Trump, Clinton Differ on Policing
Recent fatal shootings have raised questions about the need for reform.
— -- The two fatal police shootings that occurred in Tulsa and Charlotte recently have prompted a renewed focus on what police may be able to do to help prevent future such incidents.
Both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump have discussed their proposals for law enforcement on the campaign trail.
Hillary Clinton's Plan
The Democratic nominee has laid out two specific steps for bring change within law enforecment. The first would be to call on law enforcement and communities to "develop national guidelines on the use of force by police officers," Clinton said in a speech about her plan on July 8, 2016, the day after five police officers were ambushed and killed during a peaceful Black Lives Matter protest in Dallas. The protest was held in the wake of fatal police shootings of Alton Sterling in Baton Rouge and Philando Castile in Minnesota.
"We’ll make it clear for everyone to see when deadly force is warranted, and when it isn’t," Clinton said in her speech, which was before the general conference of the African Methodist Episcopal Church in Philadelphia.
The second step would be to "acknowledge that implicit bias still exists across our society and even in the best police departments" and commit $1 billion to fund new training programs and support research, she said.
"We do need police and criminal justice reforms, to save lives and make sure all Americans are treated equally in rights and dignity," Clinton said in the speech, her most extensive talk yet on the issue of policing. "We do need to support police departments and stand up for the men and women who put their lives on the line every day to protect us. We do need to reduce gun violence. We may disagree about how to go about these things, but surely we can all agree with those basic premises.
Her plan specifically focuses on "reducing excessive violence, reforming our sentencing laws, supporting police departments that are doing things right, and making it harder for the wrong people to get their hands on guns," she said.
Clinton had also previously spoken about the need to end racial profiling. In October, her team noted that she plans to support legislation banning racial profiling on federal, state and law enforcement levels. She co-sponsored similar acts while she was in the Senate.
Donald Trump's Plan
The Republican nominee, unlike Clinton, has given no speeches that specifically focus on his plans regarding law enforcement tactics.
Instead, the self-anointed "law-and-order candidate" has made passing remarks on several law enforcement topics at different times.
He has said that police need "better training," as evidenced by certain shootings.
"Even when they wear cameras police wear the cameras you need training. You have to have training. You have to have better training obviously than what they have," he said during an interview with the Impact Network in September.
Most recently, Trump said controversial "stop-and-frisk" practices that were previously used in New York City would be a way to end violence in the black community. The morning after mentioning this during a town hall with voters in Cleveland on Sept. 21, Trump said he didn't mean stop-and-frisk should be implemented nationally, but only in Chicago because "Chicago is out of control."
Trump has also mentioned that mosques should be under surveillance, though he has wavered on the topic. He has also suggested that old military gear should be handed over to police departments, but did not go into detail.
In the wake of the bombings last weekend in New York City and New Jersey, Trump said police should be allowed to profile, though his son Donald Trump Jr. later took issue with it being called "racial profiling."
"They see somebody that's suspicious, they will profile," the candidate said on Fox News on Monday. "Look what's going on: Do we really have a choice? We're trying to be so politically correct in our country, and this is only going to get worse."
ABC News' Liz Kreutz, Josh Haskell, John Santucci and Candace Smith contributed to this report.
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