Hillary Clinton said Tuesday that the recent shooting of Terence Crutcher in Tulsa, Oklahoma, was “unbearable” and said “systemic racism” should not be tolerated.
“We have got to tackle systemic racism,” Clinton said on “The Steve Harvey Morning Show.” “This horrible shooting again. How many times do we have to see this in our country?”
Crutcher was shot and killed last week after his car broke down. The 40-year-old black man raised his hands above his head just before Officer Betty Shelby fatally shot him. Crutcher was unarmed at the time.
“This is just unbearable,” Clinton said. “And it needs to be intolerable.”
“And maybe I can, by speaking directly to white people, say, ‘Look, this is not who we are,'” Clinton said. “We have got to do everything possible to improve policing, to go right at implicit bias.”
Clinton concluded that while there are “good, honorable, cool-headed police officers” working across the country, “we can do better.”
Clinton has made addressing police shootings and criminal justice reform a key aspect of her presidential campaign and routinely speaks about the issue, particularly when speaking to predominantly African-American audiences.
But Clinton has also said that white Americans have responsibility to listen to what African-Americans are saying about police brutality.
“We white Americans need to do a better job of listening when African-Americans talk about the seen and unseen barriers you face everyday. We need to recognize our privilege and and practice humility, rather than assume our experiences are everyone’s experiences,” Clinton said earlier this year at the NAACP annual convention.
In response to the Crutcher shooting, both the Department of Justice and state authorities have launched investigations into the officer-involved shooting.
Danny C. Williams, US Attorney of the Northern District of Oklahoma, said prosecutors will attempt to determine whether a federal civil rights violation had occurred. Authorities refused to immediately answer additional questions due to the ongoing investigation.