An change between Vice President Mike Pence and Senator Kamala Harris late within the debate crystallized the deep variations within the two sides’
An change between Vice President Mike Pence and Senator Kamala Harris late within the debate crystallized the deep variations within the two sides’ approaches to racial justice.
Requested whether or not justice was completed within the case of Breonna Taylor, whom law enforcement officials fatally shot after bursting into her dwelling in Louisville, Ky., whereas she was sleeping, Ms. Harris stated she didn’t suppose so. (A grand jury indicted solely one of many officers, and the costs towards him are usually not for taking pictures Ms. Taylor, however for endangering her neighbors.)
She then linked the killing of Ms. Taylor to the killing of different Black folks by the police, like George Floyd in Minneapolis, and stated that if elected, she and Joseph R. Biden Jr. would ban chokeholds, create a nationwide registry for law enforcement officials who act illegally, shut personal prisons and decriminalize marijuana, amongst different modifications to the prison justice system.
As a former prosecutor, she stated, “I do know what I’m speaking about.”
Mr. Pence, in contrast, claimed that it was a “nice insult” to law enforcement officials to say that there was implicit racial bias in regulation enforcement in any respect. Analysis constantly exhibits that officers disproportionately cease Black folks, arrest Black folks, and use pressure — usually deadly — towards Black folks.
Mr. Pence additionally advised that it was disturbing for a former prosecutor like Ms. Harris to “assume that an impaneled grand jury all of the proof acquired it mistaken,” although a member of the grand jury got here ahead publicly final month to specific issues concerning the proceedings, saying the jury had not been given the choice to indict the opposite officers.
And he stated that Mr. Trump had “repeatedly” condemned white supremacists, although the president declined to take action simply final week, throughout his first debate with Mr. Biden.