Watch Texas Lt. Governor Dan Patrick Call Black Lives Matter Protesters “Hypocrites” After Dallas Shooting

“I do blame former Black Lives Matter protests.”



Texas Lt. Governor Dan Patrick directly blamed Black Lives Matter protesters for putting the lives of police officers in danger—actions he said contributed to Thursday night’s attack in Dallas that killed five officers.

“Too many in the general public who aren’t criminals but have a big mouth are creating situations like we saw last night,” an emotional Patrick said during an interview with Fox News on Friday. He later added, “All those protesters last night, they ran the other way expecting the men and women in blue to turn around and protect them—what hypocrites!”

“I do blame people on social media with their hatred toward police,” he said. While pointing out that last night’s Dallas protest was peaceful, Patrick said, “I do blame former Black Lives Matter protests.”

Patrick’s comments follow a starkly different public statement calling for unity that he issued overnight:

Patrick’s comments come at a time of heated rhetoric in the wake of the Dallas attack. Prominent critics of the Black Lives Matter movement have gone so far as to declare the country is at “war.”

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WE'LL BE BLUNT.

We have a considerable $390,000 gap in our online fundraising budget that we have to close by June 30. There is no wiggle room, we've already cut everything we can, and we urgently need more readers to pitch in—especially from this specific blurb you're reading right now.

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In "News Never Pays," our fearless CEO, Monika Bauerlein, connects the dots on several concerning media trends that, taken together, expose the fallacy behind the tragic state of journalism right now: That the marketplace will take care of providing the free and independent press citizens in a democracy need, and the Next New Thing to invest millions in will fix the problem. Bottom line: Journalism that serves the people needs the support of the people. That's the Next New Thing.

And it's what MoJo and our community of readers have been doing for 47 years now.

But staying afloat is harder than ever.

In "This Is Not a Crisis. It's The New Normal," we explain, as matter-of-factly as we can, what exactly our finances look like, why this moment is particularly urgent, and how we can best communicate that without screaming OMG PLEASE HELP over and over. We also touch on our history and how our nonprofit model makes Mother Jones different than most of the news out there: Letting us go deep, focus on underreported beats, and bring unique perspectives to the day's news.

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