Hillary Clinton urges police reform in aftermath of deadly shootings

Hillary Clinton said Americans should put politics aside and focus on empathy in times of terror.

(Image credit: JAY LAPRETE/AFP/Getty Images)

published 18 July 2016

Hillary Clinton invoked the recent killings of and by police officers as evidence of how much progress still needs to be made during a speech Monday at the NAACP conference in Cincinnati, Ohio. Clinton stressed that America has "difficult, painful, essential work ahead of us to repair the bonds between our police and our communities and among each other," and she pledged to make police reform a priority if elected. Her speech came just a day after a gunman killed three police officers in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, where tensions have been high since Alton Sterling was fatally shot by a police officer two weeks ago.

Though Clinton underscored how essential "courageous police officers" are to our democracy, she also sympathized with the African-American community. "We cannot rest until we root out implicit bias and stop the killings of African-Americans," Clinton said, citing several examples of inequality lurking in society and noting that "many African-Americans fear the police."

To achieve the necessary progress, Clinton said, empathy and unity — not violence — will be key. "We need one another to do this work," Clinton said. "We need leaders like the NAACP. We need police officers to help us make progress. These murders threaten all of that."