By Zak Cheney Rice
The National Fraternal Order of Police has officially endorsed Donald J. Trump — a noted racist with a track record of violent rhetoric against Mexicans, Muslims and black people — for president of the United States.
FOP is the biggest labor union in the country representing law enforcement officers, with more than 330,000 members, according to a press release published on the organization’s Twitter account Friday.
The endorsement is a telling decision at a time when the nation’s police are facing a crisis of confidence from communities of color. According to a survey published in June from the Pew Research Center, 84% of black respondents and 50% of white respondents believe the police treat black people less fairly than whites.
Black people in 2016 have been killed by police at more than twice the rate of their white counterparts, according to The Counted, a data project from the Guardian that tracks police-involved killings.
Trump has proffered in false data claiming black people are responsible for 81% of homicides against white people, when in fact 83% of white people are killed by their other whites. He has also claimed undocumented immigrants from Mexico are overwhelmingly criminals — with designs on pouring across the border to rape American citizens — when the available data actually shows immigrants commit less crime than native-born citizens.
The Progressive Democrat 