A black preacher who led anti-police protests at the height of the Black Lives Matter movement is trying to reverse some of the damage caused by that toxic rhetoric by organizing events to support law enforcement amid the terrifying crime wave roiling the nation.
“Law enforcement officers have been, rightly or wrongly, demonized and demoralized and really disconnected from their communities over the last three or four years in a way that has had a detrimental effect on crime and violence, on law enforcement as a profession and, by extension, on communities,” the Rev. Markel Hutchins told Fox News.
Over the weekend, the Georgia pastor spearheaded pro-police rallies in several cities across the country to spotlight the need for more cops and to end hostilities against law enforcement.
In the three years since BLM led its anti-police crusade, there has been a dramatic spike in crime across the U.S. amid the police drawbacks fueled by the harebrained “defund the police” movement.
Contrary to the false narrative pushed by BLM grifters, Democrats and the corporate media, most minorities do not support defunding the police because doing so results in increased crime in their neighborhoods.
“The truth is that more than 70 percent of African-Americans and Hispanics and more than 80 percent of white Americans, according to recent polling, want the same or more law enforcement,” Hutchins told Fox.
“Most people understand that most police officers go to work and do a good job every single day. So this underlying message that we’ve heard too much in the media that somehow the American people are not supportive of law enforcement just isn’t true.”
Hutchins said this was confirmed at the pro-police rallies he attended over the “Faith & Blue Weekend.”
The pastor admits his anti-cop sentiment has been turned on its head, and that he now wants to work with — not against — law enforcement.
“There was a time when my civil rights leadership was limited to protests and marches,” Hutchins said. “I have expanded that leadership. As time has grown, I’ve matured. My thought process, my thinking and my strategy [have] evolved.”
“We have to choose a more excellent way. And the more excellent way, in my estimation, is to turn to each other and not turn on each other.”
In the aftermath of BLM’s spectacular financial collapse, it’s nice that the scales are falling from the eyes of some anti-police activists, who finally realize that pulling cops off the streets endangers public safety.
But there are some prominent people who knew this all along. Take award-winning actor Morgan Freeman.
At the height of the anti-police hysteria pushed by media darling BLM, Freeman shattered the false narrative that all black people hate the police and want them defunded.
“I’m not in the least bit for defunding the police,” Freeman told Black Enterprise in October 2021. “Aside from all the negativity around it, it is very necessary for us to have [police], and most of them are guys that are doing their job.”
Civil rights attorney Leo Terrell applauded the actor for voicing his support for law enforcement at a time when doing so could’ve gotten him canceled by militant leftists.
Terrell, who left the Democratic Party in 2020, said most black people want police in their neighborhoods to keep them safe. He said the anti-police generalization was left-wing stereotyping.
“What bothers me is that people think that black people think the same way,” Terrell told Fox News in October 2021. “They think that we all hate the police and that police officers are bad for the community. It’s the contrary. Democratic cities, people of color — of all color — they want the police.”
Terrell added, “We don’t hate the police. We love the police because 98 percent of them, maybe 99 percent, they protect us 24/7. When we’re asleep at night, they’re out there protecting us.”
This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.
