The Rev. Al Sharpton spent his time at the eulogy podium for killed Ferguson teen Michael Brown calling for reform in community policing, outright declaring that the time had come for citizens to “deal with” the situation.
“America, it’s time to deal with policing,” he said, at the Friendly Temple Missionary Baptist Church, to a crowd of thousands, Politico reported. “We are not the haters. We’re the healers.”
Mr. Sharpton has railed against what he perceives is police brutality against blacks, and he’s taken that message to Ferguson, the site of the police shooting of 18-year-old Mr. Brown.
“America is going to have to come to terms with [the fact that] there’s something wrong, that we have money to give military equipment to police forces, but we don’t have money for training, and money for public educate and money to train our children,” he said, Politico reported. “How do you think we look when the world can see you can’t come up with a police report, but you can find a video.”
The reference was to the fact that a surveillance video of Mr. Brown allegedly stealing from a convenience store and pushing the clerk out of the way was released shortly after the shooting.
“How do you think we look when young people march nonviolently, asking for the land of the free and the home of the brave to hear their cry and you put snipers on the roof and pointed guns at them,” Mr. Sharpton said, Politico reported. “How do we look?”
Mr. Sharpton then called for further action.
“We can’t have a fit, we’ve got to have a movement,” he said. “A fit, you get mad and run out for a couple of nights. A movement means we’ve got to be here for the long haul and turn our chants into change, our demonstration into legislation. We have got to stay on this so we can stop this.”
• Cheryl K. Chumley can be reached at cchumley@washingtontimes.com.
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