Larry Klayman, the head of Freedom Watch and founder of Judicial Watch, filed a class action lawsuit on Monday in federal district court in Dallas against President Obama and others for inciting violence, leading to the killings of law enforcement officers.
In his complaint, Klayman named not only Barack Obama but Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan, former Attorney General Eric Holder and the Rev. Al Sharpton, among a total of nine defendants.
Regarding Obama, Klayman points to several actions and statements including his comments from Warsaw, Poland, early last Thursday morning following the deaths of Alton Sterling in Baton Rouge, La., and Philando Castile near St. Paul, Minn., during arrests.
“What’s clear is that these fatal shootings are not isolated incidents,” the president said. “They are symptomatic of the broader challenges within our criminal justice system, the racial disparities that appear across the system year after year, and the resulting lack of trust that exists between law enforcement and too many of the communities they serve.”
Klayman explains, “Clearly, the accusation that shootings ‘are not an isolated incident’ is an incitement [words that promote unlawful behavior] claiming that there is a knowing, intentional related and connected conspiracy — ‘not isolated incidents’ — to intentionally murder Black people.”
He contends, “Thus, Defendant Obama directly incited early in the day the murders that occurred much later that same day in Dallas, Texas.” Micah Xavier Johnson, 25, killed five police officers and injured eight others.
“The Defendants incite imminent violence by hiding the reality that police officers usually respond to calls for help from civilians who are the victims of crime, often minority victims, and the police take the 911 calls for help as they come, regardless of race,” the former federal prosecutor continues.
“Instead the Defendants spread the false narrative that police are intentionally targeting lawbreakers or innocent people based on their race.”
KIayman notes that the Dallas killer made clear that what motivated him to act was anger against white people.
“He said he was upset about the recent police shootings,” Dallas Police Chief David Brown said during a Friday morning news conference. “The suspect said he was upset at white people. The suspect stated he wanted to kill white people, especially white officers.”
Johnson “intentionally picked off 12 police officers while largely ignoring the rest of the crowd who were not police,” the lawsuit states.
Klayman argues that Obama, with the assistance of former Attorney General Holder, set the tone early in his administration in July 2009 when it accused police of acting “stupidly” when they responded to the report of a breaking and entering at the home of Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr.
The two men, with the help of Sharpton, stoked the flames of discontent further with their reaction to the Michael Brown shooting by a police officer in Ferguson, Mo., in 2014, which the Justice Department later determined was justified.
In a press release regarding his suit, Klayman states, “It’s time that law enforcement, such as the plaintiffs in this case, including myself, come forward by peacefully attempting to use the legal system to redress the incitement, threats and killings provoked by the defendants in this class action case. I am hopeful that I will be joined by other law enforcement to join in the class.”
According to Gallup, a large percentage of Americans believe that race relations have deteriorated since President Obama took office. In its annual poll taken in March 2008, 18 percent reported race relations as a problem they worry about a “great deal” and 27 percent a “fair amount.” In March of this year those numbers had risen to 35 percent and 27 percent, respectively.
