Former Arkansas governor and potential 2016 Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee says members of Congress and NFL players doing the "hands up, don't shoot gesture" are "foolish and dangerous."
"Well, first of all, I found it just incredibly dangerous that you had members of Congress, on the floor of Congress, holding up their hands in the 'hands up, don't shoot' position, as if to say that somehow that is gonna get you shot," Huckabee said on NewsMaxTV's America's Forum.
"I'm gonna tell you something — what gets you shot is when you grab a police officer's gun, and you lunge at him, and you try to hit him in the face," added Huckabee. "And this nonsense that — telling young people 'don't hold up your hands, 'cause thats gonna get you in trouble,' and instead I guess what they're teaching 'em is go loot a store, beat up a cop, reach for his gun, hope you get it before he does."
Huckabee said we are "on the verge of anarchy" and he was disgusted with the emulation of the gesture by politicians and NFL players.
"This is not only foolish and dangerous, but is really on the verge of anarchy. And I'm just disgusted that you have NFL players, politicians, and others who, no matter what the evidence reveals, no matter how many sworn testimonies show that Darren Wilson, who, you know — it's a tragedy that the young man got shot, but this is a young man who had just roughed up a store owner, just robbed a store, and now he's going after a cop's gun."
Huckabee said Brown could have avoided his death "if he behaved like something other than a thug."
"And it's a horrible thing that he was killed, but he could have avoided that, if he behaved like something other than a thug."
Witnesses have offered varying accounts of what happened when Brown was shot and killed by Ferguson Police Officer Darren Wilson, with some witnesses saying Brown had his hands raised in surrender.