Hillary Clinton Friday condemned the "absolutely horrific" fatal ambush of five police officers in Dallas on Thursday and said that she would call on "white people, like myself to put ourselves in the shoes of African-American people" to help heal the racial divide if she were elected president of the United States.
"This is deeply troubling and it should worry every single American," the presumptive Democratic nominee
told CNN's Wolf Blitzer of the fatal police shootings. "We have got to do much more to listen to one another, respect each other.
"We have got to do everything possible to support our police and support innocent Americans who have deadly encounters with the police."
A gunman police identified as Micah Xavier Johnson, 25, an Army reservist who had served in Afghanistan, fired the shots from a high-powered rifle at the end of a rally in downtown Dallas.
The rally was in protest of police killings of African-American men by police in Baton Rouge, La., and just outside St. Paul, Minn.
Clinton called for national guidelines on the use of force by police — and deadly force, in particular.
"We need to do more to look into implicit bias and do more to protect our police," she told Blitzer.
"Look what happened in Dallas: Those police officers were protecting a peaceful protest, a protest of authority. That is a hallmark of America.
"When the shooting started and everyone else was fleeing, the police were removing toward danger," Clinton added. "Let's start understanding, putting ourselves in each other's shoes again and really coming together as Americans to end this kind of terrible violence."
Clinton declined to say whether she agreed with Minnesota Gov. Mark Dayton, who said Thursday that Philando Castile would not have been shot near St. Paul on Wednesday if he had been white.
"We have got to figure out what is happening when routine traffic stops, when routine arrests escalate into killings," Clinton said. "And I don't think that we know all of the answer for that."
Blitzer then pressed Clinton further — and she responded: "We have to find where the evidence leads us, but the facts are clear — and the governor knows those facts: that too many African Americans have been killed in encounters with police over matters that should not have led to that action being taken."
In bridging the racial divide in the country, Clinton said that she would call on whites to work to further understand African Americans should she be elected to 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. in November.
"I will call for white people, like myself, to put ourselves in the shoes of those African-American families who fear every time their children go somewhere, who have to have the talk about how to really protect themselves when they are the ones who should be expecting protection from encounters with the police," she said.
"I'm going to be talking to white people," Clinton continued. "I think we are the ones who have to start listening to the legitimate cries that are coming from our African-American fellow citizens — and we have so much more to be done, and we have got to get about the business of doing it."
After talking with CNN, Clinton posted this tweet:
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