Richard Mudge
US President Donald Trump defended his tweet on Friday warning amid unrest in Minneapolis that said “when the looting starts, the shooting starts.”
The phrase echoes the language of a Miami police chief in 1967 who made clear his distaste for civil rights activists and his belief that violent protests should be met with deadly force.
About 13 hours after the president’s provocative tweet, Trump took to Twitter again to claim that he wasn’t suggesting the shooting of rioters.
Instead, he said he was referring to gun violence that has been spurred by the unrest.
“Frankly, it means when there’s looting, people get shot and they die,” Trump said during a roundtable Friday afternoon.
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