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You can find the current article at its original source at http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/police-union-asks-amazon-to-remove-bulletproof-black-lives-matter-shirt-a7495426.html
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Police union demands Amazon to remove 'Bulletproof Black Lives Matter' shirt | Police union demands Amazon to remove 'Bulletproof Black Lives Matter' shirt |
(about 2 hours later) | |
The US's largest police union has urged Amazon to remove a T-shirt from its third-party marketplace that says: “Bulletproof: Black Lives Matter”. | |
The Fraternal Order of Police has already succeeded in having garment removed from Walmart supermarkets. But as of Sunday morning it was still available on Amazon. | |
Union president Chuck Canterbury said he didn't expect that to change anytime soon. | |
Characterising Amazon as a “pretty liberal marketer", he told The Guardian that the T-shirt's rhetoric had inspired violence against members of law enforcement. | |
According to the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund, 64 police officers have been fatally shot in the line of duty in 2016. | |
At least 940 people have been killed by a police office across the country over the same period, according to the Washington Post database that tracks police violence. | |
The owner of the Connecticut-based Old Glory Merchandise, which sells the shirt in question, doesn’t seem to be a staunch supporter of Black Lives Matter - the umbrella organisation formed to protest against percieved unjust policing in communities of colour. | |
Owner Glenn Morelli told CNN that he quickly pulled the controversial shirt from his website after they failed to drive sales. | |
“It wasn’t a big seller at all,” he said, adding that T-shirts in support of Blue Lives Matter - a pro-police movement - had sold more. | |
He added: "We don’t like to offend anybody... You have to sell all different kinds of shirts. It’s hard to make everybody happy." |