Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton pursued the endorsement of Black Lives Matter activists but blew off the largest police union in the United States.
After almost a year of meeting with Black Lives Matter representatives, Clinton failed to garner the support of the movement’s co-founder Alicia Garza, but she managed to receive the endorsement of mothers championed by the Black Lives Matter movement.
Garza recently slammed Clinton, saying the former secretary of state only “uses black people for votes” and “photo ops,” but doesn’t “do anything for black communities” after getting elected.
Nevertheless the Clinton-Kaine campaign touts the support she received during the Democratic National Convention from mothers of the Black Lives Matter movement.
The mothers of Michael Brown, Trayvon Martin and Eric Garner stood on stage in Philadelphia praising Clinton.
“Hillary Clinton has the compassion and understanding to support grieving mothers,” Sybrina Fulton, mother of Martin, said. “She has the courage to lead the fight for commonsense gun legislation. She has a plan to divide that so often exists between law enforcement and the communities they serve.”
On the other hand, the Clinton campaign appeared to string the Fraternal Order of Police (FOP) on for a period of time until staff told the union Clinton would not seek its endorsement, The Hill reported.
Chuck Canterbury, president of FOP spoke to The Hill after he and others union members went to Trump Towers Friday, to discuss Trump’s positions on law enforcement.
The union will not be meeting with Clinton, however, because according to Canterbury, the campaign did not want to fill out the questionnaire required for the police union’s endorsement.
“We were talking to the highest levels of the campaign, and we had all indications that she was going to return the questionnaire,” Canterbury said. “And on the deadline date we were advised that they declined.”
According To Canterbury, the union was only snubbed once before by a presidential candidate—John Kerry in 2004. The last time FOP endorsed a Democrat was in 1996, when the union endorsed Clinton’s husband, Bill.
The Clinton camp refused to say why they vigorously sought out the support of Black Lives Matter over Law Enforcement. However, Clinton Campaign spokesman Jesse Ferguson told The Hill, “Throughout her career, Hillary Clinton has been committed to our law enforcement officers.”