Isaac Abraham, spokesperson for the family of Yankel Rosenbaum--the Jewish student murdered by a mob during the Crown Heights riot in 1991--contacted Breitbart News today to express his outrage that Al Sharpton would claim not to have incited the violence. "That's Al Sharpton, distorting the facts. He was there inciting the riots," Abraham says.
Earlier today, Breitbart News posted an exclusive interview with Sharpton after he left a rally for Trayvon Martin in Los Angeles last night. Christian Hartsock asked Sharpton about the riots, and he denied his role:
HARTSOCK: Excuse me, Reverend...Given your role in inciting the Crown Heights riots--
SHARPTON: I wasn’t in the Crown Heights riots.
HARTSOCK: You weren’t involved in the Crown Heights riots?
SHARPTON: No, I came after the Crown Heights riots. Read the state report. We got there three days later and brought the peace. So get your facts right.
Abraham responded: "Al is lying. He was there, he called Jews 'diamond dealers.'....Maybe he doesn't think it was incitement, but he was so close to being charged by District Attorney Charles Hynes with incitement.
He wasn't charged--but then he continued his venom and hatred in Israel. He basically keeps distorting the facts."
The news of Sharpton's denials today reached the Rosenbaum family, who had expressed their concern about the remarks, Abraham said. He could not understand why Sharpton was taken seriously as a media personality.
"Why does MSNBC keep on compensating a racist like that? The companies that advertise on his show--what do they think they're getting? He was hoping that when MSNBC took him on that Crown Heights will not come on the agenda.
"He's a fraud, he's a race hustler. To walk the streets and incite prior to judgment--if he can be so sure about that neighborhood watch man [George Zimmerman], why didn't he say that about the man who stabbed Yankel Rosenbaum--an innocent person that was killed by a mob that yelled 'Let's kill the Jew'?"
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