The head of the Federal Bureau of Investigation on Monday told attendee at the annual conference of the International Association of Chiefs that law enforcement can use the "Black Lives Matter" social media hashtag to its advantage.
FBI Director James Comey said during his speech at IACP 2015 in Chicago that police can use the hashtag to see the world through the eyes of people who are not in their of work and see how they might perceive them, according to The Washington Post.
"There is a line of law enforcement and a line of communities we serve, especially of communities of color," he said. "Each time somebody interprets hashtag 'Black Lives Matter' as anti-law enforcement, one line moves away. And each time someone interprets hashtag 'Police Lives Matter' as anti-black the other line moves away."
During his address, Comey described the weakening relationship between law enforcement and minority communities.
"Each incident that involves real or perceived police misconduct drives one line this way. Each time an officer is attacked in the line of duty, it drives the other line this way," he said. "I actually feel the lines continuing to arc away from each other, incident by incident, video by video, more and more quickly."
He said that at the same time the two sides are moving further apart, there is a growing crisis of violent crime in some of the most vulnerable communities across the country.
While Comey said that he welcomes scrutiny of policing by the Department of Justice, he noted that the "age of viral videos: has fundamentally changed police work and made officers more hesitant to do the kind of policing that prevents violence.
"We need to figure out what's happening and deal with it now," Comey said. "I refuse to wait . . . these aren't data points, these are lives."
