cop is selling "Breathe Easy: Don't Break the Law" T-shirt to improve race relations

[Liberal_in_LA]

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/breathe-easy-don-break-law-shirts-fire-article-1.2047689



An Indiana police officer's sale of T-shirts reading "Breathe Easy: Don't Break the Law" is being slammed by city council members as a "dangerous" message that warns “justice is not fair.”

The controversial twist on the "I can't Breathe" campaign — one intended to protest Eric Garner's death by a police officer — is meant to spread a message that "police are there for you," according to the South Bend store owned by Mishawaka Police Corporal Jason Barthel.

But to others it appears more like a threat of police taking justice into their own hands.

"We believe that people should be able to breathe easy no matter what they're doing. Police should not take the right to breathe into their own hands," South Bend District Council President Oliver Davis told the Daily News Tuesday.

Davis is now calling for stores to not sell the T-shirts with fellow council members Valerie Schey and Henry Davis Jr., as well as the Rev. Terrell Jackson of the South Bend NAACP.

----------------



"Breathe easy, don't break the law."

That's the slogan Barthel, owner of South Bend Uniform, is hoping will stop what he sees as negative stereotypes of police, while also improving race relations across the country.

http://www.southbendtribune.com/news/business/mishawaka-cop-hopes-to-add-new-perspective-to-police-race/article_3f804ad4-5d82-5160-bf26-d40c8106a983.html