NYTimes | Hillary Rodham Clinton
had not planned to make the first major policy speech of her
presidential campaign an impassioned plea to mend the nation’s racial
fissures and overhaul an “out-of-balance” criminal justice system.
But by Tuesday, as the nation confronted shocking scenes of Baltimore’s smoke-filled streets,
Mrs. Clinton knew that the death of Freddie Gray from injuries he
suffered while in police custody would lead her to make race, poverty
and incarceration of men from poor, black communities central to her
early campaign.
“There
is something profoundly wrong when African-American men are still far
more likely to be stopped and searched by police, charged with crimes
and sentenced to longer prison terms than are meted out to their white
counterparts,” Mrs. Clinton said in a forceful address Wednesday at
Columbia University.
She said Mr. Gray’s death, the subsequent protests and the assault on innocent police officers in Baltimore “tear at your soul.”
The
remarks marked the first time Mrs. Clinton has delivered a substantive
policy address in a fledgling presidential race that had to now been
defined by candidates’ upbeat announcements and vague promises.
