The first black Miss Alabama stoked controversy online when she posted a video on social media calling the accused Dallas cop killer a “martyr.”
“I don’t feel sad for the officers who lost their lives, and I know that’s not really my heart,” Fmr. Miss Alabama Kalyn Chapman James said in a live Facebook broadcast.
The first black Miss Alabama & Prichard native emotionally sharing her thoughts on the deadly Dallas ambush.
“I want to feel sad for them but I can’t help but feeling like the shooter was a martyr and I know it’s not the right way to feel cause nobody deserves to lose their lives,” James said in the broadcast.
She says at the time she was troubled and reaching out but wasn’t condoning violence.
“What Micah did was wrong period,” she said. “Maybe martyr wasn’t the right word but it was what came to mind at that time.”
James says since the broadcast she’s gotten mixed responses. She says one of the wives of a Dallas police officer reached out to her.
“She said that she watched my video and she wasn’t mad, she understood what I was saying and that she forgave me,” the Fmr. Miss Alabama said.
But she’s also gotten threats, “People telling me to watch my back, people telling me to be careful, people telling me the police should never protect me,” she said.
James says her words were taken out of context.
“I apologize to anyone who was offended by my comments my heart was not filled with hate,” she said.
