Post on Rep. Ilhan Omar based on satirical article

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The claim: Rep. Ilhan Omar says that the police should not exist, after finding out that some cops are Jewish

According to a 2019 image with more than 6,700 shares, rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., Opposed the police because some officers are Jewish. It appears on Facebook again this month amid the trial of Derek Chauvin, a former Minneapolis police officer.

The message was first shared on March 18, 2019 by Stone Cold USA, a conservative site with nearly 30,000 followers. The image shows a caption that reads: “Ilhan Omar says the police should not exist after learning that the police are Jews.”

Stone Cold USA did not respond to a request for comment.

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Image comes from a satirical article

The headline shared on Facebook was originally published on March 8, 2019 by Blue News Network, a satire website for law enforcement that is no longer maintained. The “About Us” page adds: “If you haven’t figured it out yet, this is a satirical news site.”

Mike Edwards, the author, is a retired Detroit police officer who became a broker who goes on social media at “Mike the Cop,” where he has more than 500,000 subscribers on YouTube and 1 million followers on Facebook.

The indemnity for the satire appears on Blue News Network and Edwards’ author page (which reads: “The articles I write for BNN are satire and it’s hilarious if people do not know it”) is not on the social media shared, which led some users to take the heading seriously.

An Omar spokesman told PolitiFact the post was inaccurate.

Edwards did not immediately respond to requests for comment from the USA TODAY.

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Satire references deleted tweet

The satire piece is reminiscent of a controversial tweet Omar posted in February 2019.

The tweet, which reads: “It’s all about the baby of Benjamins”, is considered a negative and harmful stereotype of Jewish Americans. Omar later apologize for her comments, which have been criticized by politicians on both sides of the aisle as anti-Semitic.

According to ProPublica’s “Politwoops” project, which follows deleted tweets from public officials, she deleted the tweet two weeks after she sent it.

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Omar also commented on the need to ‘disband (the police) and re-introduce public safety“in Minneapolis in June 2020, a month after the death of George Floyd.

“What we are saying is the current infrastructure that exists because policing in our city should no longer exist,” she told CNN. “State of the Union” on June 14, 2020. “To dismantle it and then look at what funding priorities should look like when we propose a new path forward is what needs to happen.”

Our rating: false

The claim that Omar said that the police should not exist because some cops are Jewish is FALSE, based on our research. The claim is based on a screenshot of a satirical website. A spokeswoman for the Omar office said the post was inaccurate, and the U.S. did not find any records she said today.

Our fact-checking sources:

  • Archive. Today, March 13, 2019, Blue News Network “More about us”
  • 6 Houses Team Mike Edwards
  • Facebook, Mike the Cop on April 14, 2021
  • YouTube, Mike the Cop accessed April 14, 2021
  • WayBack Machine, visited on April 14, 2021, the Blue News Network “MiketheCop”
  • PolitiFact, April 12, 2021, “No, Ilhan Omar did not say that the police should not exist because there are Jewish police”
  • Wayback Machine, visited on April 14, 2021, Tweet by @noyarmulkes
  • WayBack Machine, The Daily Gadsden, March 8, 2019, “Omar says police should not exist after learning that some police are Jewish”
  • WaybBack Machine, visited on April 14, 2021, The Daily Gadsden “About Us”
  • WayBack Machine, PCMD News, March 22, 2019, “Ilhan Omar says Jews should not be allowed to become police”
  • WayBack Machine, visited on April 14, 2021, PCMD News “About Us”
  • Politwoops by ProPublica, February 24, 2019, Tweet by @IlhanMN
  • Twitter, 11 February 2019, Ilhan Omar on @IlhanMN
  • CBS Minnesota, February 11, 2019, “‘All about the Benjamins’: Ilhan Omar’s tweet criticized by Republicans, Dems as anti-Semitic ”
  • Twitter, June 5, 2020, Ilhan Omar on @IlhanMN
  • Twitter, 14 June 2020, State of the Union on @CNSNSotu
  • FactCheck.Org, March 19, 2019, “Satirical story about Harris treated as fact”

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Our fact-checking work is supported in part by a Facebook grant.

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