Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton believes “it’s reality” that the lives of black men are seen as cheap by police officers, she said Sunday.
In the Democratic presidential primary debate Sunday, Clinton was asked by moderator Lester Holt, of NBC News, if it’s perception or reality that the lives of black men are cheap in the eyes of police officers.
“It’s reality,” she said. “It has been heartbreaking and incredibly outraging to see the constant stories of young men, like Walter Scott, who have been killed by police officers.”
Clinton’s comments came in Charleston, S.C., which has been a hotbed of racial violence in the last year.
Scott, who Clinton referenced, was an unarmed black man shot in the back as he ran from a police officer last spring. His death resulted in murder charges for the police officer who fired the lethal shots.
Charleston was also the scene of the racially-charged shooting at a church that left nine worshippers dead, all of them black. Dylann Roof, the man charged in the case, left a manifesto detailing his racist views toward black people.
Clinton has a major advantage among black voters in the state and she pressed that advantage by calling for an end to racial profiling in the criminal justice system.
“One out of three African-American men may well end up going to prison,” she said. “That’s the statistic. I want people to think what it would be like if it was one out of every three white men.”
She added, “We have a very serious problem that we can no longer ignore.”
