Bill O’Reilly, you only rilin’ me up. The Fox News broadcaster hosted a segement on his show last night (August 31) about a protest that took place at the Minnesota State Fair where demonstrators chanted anti-police rhetoric such as “pigs in a blanket, fry ’em like bacon.” The actions were reportedly in response to a white Houston deputy being shot by Shannon Miles, a black man unaffliated with the demonstrators.
The protestors carried a Black Lives Matters banner, which led O’Reilly to label the BLM movement as a hate group, “they hate police officers and want them dead.”
The broadcaster then vowed to “put them out of business.”
“And any media person who supports them, I’m going to put them on this program and put a picture of them on the air,” he said.
Black Lives Matter is a national organization with a loose collection of local satellite groups, which also includes many that are not officially affliated.
One of the BLM co-founders noted as much on Twitter, which has been a criticism of the movement for being decentralized and, to some, unaccountable or unfocused. Though the group aims for decentralization as an updated means of leadership and evolution from the Civil Rights Era strategies. As of press time, Black Lives Matters as an organization has not issued a statement on the matter.
See the tweets from Alicia Garza below and also watch The O’Reilly Factor segment.