Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke on Monday blamed “the policies of liberal Democrats” for riots over the weekend that left several officers injured and multiple businesses burned in the city’s north side.

“The Milwaukee riots should be the last time the policies of liberal Democrats are held up as anything other than misery-inducing, divisive, exploitative and racist manipulation of the urban populations. Unfortunately, they won’t,” Sheriff Clarke wrote in an op-ed for The Hill.

“As Sheriff of Milwaukee County, I am furious that the progressive left has put my citizens in harm’s way and that I had to send my officers into cauldrons of anarchy and hatred that were created by the left,” he continued. “As an elected public servant, I am livid that Milwaukee’s pathetic, kowtowing city officials and aldermen take this opportunity to abandon their citizens and preen before the Black Lives Matter-enabling media.”

More than 100 protestors clashed with police Saturday night in Milwaukee’s predominantly black north side in response to the police shooting of an armed black man, 23-year-old Sylville Smith.

Four officers were injured and 17 people were arrested in the first night of protests, and rioters set fire to a bank, a gas station, a beauty supply store and an auto parts store. The violence resumed Sunday and continued into Monday morning, with one victim shot and a police officer injured.

Sheriff Clarke, an outspoken black conservative and supporter of GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump supporter, wrote that the anger and resentment today in black communities is directly caused by a failed progressive urban policy.

“The officer-involved-shooting was simply a catalyst that ignited the already volatile mixture of inescapable poverty, failing K-12 public schools, dysfunctional lifestyle choices like father absent homes, gang involvement, drug/alcohol abuse and massive unemployment,” he argued.

“That things have not improved and in fact worsened in the American ghetto after eight years of Barack Obama is remarkable only to those who have not been paying attention to our nation’s cities,” Sheriff Clarke continued. “There’s only one answer, which is for the citizens of America to expose and heap scorn on this lying and dangerous triad of big government, liberal mainstream media and the lost souls of the urban ghettos both these institutions feed upon for their power.

“What happened Saturday night and again Sunday night had little to do with police use of force — it was a collapse of the social order where tribal behavior leads to reacting to circumstances instead of waiting for facts to emerge,” the sheriff wrote. “The actions were the manifestation of a population with no hope, no stake in the American dream that could provide advancement and purpose and pride of self. They are the ones lied to, exploited by and ultimately manipulated by the Democrats who claim to care. They are victims of the left, but they are not without blame. It’s time for them to remember their own humanity, their own dignity, and to fight for that return to the American Dream that the left would withhold from them.”

Sign up for Daily Newsletters Manage Newsletters

Copyright © 2020 The Washington Times, LLC. Click here for reprint permission.