On Tuesday night, LeBron James has posted a tweet in reaction to the shooting of Ma’Khia Bryant, amid a vocal response from conservative voices including former president Donald Trump. After intense backlash, James deleted the tweet in less than two hours.
This made Police officers respond to the Los Angeles Lakers LeBron James after targeting a police officer on social media by mocking the NBA star in TikTok videos.
The videos came after James posted a photograph to Twitter last week of a police officer in Ohio that shot and killed a black girl who was attempting to stab another black girl. James wrote, “YOU’RE NEXT. #ACCOUNTABILITY.” James also included an emoji of an hourglass, signifying that time is running out.
Good morning. This is great. Enjoy. pic.twitter.com/nfCaEOhedR
— Clay Travis (@ClayTravis) April 26, 2021
“Dispatch, I’ve arrived at that disturbance. Will you have LeBron call my cellphone right away, please? Thank you,” an officer in the Bellevue, Idaho, Marshal’s office, Nate Silvester, says in the video, where he pretends to respond to an emergency where fictional people are stabbing each other.
Silvester’s TikTok video has drawn nearly 2.5 million views so far, according to Newsweek reported. The video shows Silvester pretending to respond to calls from dispatch before radioing back that he needs permission from James before he can act. Newsweek noted that the video had been viewed more than 2.5 million times on TikTok.
Silvester then rolls down his car’s window and tells a fictional person to put down a knife before he gets back on his phone and pretends to talk to James.
“LeBron, hey, yeah, it’s me again,” Silvester says. “Listen, I’m out here at this disturbance call, and a guy is trying to stab another guy with a knife. What do you think I should do?”
“Why does that matter?” he then says.
“Okay, well, they’re both black. One guy is trying to stab another guy with a knife,” Silvester says. “Deadly force is completely justified.”
“So, you don’t care if a black person kills another black person — but you do care if a white cop kills a black person, even if he’s doing it to save the life of another black person?” the officer asks. “I mean, that doesn’t make a whole lot of sense, but then again, you’re good at basketball, so I guess I’ll take your word for it.”
“Michael Jordan’s the GOAT,” Silvester says, referring to the acronym the “Greatest of All Time.”
A video of the incident appears to show that Reardon stopped Bryant moments before she stabbed an unidentified female, but James and others have questioned his actions.
After James deleted his tweet last week, he posted two messages to Twitter but did not apologize for the tweet that he blasted out to his nearly 50 million followers on Twitter.
“ANGER does [sic] any of us any good and that includes me!” James said. “Gathering all the facts and educating does though! My anger still is here for what happened to that Lil girl. My sympathy for her family and may justice prevail!”
“I’m so damn tired of seeing Black people killed by police,” James continued. “I took the tweet down because it is 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.”
Linne’s Pub, a bar in James’ home state of Ohio, announced last week that they would no longer show NBA games until James is “expelled” from the league.
“If anyone wants to watch an NBA game, don’t come to Linnie’s Pub,” Linne’s Pub owner Jay Linneman said in a Facebook post. “We will not air them until Lebron James has been expelled from the NBA.”
Linneman told a local newspaper that the players needed to just play the game and that’s it. “Their opinion doesn’t really matter,” Linneman said.
“They’re using their position to push their opinions, and that’s just not right.”
James responded to news that the bar banned NBA games by mocking them, writing on Twitter: “Aww Damn! I was headed there to watch our game tonight and have a drink! Welp.”
James was also slammed by Former President Donald Trump last week over his tweet, writing that he is doing nothing to unite the country.
“LeBron James should focus on basketball rather than presiding over the destruction of the NBA, which has just recorded the lowest television RATINGS, by far, in the long and distinguished history of the League,” Trump said. “His RACIST rants are divisive, nasty, insulting, and demeaning. He may be a great basketball player, but he is doing nothing to bring our Country together!”
Sources: WASHINGTON EXAMINER, YAHOO SPORTS, DAILY WIRE