LeBron James Admits That His Tweet Calling Out Officer Nicholas Reardon “Fueled The Wrong Conversation” About Ma’Khia Bryant

Josh Berger |

May 6, 2021

LeBron James has recently expressed that he may have “fuelled the wrong conversation” in regards to Ma’Khia Bryant, the 16-year-old who was recently shot and killed by Ohio police officer Nicholas Reardon.

Just a few weeks ago, LeBron thought it was a great idea to share a picture of Reardon to his Twitter account writing, “YOU’RE NEXT #ACCOUNTABILITY.”

Though the NBA superstar has time and time again portrayed Bryant as a victim, what he has failed to understand is that Ma’Khia Bryant was armed with a knife and Reardon prevented her from stabbing another girl.

Thanks to OAN host Jack Posobiec, we have evidence that James tastelessly attempted to hold Nicholas Reardon accountable for doing his job — since the basketball player deleted the aforementioned tweet almost as soon as he shared it to his almost 50 million followers.

Just recently, James took to Twitter to promote an article published on Vox, written by the site’s “race reporter” Fabiola Cineas, titled “Why they’re not saying Ma’Khia Bryant’s name.” In the article, Cineas attempts to explain why Bryant “could never be the ‘perfect victim” (shout outs to The Daily Wire’s Ian Haworth for bringing this to our attention).

“After watching 15 seconds of police body camera footage last week, viewers of various races and political affiliations had made a decision: 16-year-old Ma’Khia Bryant was ‘the aggressor’ — the ‘fat,’ ‘huge,’ ‘knife-wielding attacker’ and ‘maniac’ who deserved to be fatally shot by the police on April 20 in Columbus, Ohio,” reads the opening paragraph of Cineas’ article.

She continues, “According to these viewers, Nicholas Reardon, the police officer who immediately shot and killed Bryant, who was holding a knife, was justified. That she was a teenager in the middle of an altercation, in which she was presumed to be defending herself, did not matter.”

By doxxing Nicholas Reardon, LeBron James tried to make this all about the Ohio police officer. However, shortly after posting the tweet in question, the Los Angeles Laker was called out for his leap to conclusions, leading him to issue another tweet which sort of retracted what he said and simultaneously condemed the police for killing black people.

“I’m so damn tired of seeing Black people killed by police,” James expressed, while adding, “I took the tweet down because its being used to create more hate – This isn’t about one officer. it’s about the entire system and they always use our words to create more racism.”

“I am so desperate for more ACCOUNTABILITY,” added James.

In her article, Cineas also questions Reardon’s decision to pull his service pistol in order to prevent Bryant from stabbing the other girl, suggesting that the police officer could have put even more lives in danger while also shoving in a white privilege narrative for good measure.

“The insistence that Reardon had no other option than to take Bryant’s life to save others — though he risked everyone’s life in the process — displays the lack of consideration and value that society places on the lives of Black girls and women,” the author explains.

“And even for those who do see her as a victim, they’ll still victim-blame, erasing the systemic oppression — including that Black children are far more likely to be in foster care than their white counterparts, and kids in foster care are often exposed to high levels of violence — that brought her to being killed at the hands of the police,” Cineas adds.

Let’s not forget that Bryant can be seen in body cam footage threatening another girl and yelling “I’m gonna stab the f*** out of you, b****,” before she was shot by police officer Reardon. That 19 second clip suggests that Reardon’s timely intervention prevented the other girl from being fatally wounded by Bryant.

As mentioned above, James used his influence to promote Cineas’ article to his 49.7 million followers on Twitter, noting that he was doing so because he truly believes that Ma’Khia Bryant is a victim that needs to be remembered as such.

“I fueled the wrong conversation about Bryant and I owe it to her and this movement to change it,” virtue signalled LeBron James on Twitter earlier this week.

“Thank you @fabiolacineas for educating us about Ma’Khia and her story and why this needs to be about her,” the NBA star concluded, while adding the woke and mandatory #sayhername and #Blacklivesmatter hashtags.

Shortly after James call out of Reardon on social media in April, the official Twitter account for the National Fraternal Order of Police released a statement that condemned the NBA star’s actions.

“.@KingJames, with his vast resources & influence, should educate himself and, frankly, has a responsibility to do so, on the facts before weighing in. This is disgraceful & extremely reckless,” reads the statement released by FOP. “The officer saved a young girl’s life. No amount of gaslighting will change that fact.”

As much as LeBron James wants to hold people accountable for what he believes are targeted crimes against black individuals, he did delete his tweet in which he seemingly threatened Reardon for simply doing his job, and deleting a tweet is quite the opposite of being accountable for one’s actions.

What do you make of LeBron James promoting an article that sees Ma’Khia Bryant portrayed as a victim? Let us know in the comments section down below or on social media.