White Americans Should Help Reduce Police Violence in Black Communities

Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton said that many police officers have themselves expressed concern over the growing divide between black communities and law enforcement.

WASHINGTON (Sputnik) — White Americans should join police officers in trying to decrease tensions that can lead to lethal violence against members of US black communities, Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton said in an interview with singer Mary J. Blige released on Friday.

"I particularly want white people to understand [that] they must be part of the solution," Clinton said in the online interview distributed by Apple Music. "Work with our police so they don't immediately draw the wrong conclusions, and…learn better ways to de-escalate tension rather than perhaps cause a death."

Blige preceded her conversation with Clinton by singing Bruce Springsteen's "American Skin (41 Shots)," a song about the 1999 police killing in New York City of Amadou Diallo, a 23-year-old immigrant from Guinea.

Clinton said many police officers have themselves expressed concern over the growing divide between black communities and law enforcement. She recommended that the US government devise police-training programs that emphasize nonviolent methods of law enforcement.

"You should have people respect the law, and the law should respect people," Clinton added.

In the most recent in a series of such incidents, Keith Scott, a 43-year-old African-American man, was killed by police in the US state of South Carolina on September 20. His death sparked five days of local protests against police brutality.