A North Carolina police chief claims he was forced to retire after he called Black Lives Matter “an American-born terrorist group” in an “open letter” posted to his Facebook page in early September, Reuters reports.
Surf City Police Chief Mike Halstead retired effective immediately after an emergency Town Council meeting was held on Tuesday in response to the Sept. 3 post.
In the “open letter from a police chief”—at 662 words, according to Reuters—Halstead blasted the Black Lives Matter movement as “nothing more than American-born terrorist group brought on by the lie of the hands up, don’t shoot during the criminal thug Michael Brown incident.”
According to the report, Halstead blamed the recent deaths of police officers across the country on the media’s coverage of police shootings of civilians. Here’s an excerpt from the letter, according to news station WECT:
Open letter from a Police Chief , this Black Lives Matter group is nothing more than an American born terrorist group brought on by the lie of the hands up don't shoot during the criminal thug Michael Brown incident. The FBI and other Government Law Enforcement groups need to step up and put a stop to this. The Government and blacks would not tolerate the White Supremacist group to march through the streets and call for the murders of a race of people and a group of public servants. I agree there is a race problem in this country. It is not brought on by police officer doing their sworn duty, it is brought on by the government, the President and his cronies Al Sharpton, who is a criminal tax evader (but has the support of our so called President), Jessi Jackson, Eric Holder and that ignorant S.O.B. Farrakhan who should be charged with solicitation for murder, lord knows a white man would be arrested for the same actions of idiot Farakhan. I am sure there are many hard working Black people who will agree with me. I have been a Police Officer for 35 years. I do not judge anyone by the color of their skin, but by there actions. A criminal is a criminal whether a police officer or any other profession. I will not state statistics because black lives matter do not care or believe proven statistics. I put allot of the blame for these cop murders on the media and the way they report police related shootings. There is no need to list or even state the race of a person shot by the police. It is more important to wait for the facts and report those. But and a big but that does not make money for these greedy media ass holes. When a black thug is killed by the police they are all over it as is Mr. Barack Obama. However when a police officer white, black or any race is murdered for doing his job the media is short with it's reporting or not at all. … America wake up, all of you black, white, Mexican whatever you need the police, we do not need you. End this Black Lives Matter bull [s—t] and start a movement that all lives matter. …
After the meeting, Halstead posted again to Facebook, saying that he was forced to retire or be fired, but added that he apologized to anyone who was offended by the content of his post.
According to WECT, officials and Halstead agreed to 60 days of severance pay after he agreed to retire.
"He put that information out, that was intended for his friends and colleagues and peers, but it was a public statement, and there are people that were offended," Town Manager Larry Bergman told WECT.
"I was thrown under the bus for expressing my 1st amendment rights and speaking the truth and concerns for law enforcement," Halstead wrote, according to Reuters.