Proof be damned, Fox's Bill O'Reilly says his program "has learned" who is organizing these protests around the country in response to the grand jury verdicts in the Michael Brown and Eric Garner cases, and par for the course, he sees his favorite boogeymen around every corner.
From Fox's blog: O'Reilly: NYC Protests Not Spontaneous, 'Coordinated By Far-Left Provocateurs':
In tonight’s Talking Points Memo, Bill O’Reilly questioned the forces behind the racial protests breaking out in New York City.
Calling to mind the Tea Party demonstrations, O'Reilly said those who feel something is unfair should demonstrate dissent peacefully.
But he said that protesting comes with responsibility, including knowing the facts behind what you're protesting.
He said many protesters in Ferguson, New York and elsewhere have been misled into thinking that police officers are targeting black people.
"The claim that American police are hunting down young black men is a blatant lie," said O'Reilly, also cautioning that people should not try to deny that in some places, African Americans are not being treated with respect by police officers.
O'Reilly said the Factor has learned that the New York City protests are being coordinated by "hardcore, far-left activists," calling out a group called This Stops Today and other "grievance organizations."
"These demonstrations you're seeing are not spontaneous descent from regular folks. Rather, they are well planned disruptions from professional anti-establishment provocateurs. That's important to understand because it is the American system that's being attacked by these people, not the individual sagas of Michael Brown and Eric Garner. Unfortunately, the deaths of those two men are being used by the far left to foment unrest," said O'Reilly.
He called them "professional agitators" using social media to spread the word about the demonstrations.
O'Reilly said Eric Garner's own daughter downplayed the racial aspect of the deadly confrontation, but said many politicians - including Hillary Clinton - refuse to do the same.
"Inner city drug gangs, like the ones in Chicago right now, are a plague upon the land. Murdering thousands of innocent people across the country and destroying poor neighborhoods. When was the last time you heard Hillary Clinton or most other politicians for that matter put that on the table?" he asked.
Raw Story has more on O'Reilly's accusations:
However, while “This Stops Today” became a popular hashtag following grand jury decisions not to indict police officers in connection with the deaths of Brown and Garner, there does not appear to be a particular group using that name online.
O’Reilly also named two other “grievance groups,” Communities United for Police Reform and “Hoodies for Justice,” a possible reference to Million Hoodies Movement for Justice, an organization formed in response to the shooting death of Florida teen Trayvon Martin at the hands of George Zimmerman in 2012.
The Factor host said earlier this week that he did not feel Garner “did not deserve what happened to him,” but called the idea that police are more likely to behave violently toward Black men “a blatant lie.”
However, PunditFact reported on Thursday that the data O’Reilly has been using to make that argument is based on self-reported data, since police are not obligated to share statistics regarding fatal police shootings and neither coroners nor physicians are required to identify how many cases they encounter involving authorities. Punditfact listed O’Reilly’s claim as “mostly false.”
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