DEMOCRAT Rep Cori Bush praised the late Black Lives Matter activist Bassem Masri who previously called for “pig” police officers to be “fried like bacon.”
During her speech on the House floor on Thursday, Bush was reflecting on Masri’s life as she was commenting on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in Gaza that intensified over the past few days.
She described Masri as a “St Louis Palestinian” who live-streamed the exchanges he had with the Ferguson police during protests against police brutality that followed the Michael Brown Jr shooting in 2014.
Palestinian-American Masri took part in protests outside the Ferguson Police Department in St Louis, Missouri, in November 2014.
According to live-streamed cell phone footage, Masri was yelling at a police officer: “Coward straight pig out here b***h! You gotta go. Your life is in danger homie. What happens when we take your gun?” a Fox affiliate reported at the time.
“If the citizen is pissed, you don’t look at the citizen and say, ‘Oh he’s bad, he’s a terrorist,’ you look at the police and say, ‘How come this man is mad at y’all,’” he told the local Fox affiliate.
“I don’t want to get hurt. I don’t want to go to jail, I’m a citizen who’s mad,” he added.
Masri later tweeted in December 2014 what is now a famous Black Lives Matter chant: “Pigs in a blanket, fry ’em like bacon.”
Masri died in 2018 of a heart attack, according to The St. Louis American. He was reportedly found unresponsive on a bus in Bridgeton.
Bush called for redirecting the funds going towards the Israeli military to St Louis communities.
“That harassment, that extortion, that brutalization by heavily armed militarized presence in our community, that’s what we fund when our government sends our tax dollars to the Israeli military,” the congresswoman said on Thursday, Fox News reported.
At least 122 people have died in Gaza from the escalated violence between Israeli forces and Palestinians, according to the BBC.
In April, Democrat “Squad” member Rashida Tlaib was slammed for branding the death of Daunte Wright as “government-funded murder.”
The Michigan congresswoman also called for police to be abolished in the wake of the shooting that saw a female cop kill the black dad after she mistook her gun for a Taser.
“It wasn’t an accident,” Tlaib wrote in response to the shooting and death of the Minnesota father.
“Daunte Wright was met with aggression & violence.
“I am done with those who condone government-funded murder.”
Wright, 20, was killed by a Brooklyn Center police officer just before 2pm on Sunday during a traffic stop.
Tlaib used the shooting to call for a complete overhaul of the justice system in the US.
She said: “No more policing, incarceration, and militarization. It can’t be reformed.”
