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‘Madness Has to Stop,’ Hillary Clinton Declares at N.A.A.C.P. Conference ‘Madness Has to Stop,’ Hillary Clinton Declares at N.A.A.C.P. Conference
(about 4 hours later)
CINCINNATI — Responding to the killings of police in Baton Rouge, La., and Dallas and the recent deaths of two black men at the hands of law enforcement, Hillary Clinton on Monday offered a blunt declaration: “This madness has to stop.” With the Republican convention beginning in Cleveland with a theme of bringing law and order back to a fractured nation, Hillary Clinton told black leaders in Cincinnati on Monday that the country had “difficult, painful, essential work” ahead in rebuilding trust between African Americans and police officers.
“Watching the news from Baton Rouge yesterday, my heart broke,” Mrs. Clinton said at the annual convention for the N.A.A.C.P. “Not just for those officers and their grieving families, but for all of us.” “This madness has to stop,” Mrs. Clinton told civil rights leaders and activists gathered at the annual convention for the N.A.A.C.P., a day after three law enforcement officers were fatally shot in Baton Rouge, La.
Making her own appearance in Ohio as the Republican convention began in Cleveland, Mrs. Clinton condemned the killings of police officers while also pressing law enforcement to make reforms. President Obama called for calm on Sunday, while the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, Donald J. Trump, asserted that the United States had become a “divided crime scene.” And Mrs. Clinton on Monday fell somewhere in between, urging more empathy but insisting she would crack down on any violence against the police.
“We have difficult, painful, essential work ahead of us to repair the bonds between our police and our communities, and between and among each other,” Mrs. Clinton said. “We need to recognize our privilege and practice humility,” she said of white people. “Imagine what it would be like to sit our son or daughter down and have the talk about how carefully they need to act around police.”
Mrs. Clinton’s remarks came at a fraught time, following a string of deaths of black people after encounters with the police, and after the killings of police officers in Dallas and, on Sunday, in Baton Rouge, La. She also urged more respect for police officers in the aftermath of the shooting in Baton Rouge and the ambush in Dallas that killed five officers.
Responding to those events on Monday, Mrs. Clinton said that “anyone who kills a police officer and anyone who helps must be held accountable.” “Let’s also put ourselves in the shoes of police officers, kissing their kids and spouses goodbye every day,” she said, vowing to bring “the full weight of the law to bear in making sure those who kill police officers are brought to justice.”
“As president, I will bring the full weight of the law to bear in making sure those who kill police officers are brought to justice,” she said. “There can be no justification, no looking the other way.” And in a line that seemed to echo Mr. Trump, she declared, “There can be no justification, no looking the other way,” in violence against the police, saying that law enforcement officials “represent the rule of law itself.”
At the same time, Mrs. Clinton said, the recent deaths of black men at the hands of police in Louisiana and Minnesota “drove home how urgently we need to make reforms to policing and criminal justice.” Even so, Mrs. Clinton’s comments on Monday represented a vastly different outlook than that her likely Republican rival and his allies were projecting across the state, at the party’s convention in Cleveland. The theme of Monday’s convention speeches is “Make America Safe Again,” and the speakers were expected to include Rudolph W. Giuliani, the former mayor of New York, who called the Black Lives Matter movement, which has protested the killing of black men by white police officers, “inherently racist.”
“There is, as you know so well, another hard truth at the heart of this complex matter: Many African-Americans fear the police,” she said.
Donald J. Trump declined an invitation to appear at the convention, according to the N.A.A.C.P. Mr. Trump has emphasized his support for law enforcement, and has said he wants to impose the death penalty on anyone who kills a police officer. On Sunday he posted messages on Facebook decrying the Baton Rouge shootings and saying, “Our country is a divided crime scene, and it will only get worse!”
Law enforcement’s relationship with the black community was the focus of Mrs. Clinton’s first major policy speech of her campaign last April. She called for an overhaul of an “out-of-balance” criminal justice system that disproportionately targeted African-American communities.
As the nation confronted scenes of protests in Baltimore after the death of Freddie Gray, who died from injuries he suffered in police custody, Mrs. Clinton named several other black men killed at the hands of white police officers and declared “a time for honesty about race and justice in America.”
That time has only become more urgent.
