Trump, Clinton decry latest police shootings

Associated Press

CLEVELAND

Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton decried a fresh round of police-involved shootings Wednesday, with the Republican nominee saying he was “very troubled” by the killing of a black man by a white police officer in Oklahoma.

Courting black voters who have long spurned Republicans, Trump’s event in Cleveland Heights’ New Spirit Revival Center took a bizarre 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. In an interview later, Trump called for a national expansion of “stop-and-frisk,” the police tactic that a federal judge ruled can be discriminatory against minorities.

Trump’s latest foray into the black community not only sought to connect with voters in Cleveland, home to a large community of African-American voters key to Clinton’s prospects in Ohio, but also with moderate suburban voters, who frequently hear Clinton describe Trump as extreme.

King, introducing Trump, raised eyebrows when he said a black man is always framed by his skin color, recalling that he once told pop icon Michael Jackson, “If you’re poor, you’re a ‘poor Negro.’ If you’re rich, you’re a ‘rich Negro.’” An educated black man is “an intellectual negro.”

King, who is black, continued: “If you’re a dancing and sliding and gliding n----- – I mean Negro – you are ‘a dancing and sliding and gliding Negro.’” Gasps and laughs could be heard from the audience.

Clinton notably made no direct mention of Trump in a speech in Orlando, Fla., focused on helping people with disabilities thrive in the U.S. economy. She pointed to the Oklahoma and North Carolina shootings at the start of her remarks, saying it added two more names “to a long list of African-Americans killed by police officers. It’s unbearable, and it needs to become intolerable,” she said.