Sharpton Threatens to Sue Limbaugh

Sharpton doesn't like having his race-baiting being pointed out. Hims gonna get his lawsuit on.

The Rev. Al Sharpton is ready for a Rush to judgment.

The civil rights leader, typically impervious to insults, said Saturday that he will sue Rush Limbaugh for defamation unless he gets an apology from the right-wing radio host.

Sharpton was outraged by a Limbaugh op-ed piece in The Wall Street Journal that blamed him for the 1991 Crown Heights riot and a 1995 killing spree at a Harlem store.

"I am definitely going to prove he makes reckless, unaccountable statements," Sharpton said. "Which is why he was forced out of buying an NFL team in the first place."

Limbaugh lashed out at Sharpton over the right-wing radio host's failed attempt to purchase a piece of the St. Louis Rams. Sharpton, among others, blasted Limbaugh's bid for NFL ownership.

Limbaugh replied in his op-ed piece that Sharpton "played a leading role in the 1991 Crown Heights riot ... and 1995 Freddie's Fashion Mart riot."

Seven people were killed by a gun-toting man who set a fire in the Freddie's Fashion Mart. A Jewish scholar was stabbed to death in Crown Heights three hours after a 7-year-old black boy was fatally struck by a car.

Slanderous, according to Sharpton, who denied both allegations.

"He doesn't have the right to lie and accuse people of crimes," Sharpton said. "He wants to criminalize me.

Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/2009/10/17/2009-10-17_rev_al_sharpton_threatens_to_sue_rush_limbaugh_over_wall_street_journal_oped.html#ixzz0ULbhG9Ls

What do other sources say regarding Sharpton and his involvement in the aforementioned events?

Crown Heights:

Slate
Crown Heights: Blacks, Jews and the 1991 Brooklyn Riot
Salon





Freddie's Fashion Mart:

Wikipedia

In 1995, a black Pentecostal Church, the United House of Prayer, which owned a retail property on 125th Street, asked Fred Harari, a Jewish tenant who operated Freddie's Fashion Mart, to evict his longtime subtenant, a black-owned record store called The Record Shack. Sharpton led a protest in Harlem against the planned eviction of The Record Shack.[48][49][50] Sharpton told the protesters, "We will not stand by and allow them to move this brother so that some white interloper can expand his business."[51]

On December 8, 1995, Roland J. Smith Jr., one of the protesters, entered Harari's store with a gun and flammable liquid, shot several customers and set the store on fire. The gunman fatally shot himself, and seven store employees died of smoke inhalation.[52][53] Fire Department officials discovered that the store's sprinkler had been shut down, in violation of the local fire code.[54] Sharpton claimed that the perpetrator was an open critic of himself and his nonviolent tactics. Sharpton later expressed regret for making the racial remark, "white interloper," and denied responsibility for inflaming or provoking the violence.[13][55]