Clinton, Trump decry latest police shootings of black men

Prosecutors in Tulsa, Oklahoma, charged a white police officer who fatally shot an unarmed black man on a city street with first-degree manslaughter Thursday. In the past, he has criticized the Black Lives Matter movement for questioning police tactics.

“I watched the shooting in particular in Tulsa”.

The Democratic presidential candidate opened a speech in Orlando, Florida, on disability rights with remarks expressing regret over the “very upsetting” deaths of two men at the hands of police in recent days – one in Tulsa and the other in Charlotte. “To me, it looked like he did everything you’re supposed to do”, Trump said.

Courting black voters who have long spurned Republicans, Trump’s event in Cleveland Heights’ New Spirit Revival Center took a weird turn when he was introduced by boxing promoter Don King, who used a racial slur as he made the case for black voters to support Trump. Cleveland Heights is almost 43 percent black.

The shooting of Terence Crutcher, 40, by Tulsa Officer Betty Shelby after his sport utility vehicle broke down on Friday, was the latest in a series of fatal shootings that have raised questions of racial bias in USA policing.

She said she’s spoken with law enforcement leaders “who are as deeply concerned as I am, and as deeply committed as I am to reform”.

“To me it looked like someone who was doing what they were asking him to do”.

Last week Trump secured the endorsement of the Fraternal Order of Police, the nation’s largest police union.

It was a sudden departure for Trump from his forceful support for police officers, amid an intense national debate over discriminatory policing.

“Every day, police officers across our country are serving with extraordinary courage and honor and skill”, she said.

Police video shows Crutcher walking toward his SUV, which is stopped in the middle of the road.

Crutcher – whose kids range in age from 4 to 16 – was standing with his hands up when Officer Betty Shelby fired the fatal shots.

The officers surround Crutcher – blocking a clear view from the camera – and he suddenly drops to the ground. Someone on the police radio says, “I think he may have just been tasered”. Then nearly immediately, a woman’s voice yells on the police radio: “Shots fired!” Meanwhile, the Crutcher family is left to protest and grieve over the latest example of anti-black violence by law enforcement.

Crump previously represented the families of black shooting victims Trayvon Martin and Michael Brown.

Addressing the North Carolina and Oklahoma shootings on Twitter on Wednesday, Clinton wrote, “Keith Lamont Scott”.

Terence Crutcher was a church-going man and a father of four who was gunned down for being “a big bad dude”, his twin sister, Tiffany Crutcher has said, referring to the “bad dude” comment from the police helicopter footage. “And last night in Charlotte, 12 officers were injured during demonstrations”. “It’s unbearable, and it needs to become intolerable”. “What happened? But maybe people like that, people that choke, people that do that, maybe they can’t be doing what they’re doing”, said Trump.

While she steered clear of Trump – with the exception of her campaign mantra, “Love trumps hate”, – the topic was an implicit poke at Trump’s much-publicized mocking of a disabled journalist during a rally past year.

Pundits have surmised that Trump only took this surprising stance because he was speaking in front of a predominantly black audience. “We did it in NY, it worked incredibly well and you have to be proactive and, you know, you really help people sort of change their mind automatically”. “If you are a dancing and sliding and gliding n***** – I mean negro – you are a dancing and sliding and gliding negro”, King said, laughing along with the crowd after the slip-up.

That pitch has offended many black voters, who have recoiled at his grim depiction of life in minority communities, including his false claim that certain inner cities are more risky than Afghanistan.

Trump’s comments came against the backdrop of another outreach event aimed at African-American voters but also created to soften his image among swing voters, including white women.