What Trump and Clinton say the Dallas shootings mean for policing
Both presumptive presidential candidates scrapped plans for campaign events on Friday after five Dallas police officers were shot to death by a sniper during a protest against police brutality.
Donald Trump cancelled a rally planned in Miami, while Hillary Clinton did the same for a fundraiser with Vice President Joe Biden in Scranton, Penn., though she did for Friday afternoon at the African Methodist Episcopal (AME) national convention.
The two candidates鈥� public reflections seemed to underscore crucial differences between them, with Mr. Trump emphasizing the need to 鈥渞estore law and order鈥� and Mrs. Clinton pledging to reconcile differences between police departments and communities of color.
, Mrs. Clinton called the Dallas shootings an "absolutely horrific event" that should "worry every single American," while framing it as a "call to action" for new national guidelines for policing.
Speaking before a largely African-American audience in Philadelphia, she 鈥渃lear evidence that African-Americans are much more likely to be killed in police incidents than any other groups of Americans鈥� and promised $1 billion for 鈥渋mplicit bias鈥� training programs if she were elected president.
The term refers to the notion that many people unconsciously hold reflexive prejudices that influence the type of exchanges police officers handle every day. are already in place in a number of police and sheriff鈥檚 departments in California.
On Friday evening, Donald Trump said the Dallas shootings had "shaken the soul of our nation" and called for the restoration of "the confidence of our people to be safe and secure in their homes and on the street.鈥澛�
鈥淲e must stand in solidarity with law enforcement, which we must remember is the force between civilization and total chaos,鈥� he said. Mr. Trump went on to lament the deaths of Alton Sterling and Philando Castile at the hands of police in Louisiana and Minnesota, respectively, saying they 鈥渕ake clear how much more work we have to do to make every American feel that their safety is protected.鈥�
"Too many Americans are living in terrible poverty and violence. We need jobs, and we are going to produce those jobs. Racial divisions have gotten worse, not better,鈥� he said.聽
Earlier this week, Mrs. Clinton had of Mr. Sterling's and Mr. Castile's deaths and praised the opening of a Department of Justice investigation into possible negligence. On Friday, she sought to align herself with some of the protestors, urging greater empathy from white Americans on the question of police brutality against African-Americans.
"White Americans need to do a better job of listening when African-Americans talk about the seen and unseen barriers you face every day," . "We need to try, as best we can, to walk in one another's shoes, to imagine what it would be like if people followed us around stores or locked their car doors when we walked past.鈥�
