BLM Cofounder Puts Joe Biden On Notice For Yelling Out ‘Fund The Police”: “This movement was able to help get Joe Biden into office”

Black Lives Matter (BLM) co-founder Patrisse Cullors called out President Joe Biden in an interview with the Guardian for failing the ‘movement that was able to help get him in office.’ She said:

“It’s not just about LAPD or Memphis police. These aren’t individual bad officers. It’s a culture of violence that has been inherited, and it’s not going to stop until courageous elected officials make it stop. Media often asks me, ‘Why is this still happening – you’ve been protesting for decades?’ 

“I say we’ve been protesting for 400 years, but also this keeps happening because people in power are allowing it. Millions of people went to the streets in 2020. Thousands were in the streets in 2013 and 2014. “Every year, families, community members, organizers have said this must stop and there’s a different way to do this. 

“And yet there has been deep cowardice from officials. The burden is on the officials who create the budgets for the police and other resources, who turn away from the violence and continue it in their departments. It’s truly a failure of leadership at the highest level, all the way up to our president. 

“This movement was able to help get Joe Biden into office, and yet in his first State of the Union address, he yelled: “Fund the police.” 

“It’s a direct affront to the movement that called for resources out of policing and into social services. 

“Our elected officials have decided to abandon a movement that could have saved the lives of the people who have died.

“We have a powerful opportunity right now at the national, state and city levels to reevaluate law enforcement’s role in traffic stops. 

“We have to get cops out of traffic stops. It’s one, very reasonable demand. Tyre, my cousin, Sandra Bland are all examples of this.

“Law enforcement pulls people over for broken tail lights, for no registration, for running a red light, for all these low-level traffic violations.

“There’s research to back up the reasonableness of the demand to not allow police to be the ones who are stopping mostly Black people. Berkeley, Philadelphia and Seattle are piloting this. 

“Los Angeles has said it was too radical, and then my cousin was killed. We should also fund evaluations of these policies, so we can get the data and avoid backlash.

“I actually got a call from Pete Buttigieg. He said, “I just wanted to say I’m sorry,” and asked if there’s anything he could do. 

“I couldn’t really think about it then, but I’ve been thinking now about how he’s the secretary of transportation, and this is a powerful opportunity where he could be helping lead a conversation about what federal dollars could fund programs to remove law enforcement from traffic stops.

“The Memphis chief also eliminated the Scorpion unit, which was responsible for Tyre’s death. And many police departments have units like this that are given entirely too broad of a mandate with truly disastrous results for communities and taxpayers. 

“So we need to get rid of these units that create trauma and harm, and put that money back into communities,” she said.

Patrisse Cullors speaks to me following the tasing death of her cousin Keenan Anderson by LAPD in Venice.

In 2021, she stepped down as head of BLM and I asked would she be taking a more visible role in the organization following his death. pic.twitter.com/j8CVFEVGDL

— Slauson Girl 📸⚡️✍🏾 (@slausongirlnews) January 30, 2023

Prosecutors on Sunday charged James Armstrong with shooting 3 women in December 2020 while he was on bail for a felony gun case. One of the women died.

He was charged with another murder in 2016, but was never convicted.https://t.co/Y4zeLBUNwm

— CWBChicago (@CWBChicago) February 7, 2023

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— CWBChicago (@CWBChicago) February 5, 2023