Wounded Cop Sues DeRay Mckesson, Black Lives Matter For Allegedly 'Inciting Violence'
Welcome to WHAT NOW, a morning round-up of the news/fresh horrors that await you today.
DeRay Mckesson and Johnetta Elzie are among the Black Lives Matter leaders named in a new federal lawsuit from a police officer who says their anti-police brutality rhetoric is to blame for a July 2016 ambush in Baton Rouge, LA, that left him and another officer wounded and three officers dead.
The complaint alleges that various arms of the Black Lives Matter movement and its most visible leaders should be held responsible for the shooting, saying that they “incited the violence against police in retaliation for the death (sic) of black men shot by police,” and “did nothing to dissuade the ongoing violence and injury to police.”
“They justified the violence as necessary to the movement and war,” the complaint, filed Friday in the US District Court for the Middle District and obtained by CNN on Sunday, says.
The officer who filed the suit is named only as Officer John Doe Smith. Smith is 42, a father of two, and is permanently disabled after he was shot through his abdomen, the left side of his head, and left shoulder in the ambush-style attack, where Gavin Long waited near a convenience store popular among police officers armed with a rifle on July 17, 2016.
It’s not clear why the officer is not identified by his real name, and the attorney for the officer who filed the suit told CNN that she’s not authorized to speak about the lawsuit.
Mckesson did not seem too concerned about the suit.
UPDATE, July 10, 2016 at 11:37 am: In a DM to Fusion, Mckesson reiterated that the lawsuit is the second from a Baton Route officer and said: “The protests began as a response to the violence of the police and that is the only violence I’ve seen at any protest.”
This case comes as another complaint was filed in the same court on Sunday by 13 protesters and journalists who were arrested in protests following the fatal shooting of Alton Sterling, alleging that Baton Rouge police used excessive force and violated their civil rights.
WHAT ELSE?
- Donald Trump Jr. met with a Kremlin-linked lawyer during the toughest days of the presidential race, according a report from The New York Times that is, depending on who you are, somewhere between a bombshell and a “big nothing.”
- Meanwhile, his dad is tweeting again this morning after watching Fox and Friends:
Happy Monday!