CLEVELAND: Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton decried a fresh round of police-involved shootings on 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.
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.
The King incident underscored the often clumsy way in which Trump has made his appeal to minority voters. Many black community leaders and voters have been offended by his dire depiction of life in minority communities. Trump’s outreach has also been viewed cynically as an attempt to soothe concerns among moderate voters.
At the end of the Ohio church event organized by members of his diversity coalition, Trump was asked about recent high-profile police shootings in Oklahoma and North Carolina. Trump said Terence Crutcher, 40, who was killed in Friday’s Tulsa, Okla., shooting, “looked like he did everything you’re supposed to do. And he looked like a really good man.”
“This young officer, I don’t know what she was thinking. I don’t know what she was thinking but I’m very, very troubled by that,” Trump said, calling it a “terrible situation.”
But hours later, he called for the expanded use of stop-and-frisk, a police tactic that a federal judge has ruled can be discriminatory against minorities. Trump said during a Fox News town hall taping that the tactic, which gives police the ability to stop and search anyone they deem suspicious, had “worked incredibly well” in New York, where it was expanded under former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg.
Current New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, a Democrat who supports Clinton, slammed Trump’s call for more stop-and-frisk as “appalling” and disputed Trump’s account of how well it worked.
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.”
Meanwhile, Chelsea Clinton will speak at 12:05 p.m. Thursday at the University of Toledo on behalf of her mother, the campaign announced. Doors open at 11:15 a.m. Members of the public wishing to attend can RSVP at hillaryclinton.com/events/.
The Toledo Blade contributed to this story.