The Chicago chapter of the far-left domestic terrorist group Black Lives Matter shared a screenshot of an email they received that they claimed came from a local police union president, only for the email to be debunked as a fake, according to the Washington Free Beacon.
The original “email,” which BLM claimed was from President of the Chicago Fraternal Order of Police John Catanzara, read “TIMES UP FOR THUGLIVESMATTER! WE’RE COMING FOR YOU HOMEBOYS.” The group shared the screenshot to Twitter on Wednesday, earning it thousands of likes.
But later the same day, Catanzara revealed in a statement that he had never sent the email, and told the BLM group that it was “false, misleading, and extremely troubling that your organization would repost such an inflammatory email without verifying its authenticity.”
BLM Chicago eventually released a follow-up statement confirming that the email was fake, having been sent by “a seemingly official account,” and thanked their followers “for sharing how to authenticate an email.” Nevertheless, they defended their conduct by claiming, without evidence, that they “get hate mail, death threats via email, phone, messenger, etc. daily.”
It is unknown at this time whether or not BLM Chicago fabricated the message themselves in order to portray themselves as the victims, a tactic that has been utilized by BLM activists and sympathizers in the past. Most infamously, television actor Jussie Smollett faked a hate crime against himself in the city of Chicago, claiming that he was assaulted by two White men wearing “Make America Great Again” hats and left on the street with a tied noose around his neck. It was eventually proven that the “attack” was faked by Smollett himself, and he now faces charges.
In the city of Chicago, tensions have been boiling over between the police, far-left activists, and the city’s government. As the rate of shootings and murders in the violence-plagued city continues to rise, Mayor Lori Lightfoot (D-Ill.) has increasingly been accused of showing little to no sympathy for the police as they battle the rising crime wave, with Catanzara being one of her most vocal critics. After a recent shooting involving two officers, one of whom – Officer Ella French – died as a result, Lightfoot went to the hospital where the surviving officer is being treated; at one point during her trip, a crowd of gathered police officers simultaneously turned their backs to her in a silent protest.