El Paso area leaders gathered Friday evening at a news conference to express their solidarity with Dallas after five law enforcement officers were killed and six others were injured in a sniper attack.

El Paso County Sheriff Richard Wiles offered condolences, while state, county, and city officials discussed the attack’s impact on the country, Texas, and El Paso. But it was a comment made by El Paso’s African-American Police Chief Greg Allen after the news conference that drew the most attention.

Though Allen was laconic and vague in most of his answers to the press, he opened up when it came to a question about the Black Lives Matter movement.

“Black Lives Matter, as far as I am concerned, is a radical hate group,” he said. “And for that purpose alone, I think the leadership of this country needs to look a little bit harder at that particular group. The consequences of what we saw in Dallas is due to their efforts.”

According to the El Paso Times, Allen is the first black police chief in the city’s history. He’s been in charge of the department—one of the country’s largest—since 2007. And during his tenure, the city has been consistently ranked as one of the safest large cities in America.