Tax cheat and MSNBC host Al Sharpton said on “Politics Nation” Monday that the death of Eric Garner was a “trigger” that led Baltimore man Ismaaiyl Brinsley to murder two police officers execution-style on Dec. 20. (VIDEO: Where Was Al Sharpton To Stop The Ferguson Riots?)
MSNBC contributor and former Democratic Governor of Pennsylvania Ed Rendell began by claiming that if NYPD officers hadn’t applied a chokehold to Garner in a widely-circulated video, the two murdered police officers would still be alive. (VIDEO: Axelrod: Cop Killer Was Provoked By ‘Unarmed Man Being Choked To Death’)
“How do you think the families of Officer Liu and Officer Ramos would have felt about a little less violence applied to that young man?” Rendell asked. “And I’m not saying that there should have been arrests or not arrests, but if when he said, ‘I can’t breathe,’ if they had stopped and let up on him, it’s likely that officer Liu and Officer Ramos would be alive today.”
“Well, as you said, he’s a crazy person. I don’t think it has anything to do with the causes,” Sharpton said. “But I think you trigger things… when you have people on the edge.” (RELATED: Trigger Warnings: New Wave Of Political Correctness Hits Campuses)
“You trigger things!” agreed Rendell. “There’s no question. He said on his — on the internet, he said he was taking revenge for what happened to the young man. And so that’s the type of thing that breeds mistrust and anger.”