Hillary Clinton doubles down on racial justice in first campaign address

Hillary Rodham Clinton on Wednesday demanded sweeping criminal justice reforms to end a “pattern” of black men being killed by police and black communities being subjugated by poverty, as the Baltimore riots pushed race relations to the forefront of her presidential campaign.

Mrs. Clinton called for an end to racial profiling, alternatives to incarceration for low-level offenses and body cameras on police officers nationwide to help fix a justice system that she said was tilted against black men.

The former first lady, senator and secretary of state said the the death of Freddie Gray, a 25-year-old black man whose death in police custody set off riots in Baltimore this week, was only the latest example of a system that has grown “out of balance.”

“From Ferguson to Staten Island to Baltimore, the patterns have become unmistakable and undeniable,” said Mrs. Clinton in a speech at Columbia University in New York, the first major address of her campaign.

She listed the series of deaths of black men at the hands of police that have grabbed headlines in recent years.

“Walter Scott shot in the back in Charleston, South Carolina, unarmed, in debt, terrified of spending any more time in jail for child support payments he couldn’t afford. Tamir Rice shot in a park in Cleveland, Ohio, unarmed and just 12 year old. Eric Garner, choked to death after being stopped for selling cigarettes on the streets of our city. And now Freddie Gray, his spine nearly severed while in police custody,” she said.

“Not only as a mother and a grandmother, but as a citizen, a human being, my heart breaks for these young men and their families,” Mrs. Clinton said. “We have to come to terms with some hard truths about race and justice in America.”

The remark drew some of the loudest applause in her keynote address at the university’s David N. Dinkins Leadership and Public Policy Forum.
“We have allowed our criminal justice system to get out of balance and these recent tragedies should galvanize us to come together as a nation to find our balance again,” she said.

Mrs. Clinton also called for calm in Baltimore.

“We should begin by heeding the pleas of Freddie Gray’s family for peace and unity, echoing the families of Michael Brown, Travon Martin and others in the past years,” she said. “Those who are instigating further violence in Baltimore are disrespecting the Gray family and the entire community. They are compounding the tragedy of Freddie Gray’s death and setting back the cause of justice.”