Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke (D) wondered how Al Sharpton has avoided going to prison for tax evasion on Thursday’s “Your World With Neil Cavuto” on the Fox News Channel.
“I’m trying to figure out why Al Sharpton isn’t in federal prison for tax evasion” he declared.
Clarke then blasted Sharpton’s call for a national police force, saying that national police are a bad idea because of civil liberties and states rights concern, he added “I find it interesting he has so much faith in the federal government, when in the 1960s the FBI surveilled Dr. Martin Luther King during the civil rights movement, and then went on a smear campaign to discredit him, now all of a sudden he trusts the federal government.” And “I bet he wouldn’t make this recommendation if a Republican president was in the White House, and who had appointed a more conservative United States Attorney General.”
Clarke then stated that Sharpton was attempting to politicize policing and, “we have 50 different states in this country, and they’re all unique, that’s why I say it’s a states rights issue. They know how to police their communities best. The guiding principle for all 50 states, and every law enforcement agency in the United States, is the United States Constitution.”
He further commented on the shooting of Walter Scott, saying “from what saw, I was as horrified as anybody in the United States, but I want to make it very clear what we saw in Charleston, South Carolina, is not a macrocosm of the profession of policing. It’s an outlier, it’s a–an anomaly, and that guy, as soon as the investigation is complete, will get what he deserves, but I’m going to continue to defend the honor, the integrity, the character of the American police officer, because 99.9% of our officers do not go out — and I’ve talked to officers all over the place over the last 48 hours after that video was released, and I didn’t find one officer that wasn’t disgusted by what they saw. That is not the character of the American police officer.”
Clarke was also asked about police body cameras, he said “as long as the technology is available, I think we got to go with it. I’m not against at that all, but it’s not a panacea.”
Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett
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