{"id":498859,"date":"2021-05-12T05:05:53","date_gmt":"2021-05-12T09:05:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=498859"},"modified":"2021-05-12T05:05:57","modified_gmt":"2021-05-12T09:05:57","slug":"ice-nominee-worked-with-blm-to-push-false-claim-that-white-man-murdered-7-year-old-black-girl","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/ice-nominee-worked-with-blm-to-push-false-claim-that-white-man-murdered-7-year-old-black-girl\/","title":{"rendered":"ICE Nominee Worked With BLM to Push False Claim That White Man Murdered 7-Year-Old Black Girl"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">32<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fice-nominee-worked-with-blm-to-push-false-claim-that-white-man-murdered-7-year-old-black-girl%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=498859&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><p>The Texas sheriff nominated to lead Immigration and Customs Enforcement pushed a false claim that a white man murdered a seven-year-old black girl from Houston, even after receiving a tip that the actual killers were black.<\/p>\n<p>Ed Gonzalez, the Harris County sheriff and the Biden administration&#8217;s choice for ICE director, worked closely with Black Lives Matter activist Shaun King to identify Jazmine Barnes&#8217;s killer. Gonzalez amplified the family&#8217;s claim that the gunman was white even after he received a tip that Barnes&#8217;s killers were black. An attorney for the man King falsely identified as the shooter said King&#8217;s allegation might have contributed to his client&#8217;s suicide.<\/p>\n<p>Gonzalez is likely to face scrutiny from Republicans for scaling back cooperation with the federal government on deportations early in the Trump administration. This year, he <a href=\"https:\/\/freebeacon.com\/biden-administration\/bidens-ice-nominee-pushed-to-release-violent-felons-from-his-jail\/\">proposed releasing<\/a> 1,500 county jail inmates, hundreds of whom faced charges for violent crimes. King is a controversial figure who has come under fire for making false allegations in racially charged incidents.<\/p>\n<p>Jazmine Barnes was gunned down in the back seat of her mother&#8217;s car on Dec. 30, 2018. On the day of the shooting, Gonzalez said <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/SheriffEd_HCSO\/status\/1079408252956200960\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">on Twitter<\/a> that Barnes&#8217;s family described the gunman as a white male in his 40s. He released a police sketch of a suspect matching that description on Jan. 3, 2019.<\/p>\n<p>A timeline of the investigation shows that King received a tip that Barnes&#8217;s killers were black later that day. King <a href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/p\/BsTA2hklxlZ\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">said<\/a>\u00a0that he shared the tip &#8220;immediately&#8221; with Gonzalez but that they &#8220;could not just make sense of it.&#8221; But Gonzalez, who has been sheriff of Harris County since 2017, told a reporter that King shared the tip that led to the arrest of the real killers, Eric Black, Jr., and Larry Woodruffe, with him &#8220;midweek.&#8221; He continued circulating the incorrect police sketch on social media for two more days.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/freebeacon.com\/?attachment_id=1474071\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-1474071\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-1474071\" src=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/Screen-Shot-2021-05-11-at-10.56.30-AM.jpg\" alt width=\"1104\" height=\"972\" srcset=\"https:\/\/freebeacon.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/Screen-Shot-2021-05-11-at-10.56.30-AM.jpg 1104w, https:\/\/freebeacon.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/Screen-Shot-2021-05-11-at-10.56.30-AM-300x264.jpg 300w, https:\/\/freebeacon.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/Screen-Shot-2021-05-11-at-10.56.30-AM-1024x902.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/freebeacon.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/Screen-Shot-2021-05-11-at-10.56.30-AM-768x676.jpg 768w, https:\/\/freebeacon.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/Screen-Shot-2021-05-11-at-10.56.30-AM-736x648.jpg 736w, https:\/\/freebeacon.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/Screen-Shot-2021-05-11-at-10.56.30-AM-558x491.jpg 558w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1104px) 100vw, 1104px\"  style=\"display:none\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>The Barnes murder became a national media sensation after Gonzalez, King, and others trumpeted the girl&#8217;s mother&#8217;s belief that the shooting was racially motivated. Attorney Lee Merritt, who represented Barnes&#8217;s family, leveled a hate crime allegation during a Jan. 3, 2019, press conference he held with Gonzalez.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We believe it was racially motivated in part because our nation at this moment is a highly racially charged society. We&#8217;ve seen a rise in hate crime,&#8221; <a href=\"https:\/\/fb.watch\/5kox4yszwN\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Merritt said<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Gonzalez stopped short of saying the shooting was a hate crime, though he said it could &#8220;potentially be race related.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Gonzalez later acknowledged that he received a tip that same day from King that Barnes&#8217;s killers were Black and Woodruffe, both of whom are black.<\/p>\n<p>Black and Woodruffe were arrested on Jan. 6, 2019, and charged with capital murder.<\/p>\n<p>King pushed the false narrative of a white killer even after he acknowledged receiving a tip about Black and Woodruffe.