In a secretly taped video interview conducted by conservative journalist James O’Keefe’s group Project Veritas (PV), Erica Snipes – the eldest daughter of police chokehold casualty Eric Garner – was asked about the help the Garner family had received from “Rev.” Al Sharpton and his National Action Network (NAN) organization to bury her father.
When prompted by PV’s undercover investigator to confirm or deny whether she thought Al Sharpton “is kind of like a crook in a sense”, she rubbed her fingers together and said, “He’s about this (money)”.
The PV investigator pursued this line of questioning by asking Snipes if Sharpton was “about money with you?” She replied “Yeah”.
Writing for The New York Post, Kevin Sheehan and Carl Campanile reported that Ms. Snipes went further in her critique of Sharpton by pointing out a confrontation she had with the Staten Island director of NAN, Cynthia Davis, “who scolded her for handing out street fliers about her father’s case that did not include NAN’s logo.”
Returning to PV’s investigator, Snipes said “She started attacking me. ‘ Oh, I see that you got this flier out, how come you didn’t add the logo?’’ PV asked if “They want their logo on your fliers?” Snipes responded that “Instead of me, he wants his (Sharpton’s) face in front.” Because “Al Sharpton paid for the funeral. She’s trying to make me feel like I owe them” she added.
Snipes is not alone.
In a separate hidden camera interview, the Post reported that Sharpton “was also criticized by leaders and supporters involved in the Michael Brown police shooting case in Ferguson, Mo., and the Trayvon Martin shooting in Florida…”
“Jean Petrus, a Brooklyn businessman who attended a recent Trayvon Martin Foundation fundraiser in Florida, is also seen criticizing Sharpton in the secretly taped video.”
“He knows how to make money and get money. They’re shakedown guys to me. You know, let’s call it what it is, they’re shakedown,” he says in the video.
Also in the video released by Project Veritas, Bishop Calvin Scott of Believers Temple in Ferguson said he had attended several meetings with Sharpton as the investigation into the police shooting death of Martin killing by Ferguson police was unfolding. Scott said that:
“To some degree, he sort of incites people for the wrong reason,” the bishop says. “I’m in the gathering. He got them all fired up. But I just sense this is not the way you want to go.”
Jean Petrus, a Brooklyn businessman and donor who attended a Florida fundraiser for the Travon Martin Foundation said in a secretly taped video that:
“He (Sharpton) knows how to make money and get money. They’re shakedown guys to me. You know, let’s call it what it is, they’re shakedown,” he says in the video.
When approached by the Post to speak on the record to explain their comments about Sharpton, the people quoted in this story reaffirmed their support for Sharpton, said their comments were taken out of context or failed to respond.
