The Fraternal Order of Police is the largest police union in the United States. As a result, when its president, Chuck Canterbury, writes an open letter to one of the biggest retailers in the world, it’s going to have results.

Knowing this, Canterbury wrote a letter to Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, urging him to remove any trace of Black Lives Matter-related apparel from its online website. He specifically asked for the removal of items with the slogans “BULLETPROOF,” “Black Lives Matter” and “the urban myth of ‘Hands up, don’t shoot'”. 

This isn’t the first time the FOP has taken this kind of action, as they succeeded in pressuring Walmart into removing similar items from its online store because it was seeking to profit from racial division and offensive.

He took a similar stance against Amazon, which he told The Guardian was “a pretty liberal marketer.”

“Commercialising our differences will not help our local police and communities to build greater trust and respect for one another,” Canterbury wrote in his letter. “Turning a buck on strained relationships will not contribute to the healing process.”

To support his case, he turned to the police officers who were shot in the line of duty both in Dallas and Baton Rouge this past summer.

As of Tuesday, Amazon has marked the “Bulletproof: Black Lives Matter” t-shirt in question as “currently unavailable,” but will still carry items from third-party sellers that support “Black Lives Matter”, “Blue Lives Matter” and “All Lives Matter” apparel.

It’s worth pointing out that Canterbury focused solely on the removal of “Black Lives Matter” apparel, but made no complaints over “Blue Lives Matter” apparel, which is actually selling far more.

“The Blue Lives Matter sells more than the Black Lives Matter or bulletproof shirts combined,” Glenn Morelli, owner of Connecticut-based Old Glory Merchandise, told CNN.

If Canterbury feels that “Black Lives Matter” t-shirts profit off of racial division and shouldn’t be sold, why doesn’t he feel the same for ones that proudly support the slogans that were created simply to combat the BLM movement?

We’ll allow you to speculate in the comments, but the answer seems pretty clear.

Photo Credit: Wiki Commons