One Day Before More Officers Killed, New Black Panther Party Started Baton Rouge Chapter

-By Warner Todd Huston

Only a day before three police officers were shot and killed in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, reports circulated that the militant New Black Panther Party started up a new chapter in the city.

On Saturday, July 16, members of the militant group arrived in Baton Rouge to help lead a Black Lives Matter protest against police officers over the video taped shooting death of Alton Sterling. While in the town Panther representatives announced that local African American activists had asked to form a new chapter there.

“It is time for new leadership and a new organization to step forward in Baton Rouge,” local activist Edwin Smith said according to WBRZ. “I feel like the New Black Panther Party is the organization that can bring new leadership to Baton Rouge.”

Jerald Justice, one of the NBPP who arrived in Baton Rough to lead the protest affirmed that the group was working with Smith and other locals to launch the new chapter.

“With the help of the New Black Panther Party, these members should be able to handle any or everything in their city,” Justice told the media on Saturday.

During the protests police arrested 185 protesters, but none seem to have been officially affiliated with the Panthers.

The announcement of a new chapter of the Panthers came one day before more police officers were shot and killed in the Pelican State.

Late on Sunday morning at least one man dressed in black opened fire on Baton Rouge police killing three and injuring several others.

The sneak attack came near the Baton Rouge police headquarters.

After the newest murders of police officers hit the news, during a Sunday interview on Fox News Cleveland police officer and Police Patrolmen’s Association President Steve Loomis said President Barack Obama “has blood on his hands.”

Baton Rough will join Lafayette, Louisiana as the only two Louisiana cities hosting an active Panther chapter. Members say that there was also an older chapter in New Orleans but it is no longer active.
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“The only end of writing is to enable the reader better to enjoy life, or better to endure it.”
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Warner Todd Huston is a Chicago based freelance writer. He has been writing news, opinion editorials and social criticism since early 2001 and before that wrote articles on U.S. history for several American history magazines. Huston is a featured writer for Andrew Breitbart’s Breitbart News, and he appears on such sites as RightWingNews.com, CanadaFreePress.com, BizPac Review, and many, many others. Huston has also appeared on Fox News, Fox Business Network, CNN, and many local TV shows as well as numerous talk radio shows throughout the country.

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