by Nick Givas
A Texas sheriff said Democratic Rep. Beto O’Rourke needs a history lesson, after his comments about law enforcement being the new Jim Crow.
“First of all, it doesn’t surprise me, you know. Anybody who’s been arrested as many times as Robert O’Rourke’s been arrested may have some ill will towards the police,” Denton County Sheriff Tracy Murphree said on “Fox & Friends” Friday.
“His rhetoric is divisive. It’s insulting and most of all it’s dangerous,” he added.
O’Rourke is running for Senate against GOP Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas in the upcoming November midterms and made racial accusations about law enforcement, in a Wednesday speech at Prairie View A&M University in Texas.
“That system of suspending somebody solely based on the color of their skin, searching that person solely based on the color of their skin, stopping that person solely based on the color of their skin, shooting that person solely based on the color of their skin, throwing the book at that person and letting them rot behind bars solely based on the color of their skin is why some have called this — I think it is an apt description — the new Jim Crow,” O’Rourke said.
Murphree said:
“There’s been a war on police officers for the last several years. When someone that has as many followers as Mr. O’Rourke has and the context that he puts police officers in — it makes it dangerous for citizens and police officers. A lot of people listen to what he has to say. And when he speaks, people take that to heart. And he needs to understand that he has a responsibility to not be divisive and quite frankly, I don’t understand where he’s coming from.”
Murphree told the Texas Democrat to look back in the history books to see it was Democrats who instituted Jim Crow laws and said he was deeply insulted by comments.
“First of all, he may need a history lesson for who was responsible for Jim Crow laws, which party that was,” Murphree declared. “And it’s insulting to me as the a citizen of this state and as a police officer.”
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Nick Givas is a reporter at Daily Caller News Foundation. You can Follow Nick on Twitter.
