The Rev. Al Sharpton called for peace Sunday — and revealed he has received death threats from people blaming him and Mayor de Blasio for the killing of two police officers.
“This is a pursuit of justice to make the system work fairly for everyone,” Sharpton told reporters gathered at the Harlem headquarters of the National Action Network. “This is not about taking things into our own hands. That doesn’t solve the problem of police misconduct.”
Sharpton also played a voicemail threat left on his cell phone.
“Hey, n—–, stop killing innocent people, I’m going to get you!” the voicemail said.
Sharpton reported the threat to the FBI.
“We are now under intense threat by those who are misguided and those who are trying to blame everyone from civil rights leaders to the mayor,” he said.
Sharpton was flanked by Eric Garner’s widow and mother, who both condemned the shooting death of two NYPD cops Saturday afternoon.
Ismaaiyl Brinsley, the shooter, bragged about wanting to kill cops on Instagram hours before he ambushed the officers, Rafael Ramos, 40, and Wenjian Liu, 32, as they sat in their marked patrol car parked on Tompkins Ave. near Myrtle Ave.
An Instagram post on his account before the shooting included three hashtags: ShootThePolice, RIPErivGarner (sic) and RIP MikeBrown.
Garner’s family condemned the use of his name in the attack.
“We are for peace and anyone who’s standing with us, we want you to not use Eric Garner’s name for violence because we are not about that,” Garner’s mother, Gwen Carr, told reporters.
Garner’s widow echoed that plea.
“Please protest in a nonviolent way,” Esaw Garner said. “My husband was not a violent man so we don’t want violence attached to his name.”
This article originally appeared in The New York Daily News
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