Sheriff David Clarke smacks down CNN’s Don Lemon

In the July 17 interview on CNN Tonight, Sheriff Clarke asked Lemon, “Let me ask you this, do we know that generally the American officers are racist?”

Clarke: …and five last week, and you’re telling me to ‘keep it down?’ He’s referred to Black Lives Matter as “black slime” and “garbage, “and he’s called Michael Brown, Eric Garner, Freddie Gray, and Trayvon Martin “goons”, “criminal creep(s)”, “criminals” and “co-conspirators in their own demise”. Clarke said, “He chose thug life”.

“You don’t believe that for one moment do you?”

This has fueled and fanned the flames towards the American police officers.

After a few exchanges, Lemon said, “Sheriff, please”. @donlemon did the right thing going to break.

Clarke is scheduled to address the Republican National Convention in Cleveland on Monday for an evening devoted to the theme “Make America Safe Again”.

Lemon repeatedly urged Clarke to “keep the vibe down” and strike a note of “civility” during the contentious back and forth, but Clarke maintained that the CNN host was siding with those who have condemned racialized violence against black Americans.

Clarke said that the hateful rhetoric in America had unleashed hateful things from inside of people. And Don Lemon does what any frustrated person would do: he ends the interview and cuts to another commercial.

Clarke then clarified that there is no data to support the idea that “law enforcement officers treat black males different than white males in policing these urban centers”.

That, Clarke argued, in turn had led to the incident in Baton Rouge, La., on Sunday morning in which a suspect shot and killed three police officers and wounded three more.

Lemon: I don’t know that. He said the entire protest movement was based on “a lie” and later called BLM “phony”.

“As a journalist sitting here on television, I don’t have to condemn anyone”, Lemon said. This was a crucial point during the interview because the Sheriff justified the data by saying that African-American men in the United States were more prone to crime than white North American men.

“It’s actually kinda sad”, Lemon wrote, “as it is not a contest but a conversation that clearly only one of us was trying to have”. Discussing cell phone video of the brawl on Fox News’ The Kelly File, Clarke said, “That was a textbook response by police”. Sad that emotion trumps facts and rhetoric thwarts honest discussion.