Gwinnett County Sheriff Butch Conway said Wednesday he was taken aback by the public response to a statement he released earlier this week in which he decried senseless violence against police and described those making allegations of racism against officers as “hate groups” and “domestic terrorists with an agenda.”
Tuesday, Conway sent a statement to the media saying that he’s watched in horror over the past year, and especially in recent weeks, as officers have been killed.
His purpose in writing, Conway said, was to encourage people to treat officers better. If someone isn’t happy with their treatment, he said, the place to argue that is in a courtroom and not on the street.
“I’m angry that the fringe groups who started the culture of police hatred have widened the racial divide in our country by alleging that officer involved shootings stem from racism,” he wrote. “I’m angry that the controversy involving law enforcement officers has been further fueled by the news media, which seems intent on trying these cases in the court of public opinion through relentless media coverage and irresponsible reporting before the facts of a case are available.”
Conway said the fear of being attacked makes officers’ jobs stressful and unsafe. It has led to a decrease in applications at the Sheriff’s Department and has made him angry “at our whole social structure dealing with police at the moment.”
The sheriff said he had been thinking about issuing the statement for more than a year. It has garnered national attention by media and bloggers.
The statement was not meant to implicate members of the Black Lives Matter movement or other activists, Conway said. Instead, the sheriff said, his focus was on people who “will put a bullet in a police officer’s body in an ambush situation.”
But the longtime sheriff drew ire from activists who said his message was ignorant and inflammatory. Shaun King, a leader in the Black Lives Matter movement, said in a statement Tuesday that for Conway “to outright deny the role of race and racism in American policing shows me that he has head completely in the sand.”
Conway “and many of his law enforcement colleagues are falsely promoting this notion that there is a war against police,” King wrote. In fact, officer deaths are down in 2015. “This is a dangerous lie they are telling,” King wrote.
Conway said in a Wednesday press conference that most of the reaction he’s received from the community has been positive. Three Gwinnett County commissioners, who had not read the statement before a reporter read it to them, also expressed support for Conway’s position.
“I think it sounds pretty good to me,” said commissioner Tommy Hunter, who is white. “It sums up the way a lot of people feel.”
Conway’s statement said “the blatant disrespect towards law enforcement officers performing their duties must stop.” But he also echoed the Black Lives Matter movement when he said, “All lives, and I repeat, ALL LIVES matter.”
“How about ‘A life matters?’” Conway said Wednesday. “Somebody’s dead, they’re gone. …It’s semantics. I really believe any life wasted is bad.”
Conway said sending the statement was something he “had to do.”
“I feel better about myself having said what needs to be said,” he said.
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