Burgess COMMENTARY

Peter Burgess

VIDEO Van Jones Shuts Down CNN Guest Trying to Use Dallas Shootings to Smear 'Black Lives Matter' The peaceful BLM protests around the country aren't equivalent to the violence against police in Dallas.

Photo Credit: Van Jones speaks to ABC News on March 2, 2014.

CNN commentator Van Jones scolded counterpart Buck Sexton on Friday when Sexton tried to link the Black Lives Matter movement to Thursday night’s mass shooting in Dallas, Media Matters reported.

“I think that what’s actually fueling this is not some placard or what somebody said at some rally that nobody even heard, except they got on social media. What’s fueling this is a sense that nobody cares and that the official pronouncements of our government show a level of indifference and a lack of concern,” Jones said. “And I think it’s very, very important that we affirm our right to petition our government for redress of our grievances, and for that to be the main thing that we say and that these minority voices be marginalized. But I am tired of the entire movement being smeared by the extreme words of a few. It’s not fair. It’s not fair at all.”

Sexton argued that anti-police rhetoric had been escalated in a “reckless” fashion, saying that he had covered demonstrations where “dozens, if not hundreds” of attendees carried signs expressing anger of “killer cops.”

“There needs to also be a willingness to say that no, cops are not racist murderers and killers,” he said. “These are things that I’ve heard at protests myself, by the way. I’ve taken photos of placards, the notion that for example in Ferguson, justice was not done. The [Department of Justice] report, I guess, some people believe is still a lie, that Mike Brown was killed by an officer and an unjust system did nothing about it.”

He failed to mention, however, that suspected gunman Micah Johnson said he was not affiliated with any organization. Sexton also overlooked that, besides condemning the attack, organizers maintained a good relationship with local police heading into the demonstration.

“We have a problem with crazy people doing crazy things in this country because they can all get guns,” Jones said. “Dylann Roof went in there and shot up a whole church full of African-Americans, and he said he did it because of this racial propaganda that is growing by the so-called alt-right. But we don’t talk about that. Somebody went in and shot up a whole Planned Parenthood saying it’s because they’re a Christian. We have crazy people grabbing guns and doing crazy things, but we should not blame, we should not give them the pass of saying that you’re doing this because somebody held up a placard.”

Watch the discussion, as posted by Media Matters on Friday, below.