Donald Trump’s still hanging out in Cleveland in a vain attempt at black outreach. Don King went bonkers for him, and his town hall with Sean Hannity of Fox News will air at 10 p.m. EST. Naturally, parts of the transcript of the meeting — which was held at a historically black church — have started to leak. Earlier today, Trump made headlines for appearing uncharacteristically empathetic while speaking of the recent officer-involved shootings in Tulsa, Okla. and Charlotte, N.C. But he’s still Trump, so he also suggested expanding “stop-and-frisk” on a national level.
According to NBC reporter Alexandra Jaffe, Trump was asked what he would do about “violence in the black community.” Specifically, the audience member in question wondered how Trump would address “black-on-black crime.” Here’s his answer:
“Well, one of the things I’d do, Ricardo, is I would do stop-and-frisk. I think you have to. We did it in New York, it worked incredibly well and you have to be proactive and, you know, you really help people sort of change their mind automatically, you understand, you have to have, in my opinion, I see what’s going on here, I see what’s going on in Chicago, I think stop-and-frisk. In New York City, it was so incredible, the way it worked … so I think that could be one step you could do.”
Trump also praised the “very good mayor” of New York City for implementing stop-and-frisk on a widespread basis back in the day. He’s speaking of Michael Bloomberg, who used the tactic until a federal court stepped in with a 2013 ruling, which stated that NYC was performing stop-and-frisks on both an unconstitutional and excessive (not to mention demeaning) basis. The tactic still exists now in NYC, just not as frequently. The New York Civil Liberties Union recently published data from NYPD reports that reveal how nine out of 10 times, “stopped-and-frisked New Yorkers have been completely innocent.”
Noticeably, Trump did not utter Bloomberg’s name during his town hall answer, perhaps because his fellow billionaire labelled Trump “a con” during a recent RNC speech.
(Via Alexandra Jaffe on Twitter, New York Times & NYCLU)
