Actor James Woods claimed Sunday in tweets that activist Rev. Al Sharpton is directly responsible for the slayings of two police officers.
The 67-year-old, a well-known political conservative, bashed Sharpton after a three-month Twitter hiatus.
“This disgusting pig is DIRECTLY responsible for the murder of two good policemen. No discussion,” he tweeted with a picture of Sharpton.
Woods is referring to the murders of two NYPD cops on Saturday alledgedly by Ismaaiyl Brinsley, who cops say drove from Baltimore to Brooklyn to kill police officers to avenge the deaths of Eric Garner and Michael Brown. Officers Rafael Ramos and Wenjian Liu were shot by Brinsley as they sat in their squad car in Bedford-Stuyvesant.
“They were, quite simply, assassinated,” NYPD Commissioner Bill Bratton said Saturday night.
“I’m putting wings on pigs today. They take 1 of ours … let’s take 2 of theirs,” Brinsley wrote on an Instagram post earlier that day under a photo of a silver handgun. He included the hashtags #ShootThePolice, #RIPErivGarner (sic) and #RIPMikeBrown.
Woods also posted a picture of the 60-year-old Sharpton splattered with blood and the caption, “What do we want, Dead Cops. When Do we want it, Right Now,” which was the chant of several members of last week’s march in New York City that was led by Sharpton.
Sharpton has not yet responded to Woods’ comments directly, but on Sunday he said that he does not agree with “eye-for-an-eye” violence and said that blaming protestors or politicians for officer deaths is ridiculous.
“We are now under intense threat from those who are misguided — from those who are trying to blame everyone from civil rights leaders to the mayor rather than deal with an ugly spirit that all of us need to fight,” he said. “There are those of us committed to nonviolence and making the system work. And there are those committed to anarchy and recklessness who could care less about the families of police or the families who have raised questions about police accountability.”
