Nearly three weeks after an unarmed black teen was gunned down in a St. Louis suburb by a white police officer, sparking violent riots and a national conversation about race, Hillary Clinton finally broke her silence about the ongoing tension in Ferguson, Mo.
“Watching the recent funeral for Michael Brown, as a mother, as a human being, my heart just broke for his family because losing a child is every parent’s greatest fear and an unimaginable loss,” the former Secretary of State said Thursday at a technology conference in San Francisco.
“Behind the dramatic, terrible pictures on television, there are deep challenges that will be with them and with us long after the cameras move on,” Clinton added. “This is what happens when the bonds of trust and respect that hold any community together fray.”
Michael Brown, an unarmed 18-year-old African-American was fatally shot in broad daylight Aug. 9 by Darren Wilson, a white police officer. The shocking incident led to protests by local residents, which in turn resulted in an aggressive police responses that included military-style tanks and weaponry — which Clinton also criticized.
“”Nobody wants to see our streets look like a war zone, not in America,” she said. “We are better than that.”
The former first lady called for a “thorough and speedy investigation,” adding that “we cannot ignore the inequities that persist in our justice system.”
The shooting, which is being investigated by the St. Louis County prosecutor as well as the U.S. Department of Justice, has led to an ongoing national dialogue about race relations and policing in the U.S. — a conversation to which politicians past and present, including President Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder, have contributed.
But Clinton, who many politicos widely expect to run for president in 2016, had remained silent on the issue.
Rev. Al Sharpton, who spoke at Brown’s funeral Monday, even publicly questioned why the possible presidential candidate has stayed so quiet.
“This is now a national, central issue, and anyone running for president needs to come up with a formula, or, in my opinion, they forfeit their right to be taken seriously,” he said this week on MSNBC. “I’m amazed that we’re not hearing from leading candidates … Chris Christie or Jeb Bush or Hillary Clinton.”
With News Wire Services
