Former US president Bill Clinton angrily told Black Lives Matter protesters that they “are defending the people who kill the lives you say matter,” prompting criticism from black voters, whose support Democratic presidential hopeful Hillary Rodham Clinton is counting on in her quest for the presidency.
The former president spent more than 10 minutes facing down the protesters at a campaign rally in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, for his wife over the criticisms that a 1994 crime bill he approved while president led to a surge in the imprisonment of black people.
The Democratic race has become increasingly heated in recent days as Hillary Clinton, stung by a string of losses in state nominating contests, has traded barbs with her rival for the nomination, Bernie Sanders, over who is more prepared for the White House.
Photo: Clem Murray / The Philadelphia Inquirer via AP
In Philadelphia, several protesters heckled the former president mid-speech and held signs, including one that read: “CLINTON Crime Bill Destroyed Our Communities.”
Video footage of Hillary Clinton defending the bill in 1994 by calling young people in gangs “super predators” who need to “be brought to heel” has been widely circulated during the campaign by activists in the Black Lives Matter protest movement.
Bill Clinton defended her 1994 remarks, which protesters say were racially insensitive.
“I don’t know how you would characterize the gang leaders who got 13-year-old kids hopped on crack and sent them out on the street to murder other African-American children,” he said, shaking his finger at a heckler as Hillary Clinton supporters cheered, according to video of the event. “Maybe you thought they were good citizens. She [Hillary Clinton] didn’t.”
“You are defending the people who kill the lives you say matter,” he told a protester. “Tell the truth.”
Hillary Clinton, who has also faced protesters upset by her remarks, has said she regrets using the term.
Bill Clinton said last year that he regrets signing the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act into law because it contributed to the country’s high incarceration rate of black people for nonviolent crimes.
His remarks on Thursday prompted criticism online as some saw him criticizing the Black Lives Matter movement, which was the product of anger over a string of encounters around the country in which police officers killed unarmed black people.
Prominent civil-rights activist Johnetta Elzie wrote online that Bill Clinton “can’t handle being confronted by his own record.”
“This is like watching a robot malfunction,” she wrote.
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