Harris County Sheriff Ron Hickman says that Deputy Sheriff Darren Goforth was targeted because of his uniform. Hickman is referring to the wild, violent, hateful rhetoric coming from black activists who  have called for the murder of police in recent weeks.

Reuters:

Hickman linked the shooting to anti-police rhetoric following protests against deaths of unarmed black men at the hands of white officers. Goforth was white, the suspect is black.

He said the department assumed Goforth was a target because he wore a uniform, and bluntly addressed protests against police violence and mass incarceration of blacks.

"We've heard black lives matter; all lives matter. Well cops' lives matter too," Hickman said. "At any point where the rhetoric ramps up to the point where calculated cold-blooded assassination of police officers happen(s), this rhetoric has gotten out of control," said Hickman.

The fatal shooting comes eight months after two New York police officers were ambushed by a gunman who had said he wanted to avenge the deaths of black men in confrontations with police.

Hundreds of people attended a vigil on Saturday night.

"I wanted to demonstrate that all lives matter, regardless of color," Carol Hayes, an African American woman, told a local NBC News affiliate.

There have been 24 firearms-related deaths of law enforcement officers this year, compared with 30 during the same period in 2014, the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund said.

There is no comparison between charges of conservative "hate speech" leading to shootings and the ultra-violent, nauseating calls for the outright murder of pollice by black activists:

Two teenage girls told Breitbart Texas they saw the shooter fire one shot into the back of the head of the deputy who was simply getting gas for his vehicle. After the deputy fell, they heard three or four other shots. According to the first witness, those shots were fired into the deputy’s back.

The execution of the deputy came just days after black radicals went on an internet radio show hosted from Texas and called for the lynching of white people and the killing of cops to “turn the tide” against blacks being killed by cops. Breitbart Texas reported on Friday morning the details of the radio show and the comments that were made.

One black man spoke up saying they needed to kill “cops that are killing us. The other black male on the show said, “That will be the best method right there.”

And this from yesterday:

Black Lives Matter protesters marching on the Minnesota state fair on Saturday spewed violent anti-cop rhetoric just hours after a Harris County, Tex. sheriff’s deputy was ambushed and executed at a Houston-area gas station.

“Pigs in a blanket, fry ’em like bacon,” activists with the St. Paul, Minn. branch of Black Lives Matter chanted while marching behind a group of police officers down a highway just south of the state fair grounds.

The White House hasn't deemed it proper to comment on the killing of Deputy Goforth - what's the life of one more policemen more or less seems to be the attitude. Of course, if they acknowledge the deputy's death, they have to answer questions about what role their encouragement of this violent rhetoric had on the execution.

The silence on the left about Deputy Goforth's exection speaks to a towering hypocrisy that reveals their concern about violent rhetoric only applies to their political enemies.