<\/p>\n<p>In a now-deleted Jan. 4 tweet, King <a href=\"https:\/\/freebeacon.com\/politics\/black-lives-matter-activist-shaun-king-implies-innocent-man-committed-murder\/\">falsely identified<\/a> Robert Cantrell as a potential suspect in the shooting. He said that Cantrell had been arrested on unrelated charges hours after Barnes was killed. King posted a mug shot of Cantrell from that arrest and said the man was known to be &#8220;violent&#8221; and &#8220;racist.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/freebeacon.com\/?attachment_id=1474068\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-1474068\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-1474068\" src=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/Screen-Shot-2021-05-11-at-12.23.57-PM.jpg\" alt width=\"1224\" height=\"1054\" srcset=\"https:\/\/freebeacon.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/Screen-Shot-2021-05-11-at-12.23.57-PM.jpg 1224w, https:\/\/freebeacon.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/Screen-Shot-2021-05-11-at-12.23.57-PM-300x258.jpg 300w, https:\/\/freebeacon.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/Screen-Shot-2021-05-11-at-12.23.57-PM-1024x882.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/freebeacon.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/Screen-Shot-2021-05-11-at-12.23.57-PM-768x661.jpg 768w, https:\/\/freebeacon.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/Screen-Shot-2021-05-11-at-12.23.57-PM-736x634.jpg 736w, https:\/\/freebeacon.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/Screen-Shot-2021-05-11-at-12.23.57-PM-570x491.jpg 570w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1224px) 100vw, 1224px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Cantrell started receiving death threats as soon as the police sketch was released, his attorney said. He hanged himself in July 2019 in a Houston-area jail where he was being held on theft charges. &#8220;I think that this significantly contributed to my client&#8217;s diminished mental state knowing he was in jail and could not protect his family,&#8221; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.yourconroenews.com\/neighborhood\/moco\/news\/article\/Man-misidentified-by-police-sketch-found-hanged-14193236.php\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">said<\/a> the attorney, E. Tay Bond.<\/p>\n<p>Gonzalez spoke glowingly of King during a press conference on Jan. 6, 2019, even though the activist had misidentified Cantrell as the killer.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I want to thank, again, Shaun King for his activism and help and raising awareness and the monies that were put forward,&#8221; Gonzalez <a href=\"https:\/\/youtu.be\/XTgu73iDsBc?t=710\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">said<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Many of King&#8217;s fellow activists <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thedailybeast.com\/shaun-king-keeps-raising-money-and-questions-about-where-it-goes-3\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">have questioned<\/a> his fundraising for social justice ventures. King has also made false allegations in other racially charged incidents. In May 2018, he publicly accused a Texas state trooper of sexually assaulting a black woman. Police video from the incident showed that the woman, Sherita Dixon-Cole, fabricated the story.<\/p>\n<p>Gonzalez never identified Cantrell by name as a suspect but also never corrected King&#8217;s false allegation.<\/p>\n<p>ICE did not respond to a request for comment. A spokesman for the Harris County sheriff&#8217;s department defended Gonzalez&#8217;s handling of the Barnes investigation.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The suspect sketch was based on the surviving victims&#8217; descriptions,&#8221; said spokesman Jason Spencer. &#8220;At the time, many observers were publicly sharing their belief that Jazmine&#8217;s murder may have been a racially motivated hate crime. Sheriff Gonzalez never voiced such a theory. Instead, he took a very measured approach, insisting throughout the investigation that we did not know what might have motivated the person who took Jazmine\u2019s life.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The investigation successfully ended with arrests,&#8221; Spencer said.<\/p>\n<p>While the Barnes case was in the national spotlight at the time, it quickly faded from public view after her murderers were charged.<\/p>\n<p>Black and Woodruffe were released on bail in 2019 while awaiting trial.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Texas sheriff nominated to lead Immigration and Customs Enforcement pushed a false claim that a white man murdered a seven-year-old black girl from Houston, even after receiving a tip &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2277868,"comment_status":"close","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/Screen-Shot-2021-05-11-at-10.56.30-AM.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"ICE Nominee Worked With BLM to Push False Claim That White Man Murdered 7-Year-Old Black Girl","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-498859","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/Screen-Shot-2021-05-11-at-10.56.30-AM.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"ICE Nominee Worked With BLM to Push False Claim That White Man Murdered 7-Year-Old Black Girl","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/498859","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=498859"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/498859\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2277868"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=498859"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=498859"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=498859"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}