NBA star LeBron James is at it again with his unhinged tweets about police brutality. The athlete, who is known for engaging in mindless fearmongering, found himself in a bit of trouble recently when he posted a threatening tweet against a police officer involved in a shooting that claimed the life of a 16-year-old black girl. But this time, the backlash was so fierce he was forced to backtrack slightly.

King James Encourages Violence

verdict was announced, news broke of another fatal police shooting in Columbus, Ohio, involving a teenaged black girl named Ma’Khia Bryant. The bodycam footage shows the officer shooting her as she was attacking another black teen with a knife. So far, it is believed that the police were called to the scene due to an altercation. Some have stated that Bryant may have been acting in self-defense, but the footage appears to show her threatening the other girl.

James, like most on the hard left, seemed to show no concern with the facts of the incident and took to Twitter to vent his outrage. In his tweet, the athlete included a picture of the officer who fired the shots with a caption which read “YOU’RE NEXT #ACCOUNTABILITY.” The NBA star included an hourglass emoji in his tweet.

James Gets Slammed

While many on the hard left defended James’ tweet, others denounced him for appearing to incite violence against the officer. Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) asked, “Lebron James is inciting violence against an Ohio police officer. This is disgraceful and dangerous. Is the NBA okay with this? Is Twitter?”

Former Major League Baseball player Lenny Dykstra tweeted:

“On behalf of pro athletes, current and former, I apologize for how #LeBronJames just showed his inner Maxine Waters and made a very real, ongoing threat to the life of the officer who quickly acted to prevent a knife attack from becoming worse. Many of us appreciate what LEOs do!”

OutKick founder Clay Travis tweeted: “LeBron James doxes [sic] police officer who saved a teenage girl from being stabbed to death, demands officer be held accountable, sets new record for athlete stupidity.”

“That cop did nothing wrong by any reasonable standard, and now someone with 50 million followers is encouraging attacks against him,” conservative writer A.G. Hamilton argued. “That’s on top [of] countless news organizations lying about his actions. Decent people need to speak out. Real people will get hurt by this stuff.”

LeBron James

James later deleted the tweet and appeared to walk back his comments.

“ANGER does [sic] any of us any good and that includes myself!” he tweeted. “Gathering all the facts and educating does though! My anger still is here for what happened that lil girl. My sympathy for her family and may justice prevail!”

He continued, “I’m so damn tired of seeing Black people killed by police. I took the tweet down because its being used to create more hate -This isn’t about one officer. it’s about the entire system and they always use our words to create more racism. I am so desperate for more ACCOUNTABILITY.”

Other prominent leftists like former Obama aide Valerie Jarrett downplayed the fact that Bryant was wielding a knife, arguing that the officer shot her “in order to break up a knife fight.” Several activist media outlets omitted references to the fact that she was using a deadly weapon.

This is not the first time that James has used police shootings to incite fear and anger. After Ahmaud Arbery was killed, he claimed black men were being “hunted” every day in America.

James’ unhinged rants have done nothing to advance the cause he claims to support. Making the wildly exaggerated claims that he makes only serves to discredit the movement against police brutality. While hard leftists might defend his statements, rational people know that he is not speaking truth. If Americans wish to see change in policing, they would be wise to take a sensible approach to the matter instead of backing people whose goal is to sow fear and hate.

~

Read more from Jeff Charles.