Republican presidential hopeful Ben Carson says Americans have a propensity to assume a racial animus in conflicts involving people of different races.
{mosads}Asked about Sandra Bland, a black woman who was found hanged in her Texas prison cell after she was arrested for a traffic violation in July, Carson said on CBS’s “Face the Nation” that “we … have a tendency to inject race into everything anytime that there are people of different races involved in a conflict.”
“Are there rotten police officers? Of course there are,” Carson continued. “Just like there are rotten doctors and rotten teachers and rotten journalists. But we don’t condemn the whole class for that.”
Bland, whose death sparked protests in Waller County, Texas, got into an altercation with state trooper Brian Encinia when he pulled her over on July 10 for not signaling a turn.
A county medical examiner ruled her death three days later a suicide.
A Texas grand jury refused to indict Encinia in the case.
Democratic presidential hopeful Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) says Bland would not have been treated the same way if she were a white woman.