Black Lives Matter activist Shaun King said Tuesday that he purchased a $40,000 designer guard dog with funds donated to his political action committee to defend his family against white supremacist threats.
King, who has long been considered a grifter by some members of the black activist community, announced in February that his family had obtained an award-winning mastiff bred by the California-based Potrero Performance Dogs, according to a report Monday by the Washington Free Beacon. The announcement came just days after King’s Grassroots Law PAC paid a combined $40,650 to Potrero for “contractor services.”
King wrote in a rambling Instagram post on Tuesday that he requires a guard dog at his home at all times because “New York City won’t even allow me to have a gun” and “New Jersey doesn’t have stand your ground laws and hardly allows you to even own guns.”
He added that what his PAC spent on the guard dog is “not even close” to what it really requires to keep him and his family safe.
“I need you to know this so that you understand why our family not only needs a guard dog at home, but 24/7 security wherever we go,” King wrote. “White supremacists and people who’ve meant my family harm have now shown up to our last three homes. Multiple times.”
King co-founded Grassroots Law PAC in 2019. The PAC is a force in the “defund the police” movement, having raised nearly $4 million to help elect progressive politicians at the local level who will “fight to end mass incarceration and police violence.”
King doesn’t even own the designer dog anymore. Potrero wrote in a now-deleted Instagram post in July that it was caring for the dog again because “he’s got a little too much energy to be a family dog so he came back,” the Washington Free Beacon reported.
“I’ve had hundreds of death threats — including from police, military snipers, and white supremacist groups. Even when I file cases with the FBI they’ve done nothing, so we stopped even filing them,” King wrote in his Tuesday Instagram post. “I’ve received death threats in the mail, in email, and across social media. I report it. Nothing happens.”
“So know this, when you see reports about the money it costs to keep me and my family safe, it’s nowhere near enough,” King added. “Not at all. Not even close.”
It’s not illegal for a PAC to use donor funds to purchase a designer guard dog for its co-founder, but the PAC’s contributors probably won’t be too pleased to learn what their money went toward, said Scott Walter, the president of the conservative Capital Research Center.
“This luxury dog expense may not be illegal for a PAC, but it shows little respect for King’s donors,” Walter told the Washington Free Beacon.
King, who has operated several nonprofit activist groups, has previously come under fire from members of the black activist community for his fundraising tactics and loose management of donor funds.
The mother of Tamir Rice, the 12-year-old boy who was shot and killed by a Cleveland police officer in 2014, accused King of shamelessly profiting off of her son’s killing.
“Personally I don’t understand how you sleep at night,” Samaria Rice wrote on Instagram.
BLM activist DeRay Mckesson publicly accused King of fraud in 2019.
“Shaun has followed a uniform pattern over the years, a pattern that has compelled me to speak up, again,” Mckesson wrote.
“When asked about the repeated organizations and lack of transparency on funding, he has replied noting that ‘failure is not fraud,’ as if to suggest that questions raised do not warrant serious responses simply because he may have been an ineffective leader,” Mckesson added. “But at a point, those who attempt to lead but consistently demonstrate that they cannot effectively lead should stop. We have reached that point with Shaun.”
In late 2021, Philadelphia fined Real Justice PAC, another political group that King co-founded, $30,000 for illegally providing staffers for the city’s progressive district attorney, Larry Krasner, whose campaign was also fined $10,000 in the matter.
* Article from: The Washington Examiner
