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Bill Barr insists the police shootings of unarmed African Americans aren’t racially motivated.<\/p>\n
The Attorney General made the comments during an appearance on CNN’s The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer<\/em><\/a>, claiming there was a “false narrative” about racial biases within\u00a0criminal justice system. Barr told Blitzer that there were some situations in which a Black person was treated differently by police and not “given the benefit of the doubt,” but doesn’t believe those instances indicate\u00a0systemic racism.\u00a0<\/p>\n “I don’t think there are two justice systems,” Barr said. “I think the narrative that the police are in some epidemic of shooting unarmed black men is simply a false narrative and also the narrative that’s based on race … I think the narrative that the police are on some, you know, epidemic of shooting unarmed black men is simply a false narrative and also the narrative that that’s based on race. The fact of the matter is very rare for an unarmed African-American to be shot by a white police officer.”<\/p>\n Barr was also asked how he thinks Black parents should speak to their children about the cases of\u00a0Jacob Blake<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0George Floyd<\/a>. The Attorney General said he didn’t want to weigh in\u00a0on the Blake case, because it wasn’t comparable to Floyd’s.<\/p>\n “I think it’s different than the Floyd case,” he said. “Floyd was already subdued,\u00a0incapacitated, in handcuffs, and was not armed. In the Jacob case, he was in the midst of committing a felony and he was armed.”<\/p>\n Kenosha officers claim there was a knife on the floorboard of Blake’s car when he was shot seven times by an officer. Blake’s\u00a0family has denied that he was armed during the incident.<\/p>\n “I don’t want to talk about the [Blake and Floyd cases] as if they’re interchangeable,” Barr said. “I do think that there appears to be a phenomenon in the country where African Americans feel that they’re treated when they’re stopped by police frequently as suspects before they are treated as citizens. I don’t think that that necessarily reflects some deep-seated racism in police departments or in most police officers … I think people operate very frequently according to stereotypes and I think it takes extra precaution on the part of law enforcement to make sure we don’t reduce people to stereotypes, we treat them as individuals.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n