St. Louis police union official explains 'dead cops' comment

A top St. Louis police union official is explaining and expanding upon remarks in which he said protesters in Ferguson, Missouri, wanted “dead cops.”

“Dead cops, dead cops. That’s what they want,” said union spokesman Jeff Roorda of the demonstrators in a Fox News interview Thursday.


Roorda, a former Democratic state lawmaker, explained on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” on Friday what he meant when asked why he would characterize all protesters in that manner.

“You can’t hear the complaints of these protesters, the story that they want to get out to the world, over gunfire and that’s the point I was making,” Roorda said.

Roorda also blasted “very lopsided” media coverage since the killing of Michael Brown by Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson last August, making reference to the recent Justice Department report that cleared Wilson.

“A problem with the media coverage of this has been—‘Oh my gosh, we have this isolated incident where police officers were shot,’” he said, adding that it is “an ongoing phenomenon.”

Roorda said the minute someone in the crowd engages in violence, the protest “then becomes something very different.”

“There are certainly peaceful elements within the crowd along with these violent elements. But those folks were placed in jeopardy too by these shooters,” he said.

The remarks come a day after two area police officers were shot by an unknown assailant or assailants, who remain at large. The officers were released from the hospital the same day.

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