The largest police union in the United States, the Fraternal Order of Police, is urging Amazon to remove a t-shirt from its third-party marketplace that says “Bulletproof: Black Lives Matter.”
Before the request, the union successfully appealed Walmart who pulled the same shirt from their website on Thursday. However, the shirt can still be purchased on Amazon.com as of Sunday morning and the union president Chuck Canterbury doesn’t expect that to change anytime soon. He characterized Amazon as a “pretty liberal marketer.”
He also told The Guardian that this rhetoric has inspired violence against members of law enforcement. According to the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund , 64 police officers have been fatally shot in the line of duty in 2016.
As of Sunday morning, at least 940 people have been killed by a police office across the country this year alone, according to the Washington Post database that tracks police violence.
Still, the owner of the Connecticut-based Old Glory Merchandise who sells the shirt in question doesn’t seem to be a staunch supporter of the Black Lives Matter movement, the umbrella organization protesting against unjust policing in communities of color. Owner Glenn Morelli recently told CNN that he quickly pulled the shirt from his website thanks to dismal sales.
“It wasn’t a big seller at all,” he admitted. “The Blue Lives Matter sells more than the Black Lives Matter or bulletproof shirts combined. We don’t like to offend anybody.” He added: “You have to sell all different kinds of shirts. It’s hard to make everybody happy."
