WASHINGTON – GOP presidential candidate Ben Carson rejected the notion Sunday that Sandra Bland would still be alive if she were white.
“There is no question that, you know, we need to be looking at those kinds of issues,” Carson told CBS’ “Face the Nation.” “But I think we also have a tendency to inject race into everything anytime that there are people of different races involved in a conflict.”
Bland, a 28-year-old black woman, was found hanged in her jail cell in Walker County, Texas in July. A grand jury in Texas this month declined to issue an indictment against the police or jailers in connection with her death.
Democratic presidential hopeful Sen. Bernie Sanders has said Bland would still be alive if she were white.
“I saw the way the police officer behaved toward her,” Sanders said on CBS, citing video footage. “It is my very strong inclination that if she was a white middle class woman that would not have happened.”
Carson, the sole African American running for president, has often downplayed the role of race.
“Are there rotten police officers? Of course there are, just like there are rotten lawyers and rotten doctors and rotten teachers and rotten journalists. But we don’t condemn the whole class for that,” Carson said.
Still, there’s “no question” the Justice Department could more “sensitive” to people’s financial circumstances, such a payment plan for a ticket, instead of issuing an arrest warrant for over an overdue bill.
“A lot of things that are class and economics are ascribed to race, no question,” he added.