The shocking shooting deaths of five Dallas police officers have magnified the challenge that Hillary Clinton faces as she tries to reassure both voters jittery about social unrest and activists angry about law-enforcement abuses that she is on their side. For Clinton, the likely Democratic presidential nominee, the political concerns going forward are two-fold. She can't afford to alienate black and progressive voters she needs to show up in large numbers in the November election by taking too strong a stand against the protests like those recently in Louisiana and Minnesota that resulted in hundreds of arrests. At the same time, Clinton can't allow more moderate voters worried about the violent images on their TV screens to gravitate to her Republican rival, Donald Trump, who has attempted to use the tragedy in Dallas to argue that he is the better law-and-order candidate. Clinton herself recognizes the fine line she is trying to navigate. In remarks Friday following the Dallas sniper attack that left five officers dead, she acknowledged she was sending a mixed message in advocating for reform to curb police misconduct while at the same time praising the honor and bravery of police officers. "I know that, just by saying all these things together, I may upset some people," Clinton said in Philadelphia. Polling by Reuters/Ipsos has revealed sharp differences in how Trump and Clinton's supporters view the police when it comes to African-American suspects. Just 24 percent of Trump voters believe that black people are treated worse than whites compared to 55 percent of Clinton voters, according to a poll conducted between May 13 and June 7. African-Americans were also almost twice as likely as whites to describe the police as "too violent," according to Reuters polling. The slain Dallas gunman, Micah Johnson, shot a dozen Dallas officers because he wanted to "kill white people," authorities said. Prior to the attack, Clinton had tried to demonstrate her solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement after black men were killed by police in a suburb of St. Paul, Minnesota and Baton Rouge, Louisiana. "White people" need to start listening, she said, "to the legitimate cries that are coming from our African-American fellow citizens." Clinton's words were seized upon on Sunday by retired Lieutenant General Michael Flynn, a top contender to be Trump's vice-presidential pick. Flynn, the former head of the Defense Intelligence Agency, called Clinton's comments "irresponsible" in an interview with ABC News because she "talked about white people being to blame." — Reuters
