The Obama administration’s Justice Department funneled at least $1.5 million in grants to a New York legal-aid group featured in a new rap video that depicts two young black men aiming handguns at a white police officer.
Some may find the lyrics eerily similar to the social media postings of the man accused of shooting and killing two New York City police officers execution-style in Brooklyn on Saturday.
The video for “Hands Up,” which also shows a white police officer gunning down a black motorist wearing a hoodie, contains lyrics suggesting revenge for much-publicized deaths of black men in confrontations with police.
Credited to rappers Uncle Murda and Maino, the video is subtitled “Eric Garner Tribute,” a reference to a black man who died while being pinned and restrained on a sidewalk by New York police officers.
The taxpayer money that went to the organization shown in the video, the Bronx Defenders, comes from a Justice Department program named for Edward Byrne, a New York Police Department officer who was shot dead at close range in 1988.