“In every instance, we will have a Department of Justice investigation,” Sanders told the rally on Friday night at Claflin University in Orangeburg, South Carolina. “We are going to demilitarize police departments so that they do not look like an occupying army.”
Opinion polls show 75 percent of Democratic voters in South Carolina supporting former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Sanders’ rival.
The senator consequently focused in his speech on issues of prime concern to the 40-million strong African American community.
“Whites and blacks smoke marijuana at equal rates. [Yet] blacks are four times more likely to be arrested than whites for smoking marijuana,” Sanders pointed out. “We are going to take marijuana out of the Federal Controlled Substance Act. It should not be a federal crime.”
Sanders was backed in his pitch for African American votes with a fiery speech from former Ohio state senator Nina Turner and the entertainer and political activist Killer Mike, who are both African Americans.