Charlotte Mayor Jennifer Roberts (D) blasted Trump’s “presumptuous” claim that drugs played a part in violent protests over the fatal police shooting of a black man during a Friday interview.
“I think it’s presumptuous for him to make a conclusion like that without having thorough conversations with some of the folks who are here on the ground and really aware of what is going on and what the reasoning is,” Roberts said in an interview with CNN’s Carol Costello. “We have a much better understanding than Mr. Trump.”
She went on to argue that the protests were a result of “distrust” in the police to handle incidents involving black people, as well as a reaction to recent police shootings in other American cities.
“We have a history of racial disparity,” Roberts said. “And we are working very hard in our city to bridge that gap.”
In a Thursday speech at the Shale Insight conference in Pittsburgh, Trump claimed that “drugs are a very, very big factor” in the ongoing protests.
There is no indication that drugs played any part in the unrest in Charlotte.
One protestor was shot Wednesday night when protests over the fatal police shooting of Keith Lamont Scott turned violent. That protester later died, according to police. Protests continued on Thursday night but remained calm for the most part, according to an NBC News report.
Watch a segment of the interview below:
