Fraternal Order of Police Demands Amazon Remove Black Lives Matter Shirts


The Fraternal Order of Police, America’s largest police union, has demanded that Amazon remove a shirt reading “Bulletproof: Black Lives Matter” from the online marketplace, according to a report from The Independent. The FOP already succeeded in having the shirt removed from WalMart earlier in the week.

As of Sunday, the shirt was still for sale, and FOP president Chuck Canterbury said that he wasn’t surprised, calling Amazon “a pretty liberal marketer.”

Canterbury (bottom-right), who publicly endorsed Donald Trump, accused Hillary Clinton of “pandering” to Black Lives Matter. [Image by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images]

According to The Guardian, Canterbury described the shirt as “offensive” due to the “amount of violence demonstrated at Black Lives Matter marches and the fact that eight police officers had been assassinated while protecting Black Lives Matter protests,” referring to the police officers who were shot in Dallas and Baton Rouge earlier in the year – by gunmen who were not affiliated with Black Lives Matter.

“It happened as a result of the rhetoric of different BLM groups,” Canterbury responded.

The Dallas shooting occurred at a protest over the police shootings of Alton Sterling and Philando Castile and claimed five lives; the Baton Rouge shootings, which claimed a further three victims, were committed from ambush by Gavin Long, a former U.S. marine who became a member of a fringe group The Washitaw Nation of Mu’urs.

Writing in an open letter to Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, Canterbury said that he expected the CEO to support the FOP in “increasing the bonds of trust between the men and women of law enforcement and the communities they serve.” He also said that the shirts, including the “Bulletproof” shirt, any other shirts which said “Black Lives Matter,” and shirts with the slogan “Hands Up, Don’t Shoot,” perpetuated “urban myths” about police shootings.

According to the Washington Post, there have been 940 people shot and killed by police in 2016.

The FOP’s executive director, James Pasco, added that “the bulletproof thing goes to the new assertiveness of some violence prone individuals to take action directly against police,” saying that the FOP “find it offensive for that reason.”

“I wanted to let you know that my members are very upset that you and Amazon are complicit in the sale of this offensive merchandise…. which may damage your company’s good name amongst FOP members and other active and retired law enforcement officers.”

He went on to describe the sale of the shirts as Amazon sellers “exploiting the racial divisions in our country” for profit.

The FOP’s relations with the Black Lives Matter movement can, at best, be described as rocky. The Fraternal Order of Police, primarily in the person of Canterbury, dismisses Black Lives Matter as racially-divisive, anti-police, and accuses them of supporting violence against police officers. Meanwhile, Black Lives Matter has actively protested against the FOP, earlier in the year, as reported by the Washington Post, staging a massive protest outside of FOP headquarters in Washington, D.C. over their support of “Blue Lives Matter” bills, stopping downtown traffic.

It’s safe to say that police and BLM protesters don’t quite see eye-to-eye. [Image by Angelo Merendino/Getty Images]

Critics of the letters to WalMart and Amazon, meanwhile, are calling the move a publicity stunt on the part of the FOP. As GQ notes, Canterbury’s letter fails to mention any similar concerns about merchandise which promote “racial divisions” and “commercializes our differences” over Amazon or WalMart’s considerable inventory of “Blue Lives Matter” merchandise, which reportedly sells far better than Black Lives Matter-branded clothing.

Neither Amazon nor Black Lives Matter has made any response to the letter; WalMart responded by removing the “Bulletproof” shirt but allowing other Black Lives Matter merchandise to remain. But Amazon’s non-response combined with the continued existence of the merchandise Canterbury was complaining about seems fairly emphatic in its silence.

[Featured Image by Joe Raedle/Getty Images]

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