Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick said Tuesday he would “absolutely” support a hypothetical Justice Department investigation into the use of hate speech and calls to kill cops from Black Lives Matter.
“We don’t yell ‘fire’ in the movie theater. We have First Amendment rights, but you can’t do things that hurt people,” Patrick told CNN host Brooke Baldwin Tuesday afternoon. “We can have unity, but not until the chance of killed cops is removed from our streets, not until the hateful rhetoric is removed, not until we stop killing cops.”
Donald Trump told Fox News a day earlier he would instruct the attorney general to look into the group for the alleged role it played in influencing the killers who murdered eight cops and shot a dozen other officers over the past two weeks.
Although the movement has denounced both killings, its supporters have made a name for themselves for shouting profane statements about police.
Trump said that even though the group offered condolences to the officers, Black Lives Matter still motivated the assailants who were involved in the two attacks on police officers in Baton Rouge, La., and Dallas. The Texas lieutenant governor agreed with Trump, and now supports Trump’s bid to become the next president.
“If you are walking down the street saying what do we want, we want to kill cops now, the president has to speak out against that and the president needs to stop inviting people to the White House who say they want to kill cops,” Patrick said.
“We know we have a distrust in the black community with policy, we know that there are some police officers that need to be replaced and police forces want to remove those people as well,” Patrick added. “But secondly, the president needs to quit indicting policemen on video before he has the facts and he needs to stop the hateful rhetoric in the street. Donald Trump will do all those things.”
