Al Sharpton Denies Crown Heights Riot Incitement

Los Angeles, CA - At an event in South Los Angeles rallying for the family of Trayvon Martin, Rev. Al Sharpton, host on MSNBC, was interviewed in the parking lot by Breitbart News reporter Christian Hartsock. Here’s the transcript:

HARTSOCK: Excuse me, Reverend … Given your role in inciting the Crown Heights riots –

SHARPTON: I wasn’t in the Crown Heights riots.

HARTSOCK: You weren’t involved in the Crown Heights riots?

SHARPTON: No, I came after the Crown Heights riots. Read the state report. We got there three days later and brought the peace. So get your facts right.

Sharpton didn’t get his facts right. The Crown Heights riots occurred after young black New Yorker Gavin Cato was hit by a car driven by an Orthodox Jew. Sharpton spoke at the funeral. Here’s what he said:

“Talk about how Oppenheimer in South Africa sends diamonds straight to Tel Aviv and deals with the diamond merchants right here in Crown Heights. The issue is not anti-Semitism; the issue is apartheid .... All we want to say is what Jesus said: If you offend one of these little ones, you got to pay for it. No compromise, no meetings, no coffee klatsch, no skinnin’ and grinnin’.”

Later, Sharpton said, “If the Jews want to get it on, tell them to pin their yarmulkes back and come over to my house.” The riots resulted in the murder of an Orthodox Jew, Yankel Rosenbaum. As Rosenbaum’s brother wrote, “Based on everything we have seen and read, Sharpton never called upon the rioters to stop their anti-Semitism-inspired violence. He never called on the rioters to go home. To the contrary, he stirred them up. And three days of anti-Semitic violence became the Crown Heights riots.”

This is the Al Sharpton leading the charge on the Trayvon Martin case – a racist extraordinaire, a charlatan, and a liar. And this is the Al Sharpton hired by Phil Griffin to lend gravitas to MSNBC’s evening lineup.