Bill Clinton invoked Eric Garner to Harlem churchgoers Sunday, telling them that police reform was needed so that more people aren’t “strangled on the street” for selling illegal cigarettes.
The reference to the 2014 police killing came as the former President seeks to recover from his controversial comments to Black Lives Matter protesters defending his administration’s tough laws against drug offenders.
“You don’t want to see any more kids shot on the street or in the case of New York City, being strangled on the street for selling three illegal cigarettes. It’s not a capital offense,” Clinton said while stumping for his wife, Hillary Clinton, at Antioch Baptist Church on Sunday.
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The comment didn’t go over well with Ed Mullins, president of the Sergeants Benevolent Association, who said Clinton owed the NYPD an apology.
“His facts are once again as wrong as the fantasy video story that was fabricated to the American people about the embassy attack in Benghazi, where four brave Americans were left behind and murdered. His comments are not only wrong but divisive,” Mullins said.
Garner died on July 17, 2014, after he was put in a police chokehold by Officer Daniel Pantaleo in Staten Island. He had been stopped for selling illegal “loosie” cigarettes. A grand jury chose not to indict Pantaleo.
Former President Bill Clinton speaks to the congregation at the Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem while campaigning for his wife, Hillary.
Clinton, who on Sunday spoke at three Harlem churches and led rallies in Manhattan and Queens ahead of New York’s April 19 presidential primary, said the tragedy reflected a chasm between police and the community they’ve sworn to protect.
“They may not have intended to kill that man. They violated procedural rules with a chokehold with a very heavy guy who clearly had cardiovascular issues. But people do stuff like that when they’re scared, when they’re alienated, when they feel like there's this vast divide,” Clinton said.
The comments were part of the campaign’s efforts to show the Clintons have changed since Bill Clinton signed legislation in 1994 that led to the mass incarceration predominately of minorities. Many in both parties now regard the law as a mistake.
“We overdid it in putting too many young nonviolent offenders in jail for too long,” Bill Clinton said. “Let these people out of jail. Give them education, training.”
The former President got into a high-profile spat with protesters last week in Philadelphia, defending Hillary Clinton's description of some criminals as “super-predators” in a confrontation he later said he regrets.