian Kilmeade Show" Friday.
Newsome told host Brian Kilmeade that law enforcement has "screwed up a lot," but can't accept being reprimanded "on both sides" of the political aisle.
"You had [Sen.] Tim Scott [R-S.C.], you know, on the Republican side saying, 'You know what? Cops aren't doing what they need to do. Things need to change.' You have Democrats saying, 'Cops aren't doing what they need to do. Things need to be changed,'" Newsome pointed out.
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"What are they doing?" asked Newsome. "They're responding like a bunch of big babies. They're whining. They're complaining: 'Oh, our morale is low. Oh, I'm sad! People don't have faith in us.'"
"I believe in The Bible it says, 'gird up thy loins.' Well, I challenge police across the country to gird up their loins and accept the fact they've done wrong and correct it instead of digging their heels in and crying," Newsome said.
On Tuesday, President Trump was asked in an interview with CBS News why Black Americans are "still dying at the hands of law enforcement."
"So are White people. So are White people. What a terrible question to ask," Trump answered. "So are White people. More White people, by the way. More White people."
While more White people are killed by police annually, Black Americans are killed with higher frequency. A study published in the American Journal of Public Health in 2018 found that Black Americans are 3.5 times more likely to be killed by police than White Americans.
According to a database of police shootings since 2015 compiled by the Washington Post, 1,301 Black people have been killed by police in the past five and a half years; 2,495 White people were killed.
By comparison, 124 police officers have been killed in the line of duty so far in 2020, up from 89 in all of 2019, according to the Officer Down Memorial Page,
NYPD Deputy Chief McCarthy takes a knee near protesters in June 2. (AP Photo/Eduardo Munoz Alvarez)
Newsome discussed cases of police brutality involving members of the NYPD.
"I'm talking about Abner Louima. A police officer sodomized him with a plunger [and] put the same plunger in his mouth [in 1997]. Eric Garner, who we all saw choked to death on camera, and you have NYPD brass coming out and saying that [officer] Daniel Pantaleo was wrong for choking him. You had Anthony Baez who was choked to death in the streets, unarmed [in 1994]. You have the homeless white kid who was just beaten unmercifully until he had blood coming out of his ears on the subway last week," Newsome listed. "Like, let's not live under any delusions."
"You can enforce the law and obey the law at the same time," he added. "Now, we start talking about safety first, then we might as well throw the Constitution out the window."
While there is no national system for reporting police misconduct, FiveThirtyEight cites data collected by Bowling Green State University criminal justice professor Philip M. Stinson, which logs 10,287 criminal arrest cases between 2005 and 2014 involving 8,495 non-federal sworn law enforcement officers.
According to Stinson's Henry A. Wallace Police Crime Database, only 110 law enforcement officers nationwide have been charged with murder or manslaughter in connection with an on-duty shooting, and only 42 officers were convicted.
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"What I'm saying to you is, if we're talking about a doctor who's operating on people and he's killing people, we don't just give him a pass," Newsome told Kilmeade. "We look at the facts and we say, 'Hey, this doctor was negligent. He should have his license revoked.'"
Kilmeade took issue with Newsome's characterization of police officers as a whole group, calling it "sensationalistic."
"You want them to be perfect," he told Newsome. "I don't think in any walk of life they're perfect."
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