The News
Former President Donald Trump hedged on his campaign pledge to give police officers “immunity from prosecution,” telling Semafor’s Kadia Goba on Wednesday that it would depend on the situation.
“There’s a big difference between being a bad person and making an innocent mistake — but if somebody made an innocent mistake I would want to help that person,” Trump said.
The question was in relation to the recent killing of Sonya Massey, an unarmed Black woman shot by a deputy sheriff in her Springfield, Illinois home after she called 911 for help. The deputy has since been charged with murder.
Trump said he didn’t know “exact” details about the case, but “it didn’t look good.”
“I didn’t like it, I didn’t like it at all,” he said.
Trump made the remarks at a meeting of the National Association of Black Journalists in Chicago during a panel interview that was also moderated by ABC News’ Rachel Scott, and Fox News’ Harris Faulkner.
His comments seemed to temper his stance on immunity for police. “We’re going to give our police their power back,” he previously said at a rally in Waukesha in May, “and we are going to give them immunity from prosecution.”
Trump has not explained the specifics of how his proposal might work, or how it would differ from existing legal protections for officers. Asked Wednesday what a scenario where immunity would be granted might look like, Trump said it might be when an officer ”go[es] after somebody, and it’s a very close call and very dangerous.”
“Sometimes you have less than a second to make a life-and-death decision,” he added. “And sometimes very bad decisions are made. They’re not made from an evil standpoint, but they’re made from the standpoint of, they made a mistake.”