The Fraternal Order of Police, which is the largest police union in the United States, is demanding that online retailer Amazon remove Black Lives Matter merchandise from their website, specifically targeting a t-shirt that the organization deems to be offensive. The shirt is manufactured and sold by a third-party retailer, rather than by Amazon itself.
According to the Guardian, the FOP wants Amazon to follow in the footsteps of Walmart and remove a shirt that says "Bulletproof: Black Lives Matter" across the chest.
Walmart removed the shirt last week.
As of Monday morning, the shirt was still listed on Amazon.com, but was "unavailable" to purchase.
FOP president Chuck Canterbury wrote a letter last week to Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos asking him to support the FOP and their mission of "increasing the bonds of trust between the men and women of law enforcement and the communities they serve."
But Caterbury told the Guardian that he wouldn't be surprised if Amazon continued to list the shirt because they're a "pretty liberal marketer."
The issue of selling the shirts matter, Caterbury added, because of the violence waged on police over the last two years stemming from anti-police rhetoric, much of which comes from people in the Black Lives Matter movement.
"[The anti-police violence] happened as a result of the rhetoric of different BLM groups," Caterbury told the Guardian.
At the height of the rhetoric last summer, a man slaughtered five Dallas police officers, and injured nine others, while they were protecting Black Lives Matter protesters. That gunman was allegedly angered by police and white people.
And in his letter to Walmart CEO Douglas McMillon last week, Canterbury alleged that retailers like Amazon and Walmart are profiting from racial division by selling the third-party merchandise.
"Commercializing our differences will not help our local police and communities to build greater trust and respect for one another," Canterbury wrote. "Turning a buck on strained relationships will not contribute to the healing process."
"I wanted to let you know that my members are are very upset that you and Amazon are complicit in the sale of this offensive merchandise," he added in the letter.
According to CNN, the t-shirts were being sold through a New England-based company, Old Glory Merchandise. The owner of that company, Glenn Morelli, told CNN that although he hadn't yet been contacted by Canterbury, he already decided to stop selling the shirt because it was a poor seller.
"It wasn't a big seller at all. The Blue Lives Matter sells more than the Black Lives Matter or bulletproof shirts combined," Morelli said. "We don't like to offend anybody."
Canterbury says he will continue pressuring companies like Walmart and Amazon to stop selling Black Lives Matter merchandise until the movement definitively says they don't support violence against police.
Chris Enloe
Staff Writer
