Historically, the phrase was used by Miami’s police chief, Walter Headley, in 1967, when he addressed his department’s “crackdown on … slum hoodlums,” according to a United Press International article from the time.
Headley, who died only a few months later in 1968 and had been denounced by civil rights leaders, was described in an Associated Press obituary as the “architect of a crime crackdown that sent police dogs and shotgun-toting patrolmen into Miami’s slums in force.”
Earlier Thursday, Mr. Trump said, “I feel very, very badly” about George Floyd’s death while handcuffed and in the custody of Minneapolis police.
The quote the president tweeted — “when the looting starts, the shooting starts” — was said by former Miami Police Chief Walter Headley during a December 1967 news conference, according to The Washington Post.
An accompanying tweet from Mr. Trump sharply criticized Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey: “I can’t stand back & watch this happen to a great American City, Minneapolis.
