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TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) – Florida's Republican nominee for governor is using a group of protagonists to protest the unarmed black teenager. Trayvon Martin by a neighborhood watch volunteer to portray his opponent as anti-police, anti-Israel and anti-American.
Former U.S. Rep. Ron DeSantis is focusing on a Dream Defenders Democratic Pledge Tallahassee Mayor Andrew Gillum has signed an agreement with the National Rifle Association. The pledge also expresses the intention to shift resources away from "prisons, detention centers, guns and police" and towards programs that support the safety and basic needs of the people.
"Andrew Gillum signed a pledge with a radical group, the Dream Defenders, to sign up for a radical manifesto that attacked our police officers, which said they have no place in justice," DeSantis said less than five minutes into a debate last week. "He signed a statement that said the U.S. was the biggest bully in the history of the planet."
The group has a clear far-left agenda but not so extreme that Democrats distance themselves. It co-hosted a debate with four candidates for governorship in June, and Gillum and the other three candidates signed its pledge.
George Zimmerman's shoot of Martin and staging at 31-day sit-in at the state Capitol after Zimmerman was acquitted of a murder charge.
DeSantis and other Republicans Gillum, who claims he should not be judged by everything the group says.
DeSantis 'comments about Dream Defenders have been the most recent incidents since Gillum and DeSantis won their parties' appointments Aug. 28. Gillum is hoping to become Florida's first black governor and has questioned DeSantis' association with people seen as racially divisive.
Just before DeSantis' comments on Dream Defenders, Gillum reminded that DeSantis said voters should not "monkey this up" by electing Gillum, a neo-Nazi group made robocalls featuring jungle music and monkey screeches that mocked Gillum, and President Donald Trump , who endorsed DeSantis, did not take a strong stance against white supremacists after a protest in Charlottesville, North Carolina.
"You want to talk about division? It does not get more divisive than the Dream Defenders," DeSantis shot back.
The candidate pledge signed by Gillum says: "I will fight for a Florida that divests from prisons, detention centers, guns and police and invest in the basic needs and safety of our people, especially its children."
The Dream Defenders, in its Freedom Papers, goes even further to say: "Police and prisons have no place in the justice system." Police and prisons are not just racist, but they work to enforce the separation of rich and poor. "
Although made up largely of African-Americans, Dream Defenders membership includes other minorities and whites. Since the Capitol Protest, the group has become politically influential and has been engaging politicians.
Founding member Nailah Summers said the state's money is better spent on crime by providing better jobs and improving schools than focusing on young people, minorities and the poor. She called DeSantis' focus on the group "ridiculous."
"They're trying to smear this group of young Floridians, who I think clearly are trying to make Florida a better place," she said. "They are also trying to say that the Defenders and Gillums are BFFs, Andrew Gillum is a politician, we're left of him."
She added that she is not totally surprised that she is trying to make a difference.
"He's got a very old playbook – pointing out young people of color and making them seem radical," Summers said.
Speaking at a Jewish temple after the debate, Gillum downplayed the relationship with Dream Defenders, which has said Israel is a "colonial entity" built on "stolen Palestinian land."
"They want to say" Gillum is an anti-Semite, because it's a group of people who have a background in politics. him carry it, '"Gillum said. "'Forget his relations to this point so that we can stoke anger and stoke enough division.'"
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AP writer Terry Spencer in Plantation contributed to this report.
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