Asked about Black people being killed by police, Trump responds: 'So are white people'

(Image credit: Jim Watson/AFP via Getty Images)

last updated 15 July 2020

When asked on Tuesday why African Americans are "dying at the hands of law enforcement in this country," President Trump responded, "And so are white people. So are white people."

The question was posed during an interview with CBS News' Catherine Herridge. Trump told Herridge this was "a terrible question to ask. So are white people — more white people, by the way, more white people."

In 2015, The Washington Post began tallying every fatal shooting by an on-duty police officer in the United States. The Post's database shows that white people account for about half of all deadly officer-involved shootings. Because the Census Bureau estimates that roughly 76 percent of the country is white and 13 percent is Black, based on the Post's numbers, Black people are shot and killed by police officers at more than twice the rate of white people.

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Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.