In an exclusive interview with The Daily Mail, Black Lives Matter New York chapter Chairman Hawk Newsome said his organization has marched for years to raise awareness of “the realities of police brutality and oppression.” The group is preparing “to stop these government sanctioned murders by any means necessary.”

They are declaring war on police and “training our people to defend our communities in Black Panther style armed patrols.” Newsome continued, “We’re talking about self-defense. We’re talking about defending our communities. You know what it’s like to see a taser pointed at a 7-year-old, you know what it’s like to see a 67-year-old black woman … pepper sprayed and pushed to the ground?”

He told The Daily Mail, “It’s our obligation, it’s our duty to provide people with a pathway forward…We want liberation. We want the power to determine our own destiny. We want freedom from an oppressive government, and we want the immediate end of government sanctioned murder by the police.

The murder of George Floyd, he said, woke people up. BLM is now “mobilizing its base and plans to develop a highly-trained “military” arm to challenge police brutality head on.” Newsome said they will send out armed “Peace Officers” to “patrol black communities to challenge law enforcement and stop police brutality, reminiscent of the Black Panther Party.”

Newsome, 43, has a law degree and prior to becoming a full-time activist, he was a project manager at a law firm.

The interview was held in the offices of NCredible Entertainment, owned by actor and musician BLM supporter Nick Cannon.

He explained the group had spent the day creating the “‘Black Opts’ blueprint – which stands for Black Opportunities – a new direction he hopes will be the beginning of the liberation of black people.”

The group is being advised by black Special Forces officers.

The influential Black Panther Party, founded in 1966, is regarded as a symbol of the turbulent 1960s. In 1970, the group had 68 offices in the U.S.:

It’s core practice was its open carry armed citizens’ patrols – known as cop watching – to monitor the behavior of officers of the Oakland Police Department and challenge police brutality in the city.

But members of the BPP were involved in a string of fatal firefights with police, while many others were convicted of assaulting dozens of police officers.

Newsome told The Mail, “We pattern ourselves after the Black Panthers, after the Nation of Islam, we believe that we need an arm to defend ourselves. I don’t see us working with police. I see us policing ourselves. I see us teaching black people how to police their own communities.”

The group has raised a great deal of money in the past two weeks from celebrities and high net-worth individuals as well as from small donors “who respect what we stand for.”

The blueprint will address “fair housing, economic empowerment, education” and will seek to “nurture entrepreneurship.”

“We want freedom from oppression and we don’t believe in equality.” That’s interesting. Are they looking for superiority?

Newsome refuses to call for the violence and looting to stop. Instead, he says people must have more “empathy” for the rioters explaining that:

You’re talking about people who have been told time and time again that their black lives don’t matter.

You’re talking about a people who witnessed their peers and their family members incarcerated at unfair rates.

You’re looking at people who are miseducated and then to add insult to injury, the government allows police to come in and kill us and allow police officers to continuously get away with killing us. Any person would be outraged.

Regarding the looting, Newsome tells The Mail, it is “ultimately a product of capitalist America and its treatment of the black community.”

They want to go out and grab all those things that America told them that they should have, but they couldn’t have.

People are poor. People are desperate. People are frustrated. So what do you expect them to do? People want to destroy because they’re angry and they’re frustrated.

Black Lives Matter didn’t create this violence. Black Lives Matter is a product of this violence. The rioters are the product of the violence.

In the meantime, Dr. Fauci wants them to remember that their protests are a “perfect set-up” for further spreading the coronavirus!

Read the full article and view numerous photos of the group members and the protests here.

Black Lives Matter organizers are painting “Defund the Police” in yellow paint on 16th Street right now pic.twitter.com/62zFMPXXOo

— Samantha Schmidt (@schmidtsam7) June 7, 2020