After learning some officers are Jewish, “Ilhan Omar says police shouldn’t exist.”
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No, Ilhan Omar didn’t say that police shouldn’t exist because there are Jewish cops
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- This claim appears to have originated in a self-described satirical blog post.
Amid the trial of Minneapolis officer Derek Chauvin and fresh allegations of police brutality against people of color, law enforcement in America is again under scrutiny. That perhaps explains why an old Facebook post is gaining traction online.
Above a photo of U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., the post shows what looks like a headline from March 2019: "Ilhan Omar says police shouldn’t exist after learning some cops are Jewish."
This post was flagged as part of Facebook’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Facebook.)
A spokesperson for Omar told PolitiFact that the post is inaccurate.
We searched for the headline and found only four related links, including a tweet from an account that has since been suspended.
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One of the links led us to a blog post detailing a supposed incident involving Omar and a Capitol police officer named J. Bernstein. The post is labeled satire.
In June 2020, after the death of George Floyd, Omar called for the Minneapolis Police Department to be disbanded and said it was time to "reimagine public safety in Minneapolis."
And in early 2019, she faced criticism for what some perceived as anti-Semitic comments. (She apologized for a February tweet.)
We couldn’t find anything to support the claim made in the Facebook post: that Omar said police shouldn’t exist because some officers are Jewish.
We rate this post Pants on Fire!
CORRECTION AND UPDATE: April 13, 11:50 a.m.: This fact-check was updated to include comment from an Omar representative and to correct the timing of Omar's remarks in 2019. The rating isn't changed.
Our Sources
Facebook post, March 18, 2019
Sybnews, Ilhan Omar says police shouldn’t exist after learning some cops are Jewish, March 16, 2019
Ilhan Omar tweet, June 5, 2020
NPR, Minnesota congresswoman ignites debate on ISrael and anti-semitism, March 7, 2019
New York Times, Ilhan Omar Apologizes for Statements Condemned as Anti-Semitic, Feb. 11, 2019.
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No, Ilhan Omar didn’t say that police shouldn’t exist because there are Jewish cops
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