LAURA FIGUEROA ON APR 4, 2016
NEW YORK -- Democratic
presidential candidate Hillary Clinton campaigned in Brooklyn yesterday,
telling congregants at three predominantly black churches that she would fight
to reduce gun violence and “increase trust” between police departments and the
communities they serve.
“No one should have to face the
loss of a beloved,” Clinton told the audience of some 3,000 African-American
churchgoers at the Christian Cultural Center in Canarsie.
Clinton also appeared at Brown
Memorial Baptist Church in Clinton Hill and Mount Pisgah Baptist Church in
Bedford-Stuyvesant, where she pledged to end racial profiling among law
enforcement agencies.
The appearances came as Clinton
tries to shore up support against her rival, U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders of
Vermont, before New York’s April 19 primary.
Clinton, the former secretary of
state who also served as New York’s U.S. senator for eight years, leads Sanders
54 percent to 42 percent among statewide voters, according to a Quinnipiac Poll
released last Thursday.
But Sanders has narrowed the
polling gap over the past month. A Siena College poll released March 7 had
Clinton ahead by 21 points and an Emerson College poll released March 16 had
her leading by 48 points.
At the churches, Clinton
acknowledged the endorsement of Nicole Bell, whose fiancé Sean Bell was shot to
death in 2006 by plainclothes police officers on the morning of his wedding, as
he left a Queens strip club where he had been celebrating his bachelor party.
Undercover NYPD officers shot
into Bell’s car 50 times, wounding two of his friends, saying at the time they
believed the men were carrying weapons, when in fact the men were unarmed. The
city later paid a $7 million settlement to Bell’s family and his friends.
“I remember as your senator being
heartsick about this event,” Clinton told the audience at the Christian
Cultural Center, saying she would build on the advocacy work of Bell’s fiancé
and other anti gun-violence activists to improve community policing policies
and gun laws.
At Brown Memorial Baptist Church,
before some 100 congregants, Clinton emphasized her local ties, saying she had
the “New York know-how” to deliver on her campaign promises.
She “humbly” asked for the
support of more than 100 churchgoers at Mount Pisgah, saying she would “tackle
systemic racism” and continue President Barack Obama’s push for affordable
health care coverage.
On Monday, Clinton is scheduled
to appear with Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo in Manhattan for a rally to celebrate last
week’s passage of a state minimum wage hike. Clinton will also headline the
Suffolk Democrats’ $300-a-head spring dinner on April 11.
Bill Clinton will campaign on
behalf of his wife in Elmont on Tuesday, with an 11a.m. appearance at The
Vault, according to a campaign news release.
With Rick Brand
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