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White House says Trump has no comment about latest unarmed black man gunned down by police

"I'm not aware of any comments that he has."

CREDIT: Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images
CREDIT: Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

During the White House news briefing on Monday, deputy press secretary Raj Shah indicated that President Trump has nothing at all to say about Stephon Clark, a black man who was gunned down by Sacramento police on March 20 when they mistook his cell phone for a gun.

“The president has come out strongly about the importance that law enforcement play in this country. Has he commented at all about the shooting death of Stephon Clark? He was unarmed, shot by a police officer, a lot of protests happening across the country as a result,” a reporter said to Shah.

Shah made it sound as though Trump and other White House officials haven’t invested any thought into Clark’s death at all.

“I’m not aware of any comments that he has,” Shah said. “I haven’t asked him about that directly. Obviously the president cares about any individual who would be harmed through no fault of their own.”

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“I don’t know the specifics in that case and I don’t want to comment,” Shah added, before abruptly ending the briefing.

Trump has repeatedly expressed his approval for the types of police practices that have resulted in the deaths of unarmed black men like Clark. During a speech to police officers in July, he went as far as to encourage cops to get “rough” when they toss people into a squad car — the same type of thing that resulted in the death of Freddie Gray in Baltimore in 2015.

While Trump has remained silent about Clark’s death, he found time over the weekend to tweet about a French police officer who “died after bravely swapping places with hostage in ISIS related terror attack,” and to even tweet out an endorsement of a book about his 2016 president campaign.