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Congressional Black Caucus In Talks To Meet With FBI Over ‘Black Identity Extremists’ Report

People raise their hands during a gathering to calm tension following the shooting death of black teenager Michael Brown at Greater St. Mark Family Church in St. Louis, Missouri August 12, 2014. Police said Brown, 18, was shot in a struggle with a gun in a police car but have not said why Brown was in the car. At least one shot was fired during the struggle and then the officer fired more shots before leaving the car, police said. But a witness to the shooting interviewed on local media has said that Brown had been putting his hands up to surrender when he was killed. The FBI has opened a civil rights investigation into the racially charged case and St. Louis County also is investigating. REUTERS/Mario Anzuoni

REUTERS/Mario Anzuoni

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Amber Randall Civil Rights Reporter
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The Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) is in the works to set up a meeting with the FBI director over the department’s report on “black identity extremists,” the group confirmed to The Daily Caller News Foundation.

The FBI responded to the CBC’s Oct. 13 letter and the two groups are in talks to get a sit down planned between the CBC and FBI Director Christopher Wray, a spokeswoman explained to TheDCNF.

“We heard back from the FBI on October 23, 2017 as requested, and we’re working with them to schedule a meeting with Director Wray,” Kamara Jones, communications director with the caucus, said to TheDCNF.

The group sent a letter to the FBI earlier in October expressing concern over reports of an Aug. 3 FBI document warning of potential violence against law enforcement officers from “black identity extremists.” The document reportedly tied the rise of the group to the 2014 police shooting of Michael Brown, and noted that other instances of police brutality against black men only helped to further the anger of “black identity extremists.”

The CBC requested a meeting with Wray to further learn about the research the FBI used to create its report and how it plans to use the document going forward. The group also expressed concern about how the report only drew from a small sample of incidents–potentially conflating black activists who are expressing their free speech rights with those who would do violence against officers.

“It relies on a handful of obviously terrible incidents to paint black Americans who exercise free speech against witnessed police brutality as possible violent extremists,” the group said in the letter. “The broad characterizations can only serve to further erode trust between law enforcement officials and many of the black communities they serve, further inflaming an already tense and complicated dynamic.”

The CBC did not offer further information about the meeting in time for publication. The FBI also did not offer further information to TheDCNF.

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