Independent presidential candidate RFK Jr. was confronted by Black Lives Matter NY founder Hawk Newsome about his plans to protect the Black community from police brutality at a campaign event on Sunday.
The incident was just one of many tense moments in which Kennedy dodged hard questions about race, the Israel-Hamas war, and uplifting the Black community.
Kennedy appeared in Downtown Brooklyn on Sunday afternoon for a Black History Month-focused campaign event where he took questions from Black community leaders, including Newsome.
Newsome is the co-founder of Black Lives Matter Greater NY, which is not affiliated with the larger Black Lives Matter Global Network.
When speaking to Kennedy, Newsome referenced Eric Duprey, a Black man who was killed by a New York City police officer after the officer threw a cooler at his head.
In Kennedy’s “plan for Black America” brochures handed out at the event, Kennedy’s policy points include mental health professionals accompanying police “to help de-escalate citizens in nonviolent mental health crises.”
Newsome asked Kennedy why social workers with guns were a better alternative to police.
“Let’s be pragmatic. Policing doesn’t work. Social workers are trained to solve problems,” Newsome said. “We don’t need reform. Reforms been talked about for hundreds of years. We don’t need retraining. We need to do away with the police and do something different period.”
Kennedy responded by affirming that he didn’t think “getting rid of the police” was a solution and said he hoped to get “advice” from attendees of the event about how to reform police departments if elected president.
“The answer is using every tool in my toolbox to make the police protect and serve,” Kennedy said. “And not be a militarized presence in communities where they become abusers.”
Newsome quickly cut in and admonished Kennedy for wanting advice and not having an answer at the ready in response to his comments about police brutality.
“You should have thought about this a year ago. No disrespect to you. But this should have been planned for a long time. We can’t just be winging it when people are being murdered in the street,” Newsome said. “We had the whole George Floyd movement, we had everything happening. And you’re sitting here telling me to wait?”
Kennedy did damage control by saying that he organized Sunday’s event so he could learn from the Black community and “meet people who can help [him] govern.”
And he made an obvious effort to meet those people working to combat the issue, including former cops. When asked earlier in the event about police brutality by a former NYPD lieutenant, Kennedy invited him to be an official advisor as part of his potential presidential administration.
“I’m going to give you my cell phone when this is over and then if you’ll talk to me now and if I get into the White House, I’d love you to come and advise me,” Kennedy said. “It’s a priority for me, but I don’t have all the answers.”
