Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke said he was willing to give Attorney General Eric Holder a "do-over" after initially criticizing him in the aftermath of the Ferguson, Missouri, police shooting of a young black man, but he told Fox News on Tuesday that Holder again threw police under the bus.
Clarke told
Newsmax TV in August that Holder had left "a sour taste in the mouths of all law enforcement officers" when he suggested there was racial bias in policing.
On Monday, Holder announced that he will issue new guidelines to federal officers that will eliminate racial profiling.
That, Clarke said, "disgusted" him.
"He comes out with these scurrilous claims that law enforcement officers hit the streets every day with some nefarious intent in their heart to deny people their constitutional civil rights and indiscriminately just shoot black males as if it were some sort of sport," Clarke, who is black, said on
Fox News Channel's "The Kelly File."
Clarke earlier Tuesday told
Fox News Channel's "Your World with Neil Cavuto" that racial profiling can and should be properly used as one element of police work, though it should not be the only element.
Holder has abandoned his duty to be impartial, Clarke told Fox's Megyn Kelly.
"He knows how due process works. He knows what justice is," Clarke said. "He claims he wants justice for all, but apparently he doesn't want justice for police officers."
Clarke was referring to white former Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson, whom a grand jury last week declined to indict in the August shooting of Michael Brown, 18.
Clarke also attacked members of the Congressional Black Caucus, who after the grand jury announcement issued a statement saying it proved "black lives don't matter" in U.S. society.
Race relations had been improving, the sheriff said, before the Obama administration began dividing people on the bases of race, gender and class.
"That wound has been opened again, and some of it is because of the divisive politics that the White House has been playing."
Obama and Holder are smart men who know that words matter and who choose their words carefully, Clarke said.
"When they speak, they need to speak for all Americans," he said.
He said the real reason poor black people are frustrated is that they have to send their children to failing schools, then see few job opportunities.
If people find meaningful work that occupies their time, people won't be "idling around, building up frustration," he said.
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