Michael Brown Shooting: TD Jakes Blames Racial Profiling

On Thursday, Aug. 14, while Bishop T.D. Jakes celebrated the 20th birthday of his son, Thomas Dexter Jakes,
he was thinking of slain teen Michael Brown, and other African-American men killed by police.

In a deeply reflective blog post, the mega pastor said racial profiling is partly to blame for the 100 annual
deaths of men of color at the hands of law enforcement.

“The seemingly willful killings of unarmed black men like Michael Brown, Jr. in Missouri, Trayvon Martin in
Florida or Eric Garner in New York, all have their origins in the odious practice of racial profiling,” he wrote in a
provocative piece for Huffington Post.

He noted that African Americans in Ferguson are stopped, searched and arrested more than whites “even
though the data show that whites are more likely to be caught with contraband if searched.”

As a pointed indictment against Missouri, Jakes quoted their own 2013 statistics: “Of the 5,384 police stops,
686 were white, while 4,632 were black. Of 611 searches, 47 were white, 562 were black. Of 521 arrests, 36
were white, 483 were black.”

In the face of such disparities, Jakes said, “I applaud the people's right to exercise their first Amendment right to
protest.” At the same time, he expressed his desire to see the “disruptive elements of the protests” be
“quarantined and channeled away from vandalizing our communities.”

In the post, Jakes encouraged “careful scrutiny of how the Attorney General through our judicial system will
handle the investigation of this extremely disturbing case and how those responsible will be held accountable
for their actions.”

With tensions growing in Ferguson, the Dallas-based preacher said “we need to know whether the excessive
use of lethal force and illegal racial profiling were involved.”

He added, “And we need the authorities to disclose why Michael Brown was shot at least six times including
twice in the head for allegedly walking down the middle of a street on a warm August afternoon.”

Stating that “systemic change” is “long overdue within our judicial system,” Jakes said he hopes the highly
publicized Michael Brown case “moves us a long way forward toward racial equity.”

In order for that to happen, he believes a less segregated police force is a must. “Ferguson is a town with a 67
percent black population, 53 police officers, only three of whom are African Americans, according to the U.S.
Census Bureau.”

He said, “We need to see an immediate shift in these demographics so that its police force becomes a better
reflection of the populous.”