Mrs. Clinton’s calls to limit prison sentences for low-level drug offenders and better incorporate police officers into the communities resonated in a Democratic primary in which she relied heavily on African-American voters to defeat Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont.
But the recent shootings of two black men, Alton B. Sterling in Baton Rouge and Philando Castile in Falcon Heights, Minn., and the ambushes that left five police officers dead in Dallas and three in Baton Rouge have thrust policing and the criminal justice system into the general election.
The Democratic National Convention next week in Philadelphia will include remarks by several African-American mothers who have lost children to gun violence or in clashes with the police and who have campaigned across the country on behalf of Mrs. Clinton.The Democratic National Convention next week in Philadelphia will include remarks by several African-American mothers who have lost children to gun violence or in clashes with the police and who have campaigned across the country on behalf of Mrs. Clinton.
The issue is a complex one for Mrs. Clinton. Many criminal justice experts view her pledge to tackle “systemic racism” in the criminal justice system and prioritize ending “the era of mass incarceration” as a repudiation of policies on policing and prison building associated with her husband’s administration and the 1994 Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act. Mrs. Clinton maintains some of her strongest support among African-Americans, 72 percent of whom said they would support her over Mr. Trump, according to a New York Times/ CBS News poll this month. Some 80 percent of black voters said they have an unfavorable opinion of Mr. Trump, compared to 21 percent for Mrs. Clinton.
Back then, crime was a major concern in many American cities, and Democrats were still scarred by the 1988 presidential campaign, when the elder George Bush defeated Michael Dukakis after the Willie Horton ad depicted Mr. Dukakis as soft on violent crime. The N.A.A.C.P. had invited Mr. Trump to speak, but he declined the invitation, according to the group.
The 1994 law created stricter penalties for drug offenders and devoted billions of dollars to putting more police officers on the street and building new prisons. From 1990 to 2014, the adult prison population nearly doubled to roughly 2.2 million prisoners. On Sunday, Mr. Trump’s former primary rival, Gov. John Kasich of Ohio, addressed the group. He talked about his record of overhauling the criminal justice system in the state, including helping nonviolent felons re-enter society.
Speaking at the N.A.A.C.P. conference last year, former President Bill Clinton disavowed part of the anti-crime legislation he had once considered a top accomplishment. “I signed a bill that made the problem worse,” Mr. Clinton said, referring to the many black men in prison for nonviolent drug offenses. “And I want to admit that.” “Every human being is made in the image of God,” Mr. Kasich said. “The Lord wants us to work together.”
In her speech on Monday, Mrs. Clinton evoked in emotional terms the recent fatal shootings of two black men by police officers, Alton B. Sterling in Baton Rouge and Philando Castile in Falcon Heights, Minn., and said their deaths “drove home how urgently we need to make reforms to policing and criminal justice.”
She reiterated her call to overhaul the criminal justice system, which would include retraining police officers in the use of lethal force, supporting independent investigations into police shootings and lessening prison sentences for nonviolent drug offenders. “I pledge to you, I will start taking action on Day 1 and every day after that until we get this done,” she said.
Crime and policing have proven complex issues for Mrs. Clinton. Many criminal justice experts view her pledge to tackle “systemic racism” in the criminal justice system and to prioritize the end of “the era of mass incarceration” as a repudiation of policies associated with her husband’s administration and the 1994 Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act.
Back then, crime was a major concern in many American cities, and Democrats were still scarred by the 1988 presidential campaign, when the elder George Bush defeated Michael S. Dukakis after the Willie Horton ad portrayed Mr. Dukakis as soft on violent crime.
The 1994 law created stricter penalties for drug offenders and devoted billions of dollars to putting more police officers on the street and building new prisons.
From 1990 to 2014, the number of incarcerated adults nearly doubled to roughly 2.2 million. Speaking at the N.A.A.C.P. conference last year, former President Bill Clinton disavowed part of the anti-crime legislation he had once considered a top accomplishment. “I signed a bill that made the problem worse,” Mr. Clinton said, referring to the many black men in prison for nonviolent drug offenses. “And I want to admit that.”
Mrs. Clinton made clear on Monday that even if the criminal justice system were overhauled, the simmering racial tensions this summer have roots deeper than crime policy and policing.
“The truth is, we need to plan how we’re going to address the complex set of economic, social and political challenges we face,” she said. “Ending systemic racism requires contributions from us all.”