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NAACP rebukes Cleveland police union's endorsement of Trump

Posted at 10:09 PM, Oct 01, 2016
and last updated 2016-10-01 22:09:39-04

The Cleveland chapter of the NAACP came out strongly against the Cleveland Police Patrolmen's Association's earlier endorsement of Donald Trump for president.

In a strongly worded rebuke of the police union's decision, the NAACP said their endorsement "reveals the CPPA's goon mentality and disdain for the lives of those it is sworn to serve." 

RELATED: CPPA endorse Donald Trump for president

The NAACP declared four major reasons why they oppose the police union's endorsement of Trump. First, they said Cleveland police have taken an oath to uphold the Constitution, and an endorsement of Trump is implicit support of his proposed renewal of "stop-and-frisk" policies nationwide, which were deemed unconstitutional by the Supreme Court.

Second, the civil rights group said Trump's immigration police and their de facto support "violates every tenet of the American spirit." They say public servants who have taken an oath to serve should completely reject his rhetoric. 

The NAACP also takes issue that Steve Loomis, President of CPPA, based his support of Trump on a belief that Trump would be a "friend of police." They say this is tacit ignorance of the federal consent decree passed onto the Cleveland Police Department for their patterns of excessive use of force. 

"Steve Loomis implies that [the] findings that Cleveland officers have beaten, maimed and killed unarmed men and women would somehow be allowed to go unchallenged under a Trump administration," the NAACP said in the statement.

Finally, the NAACP took issue with what they saw as negligence on the CPPA to take into account the Black and Hispanic officers on the force. The group says the police union's support of Trump is an embrace of his racially-charged comments on the campaign trail.

Comments noted by the NAACP include Trump's perceived disrespect of Judge Gonzalo Curiel because of his Mexican heritage and his perpetual questioning of President Barack Obama's citizenship. They also noted that Trump has been sued twice in the past for refusing to rent to Black people.