The #blacklivesmatter movement has been a very controversial movement since its conception in 2013. The main cause of black lives matter is police violence. Obviously, there are some cases in America where an officer has gone too far and killed an innocent person, but most of the time, the people that black lives matter choose to use as the face of their movement are not those people. I will lay out four people in this article that were used by the cause to get their message out there, even though the cases of these people actually go completely against the movement's core values. Even though these cases are not good for Black Lives Matter, the media always eats it up, and twitter always goes hashtag crazy. The most popular hashtag coming from twitter being #saytheirnames. But what is interesting is the names being said are the names that have extensive criminal records and recent altercations with police.

Michael Brown is often the name that comes to mind when talking about the black lives matter. Everyone remembers the Ferguson riots that took place two years ago over his death. Officer Darren Wilson was acquitted of any wrongdoing in the case and evidence shows that right before his death, Brown strong arm robbed a convenience store and during the altercation he reached for officer Wilson's gun. None of this stopped #blacklivesmatter supporters from starting the "hands up, don't shoot" narrative, even though Brown never had his hands up. The narrative even made its way to the NFL when five St. Louis Rams players exited the locker room with their hands raised to show support to the movement. Also, CNN host Sally Kohn, who is very consistent on getting things wrong shown by her twitter account, held her hands up along with three other panelists, and another holding an "I can't Breath" sign referencing Eric Garner, another case black lives matter took up. Michael Brown's mother, Lesley McSpadden, came out after the shooting saying Michael was just a "gentle giant". Turns out, according to all available evidence, the gentle giant was not so gentle after all. McSpadden was also invited to speak at the Democratic National Convention along with the "Mothers of The Movement". This group is comprised of various women who were the mothers of victims of police shootings. So, one of the very first faces of Black Lives Matter was a bully who robbed a store and reached for a cops gun, but the movement made it about the fact that Brown was black, so that must have been the reason that Wilson shot him, not the fact that Brown was attacking Wilson.

In a St. Paul suburb called Falcon Heights, Philando Castille was pulled over by officer Jeronimo Yanez. He was pulled over because he matched the description of a robbery suspect. Yanez, a Hispanic man, pulled him over, and when things escalated, Castille was shot by Yanez. When the news first broke on this story, it was said that Castille was reaching for his wallet. According to Castille's girlfriend who was in the car with him, as Castille started to reach for his wallet, he said: "Officer, I have a firearm on me." She says it was at that point that shots were fired by officer Yanez. Now, was this reason to shoot Philando Castille? No. Was this a case of police racism? No. What this situation comes down to is officer Yanez, who was clearly not trained for the situation, walking up to a car where he suspected the driver had just robbed a store. Officer Yanez came into the situation nervous and not prepared. Does this mean that he was justified in shooting Philando Castille? No. It means that Yanez was not trained properly for the job that he was doing. It also means that the fact that Philando Castille was black has nothing to do with him being shot. The uninformed part of black lives matter made up all sorts of their own evidence regarding this case. Some of them blamed white on black racism even though officer Yanez is Hispanic, and some of them painted Yanez as a racist cop who was just out to hunt down a black person that day. Either way, once again black lives matter chose a person with 22 arrests on his record and a person that was a robbery suspect to use as the poster boy of their movement.

One of the most recent cases that Black Lives Matter has used as the face of their movement is Korryn Gaines. As the story goes, a black woman was killed by a police officer, and before any evidence comes out, Black Lives Matter has already made it about race. Twitter went wild with #sayhername and played judge, jury, and executioner with the officers involved. A few months prior to her death, Gaines was pulled over by an officer for driving without a license plate. Gaines filmed the incident, and the video can be seen here. As seen in the video, Gaines is hostile with the officer right away. She repeatedly tells her son to fight the police if they try to take them, and she is given countless opportunities to exit her car and leave the scene. This is the incident that led to a standoff that occurred at Gaines' home. Gaines did not show up for court for the missing tags and plates on her car, so the cops put a warrant out for her arrest and came to her house. This started the narrative that Gaines was killed over "traffic violations". Turns out, Gaines was in a standoff with police, was armed with a loaded shotgun, threatened the officers, and was harboring a wanted felon in her house at the time of her death. As the standoff went on, Gaines refused to cooperate with the officers and showed them that she had a loaded shotgun. At one point, Gaines yelled to the officers "If you don't leave I am going to kill you", a direct threat to the officers. What makes the whole thing worse, Gaines was broadcasting the events live on Facebook, and the people watching were encouraging her not to cooperate with the officers. When shots started to ring out, Gaines was fatally hit, her five-year-old son from the video was hit leading people to believe Gaines was holding him during the standoff, and the felon that was also in the house, 39-year-old Kareem Courtney, fled with a one-year-old child. Again, Black Lives Matter made the whole thing about race because Gaines was shot by a white officer. Korryn Gaines was not killed because she was black. She was killed because she pointed a loaded gun at officers, broke the law, and told officers that she was going to kill them.

Finally, the most ridiculous of them all. Sylville Smith's death is what sparked the riots in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Once again, Black Lives Matter jumped on the racism train right away. Black man killed by a cop? According to Black Lives Matter logic, the only explanation is racism. Riots broke out all over the city. White suburbs were ransacked, local businesses were looted, and many buildings were destroyed and burned down. All of this with once again, you guessed it, no evidence what so ever. And as the theme has been, once the evidence came out, it showed a story of a thug who was threatening the officers that shot him. Smith, who was just 23, had a very extensive criminal record and at the time of his death was aiming a loaded shotgun at police officers and threatening to kill them. So what does Black Lives Matter do? Did they condemn Smith's actions? No. Did they come out against Smith's criminal past? Nope. They decided to use Smith to head up their cause of anti-cop, racist rhetoric because he was a black man killed by a white officer. Oh, wait! The officer that shot Sylville Smith? He was black. Smith, as usual, was not shot because of his race. His race, as usual, had absolutely nothing to do with it.

So as you can see, these four people were not killed because of their skin color and neither were most of the people that Black Lives Matter uses for their cause, these people were killed because they committed crimes, fought police officers, and in some cases threatened to kill police officers. Again, I am not saying that there are no racist people or police officers because there certainly are. What I am saying is just because a black person is killed by a police officer, does not mean they were killed because they were black. Their race has nothing to with it. If you really think all of these police officers became cops to hunt down black people, you are mistaken. Black Lives Matter has become a movement full of people who do not wait for facts to come out, but jump on each and every case of a black person who was killed by the police. Why do they do this? Simple. The supply of racist, hateful cops does not meet the demand, so Black Lives Matter has no choice but to jump on every case of a black person being shot. If they don't, they fade from relevancy. If the movement wants to further their cause and see the change that they want to see, they must stop trotting out the cases like the four I have laid out in this article, and look for cases that have a legitimate grievance, even though those cases are rare.