‘Police Lives Matter’ March In Austin, Texas, Hosted By Ex-Cop Accused Of Violence

9.9.15

‘Police Lives Matter’ March In Austin, Texas, Hosted By Ex-Cop Accused Of Violence: Although Miles has no known connection to the Black Lives Matter movement and was once found mentally unfit to stand trial for a 2012 assault charge, police officials were quick to make the connection. The Associated Press quoted Harris County Sheriff Ron Hickman as saying that the “dangerous national rhetoric that is out there today … has gotten out of control.”

Fox News and other conservative media sources have also sought to link Black Lives Matter to anti-police violence, with a Fox graphic last month referring to “the Murder Movement.” Last week, Brandon Ellington Patterson, a fellow at Mother Jones, called it part of the “conservative playbook” to undermine the movement, linking it to historic attacks on the civil rights movement of the 1960s.

Organizers of the upcoming “Police Lives Matter” rallies have explicitly adopted this anti-black rhetoric. “This is a Peaceful March letting our nation know how it is supposed to be done with out Looting and Rioting [sic],” reads the Facebook event description for the Houston march, which had about 18,000 people signed up to attend as of Friday afternoon. About 2,800 have signed up for the Austin event, which goes even further in linking Black Lives Matter to law breaking: