Florida Governor Ron DeSantis warned potential looters to beware because Florida is a Second Amendment state. They don’t know who might be lurking. Joy Reid took that as her cue to accuse him of being a racist like a Miami sheriff who died in 1968. The vitriolic Reid even got the sheriff wrong, calling him a white supremacist and segregationist. Sheriff Headley integrated his police department. Read his story at the end, but remember it was a different time.
THE WARNING
Hurricane Ian landed on Florida’s west coast on Wednesday as a category 4 storm. It turned out to be a 500-year storm surge. Many people wouldn’t evacuate because they feared the looters would take everything or damage their homes.
Looting has been a big concern for those in areas facing severe damage from Hurricane Ian.
“We are a law and order state, and this is a law and order community,” DeSantis said while speaking at a press conference in Fort Myers on Friday. “So do not think that you’re going to take advantage of people who’ve suffered misery.”
“Don’t even think about looting,” DeSantis said later.
“I can tell you in the state of Florida, you never know what may be lurking behind somebody’s home,” DeSantis said. “And I would not want to chance that if I were you — given that we’re a Second Amendment state.”
WATCH:
Gov. DeSantis warned would-be looters that the state would undertake efforts to maintain law and order and offered a quip advising against any lootings as “we are a second amendment state”.https://t.co/udG3Vx3bPv pic.twitter.com/OczoWr9ggd
— WPEC CBS12 News (@CBS12) October 1, 2022
JOY REID SPEWED HATE
Well-known for her vitriol and racism, Joy Reid mindlessly and ignorantly attacked DeSantis.
“When the looting starts, the shooting starts.”—segregationist Miami sheriff Walter E. Headley, 1967,” MSNBC host Joy Reid said. “Didn’t take DeSantis long to return to form.”
Joy Reid sounds like a racist. She thinks only black people loot.
Why do cable stations hire dishonest, vitriolic people like this?
“When the looting starts, the shooting starts.”—segregationist Miami sheriff Walter E. Headley, 1967
Didn’t take DeSantis long to return to form.https://t.co/8FJKyzQY1G https://t.co/uS5jbrx29S
— Joy-Ann (Pro-Democracy) Reid 😷 (@JoyAnnReid) October 1, 2022
THIS IS WHO WALTER HEADLEY WAS
Taking a person out of his time and transferring current-day values to him is a device used to propagandize. Anachronisms are grossly unfair and inaccurate. That is, at least to some degree, the case with Miami Sheriff Walter Headley. He wasn’t a segregationist. He integrated the police department.
Walter Headley served as Miami’s police chief for 20 years and was 62 in 1967.
Headley used aggressive policies in the city’s black neighborhoods that led to violence in the city during the late 1960s, the Miami Herald reported. Headley used “shotguns, dogs and a ‘get tough’ policy,” the newspaper reported.
In a front-page story in the Miami Herald on Dec. 17, 1967, Headley was quoted saying, “We haven’t had any serious problems with civil uprising and looting because I’ve let the word filter down that when the looting starts, the shooting starts.”
Earlier in the month, Headley “declared war” on crime and said his primary target was “aimed at young Negro males, from 15 to 21,” the Herald reported in 1967.
“Ninety percent of our Negro population is law-abiding and wants to eliminate our crime problems,” Headley said. “But 10% are young hoodlums who have taken advantage of the civil rights campaign,” the Herald reported.
“(Headley) had a long history of bigotry against the black community,” Howard University professor Clarence Lusane told NPR.
Walter Everett Headley Jr. was born May 11, 1905, in Philadelphia and learned to ride horses at his grandfather’s farm in New Jersey. When he was 15, he dropped out of high school, lied about his age, and joined the U.S. Cavalry.
Headley moved with his family to South Florida in 1923 and, after working several jobs, joined the Miami police force in 1937. He was appointed chief of police on Aug. 11, 1948, and declared, “There will be no liberal policy here.” He wielded power for the next 20 years and fended off several attempts to have him fired.
Headley died of a heart attack on Nov. 16, 1968, in Miami and was buried at Woodlawn Park North Cemetery and Mausoleum.
Judge J. Fritz Gordon eulogized Headley as a man who “embraced that rare attribute of men — the admixture of tact, flavored with humanity, humility, and fairness.”
Headley never backed down from criticism and insisted his “get tough” actions were not racially motivated.
“I don’t plan to temper my statements until I get some results,” Headley told the Miami City Commission in December. “I didn’t mention race, and I never have. Everyone here knows I’m not a racist.”
His death notice explains that he hired the first black police officer, integrated his department, and began filling the streets with black (called negro then) traffic officers. He eliminated the ‘negro’ police station and integrated the officers.
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