According to The College Fix, a Black Lives Matter (BLM) contingent at UCLA Wednesday shouted down the author of the book “The War on Cops.”
Heather Mac Donald’s lecture at the university descended into chaos as BLM students said she had “no right to speak,” and shouted “black lives matter,” “America was never great,” and “bullshit.”
Mac Donald is a Manhattan Institute scholar. The university’s Bruin Republicans invited her to speak on “Blue Lives Matter” and her 2016 book. The tense crowd allowed her to speak for the first half of her speech with a minimum of chants, expletives and insults.
But when she opened the floor to questions, she was yelled at by a group of BLM supporters who gathered at the front of the room and shouted “black lives: they matter here,” in succession.
After tiring of that mantra, the group continued to wave placards and make gestures at Mac Donald. When a student organizer pleaded for quiet, the BLM supporters began their “America was never great!” chorus.
Mac Donald waited patiently until the protest subsided and attempted to receive questions from the crowd. A black female quickly asked her if “black victims killed by cops” mattered.
“Yes,” Mac Donald replied. “And do black children that are killed by other blacks matter to you?”
Her answer prompted a fit of apoplexy from the BLM contingent as they gasped, moaned, snapped their fingers and shouted at Mac Donald.
“Of course I care, and do you know what?” Mac Donald continued. “There is no government agency more dedicated to the proposition that black lives matter than the police.”
That statement was like pouring gasoline on the BLM flames as Mac Donald’s opponents began yelling “bullshit!”
Unflinching, Mac Donald recited facts: “The crime drop of the last 20 years that came to a screeching halt in August 2014 has saved tens of thousands of minority lives. Because cops went to those neighborhoods and they got the dealers off the street and they got the gang-bangers off the street.”
She continued to talk questions despite continual interruptions from BLM, including some members who kept reciting “I don’t trust your numbers,” told Mac Donald she had “no right to speak,” and asked her “what about white terrorism?”
Mac Donald did not pretend that police enforcement was perfect and without any racial issues but she said it was rectifying those deficiencies. “But I have not heard an answer for what we do with the 4,300 people who were killed in Chicago, or were shot last year in Chicago.”
The evening ended on a threatening note. As she was preparing to leave, a man in the audience inquired, “Have you called the cops?” Campus security did arrive to escort the author away from the university.
In an email Thursday to The College Fix, Mac Donald wrote, “I made the argument that there is no government agency more dedicated to the proposition than the police and that policing today is data-driven and a function of crime. Police officers are in inner city high crime areas in order to save lives. But when they back off of proactive policing under the false Black Lives Matter narrative, innocent black lives are lost to the resulting rise in violent crime.”