Trump doubles down on 'law-and-order' appeal in White House bid

>

PITTSBURGH Donald Trump on Thursday praised aggressive police tactics and condemned attacks on officers amid criticism of his plan to use "stop-and-frisk" tactics to reduce crime, in a speech following a second night of unrest that shook Charlotte, North Carolina.

"Crime and violence is an attack on the poor and will never be accepted in a Trump administration," the Republican presidential candidate told an energy conference in Pittsburgh, as a room full of natural gas and coal industry executives listened in silence.

Trump has portrayed himself as the "law and order" candidate. Stop-and-frisk, in which police stop, question and search pedestrians for weapons or contraband, has drawn protests and successful legal challenges because it is seen as unfairly targeting minorities.

But at the same time he has recently reached out to African-American voters as the gap in many opinion polls has narrowed between him and his rival in the Nov. 8 presidential election, Democrat Hillary Clinton.

In Pittsburgh, the New York businessman called for better training of police and more community engagement. He also said the people most badly hurt by violent demonstrations like the ones in Charlotte were "law-abiding African-Americans who live in these areas where there is so much crime."

The fatal police shooting of a black man sparked the protests in Charlotte, and a state of emergency was declared on Wednesday.

There have also been protests in Tulsa, Oklahoma, in recent days after a police officer was arrested in the fatal shooting of an unarmed black man who a video shows had his hands in clear view at the time.

Trump was at an African-American church on Wednesday when he praised stop-and-frisk, which had triggered protests and either court rulings that it was unconstitutional or outside monitoring in cities like New York, Chicago and Newark, New Jersey.

Before going to Pittsburgh, Trump, on Fox News' "Fox and Friends" program, was asked to define the tactic.

"8 presidential election, Democrat Hillary Clinton.In Pittsburgh, the New York businessman called for better training of police and more community engagement"He said, "If they see a person possibly with a gun or they think may have a gun, they will see the person and they'll look and they'll take the gun away."

"They'll stop, they'll frisk, and they'll take the gun away. And they won't have anything to shoot with," he said.

In Washington, White House spokesman John Earnest tried to point out a contradiction in Trump's remarks.

"It does raise questions that a politician would be so dogmatic about protecting Second Amendment rights (to bear arms) yet rather cavalier about protecting the constitutional prohibition against illegal search and seizure," he told a news briefing.

While Trump did not mention stop-and-frisk by name in Pittsburgh, he also used the speech to repeat his praise for the policing tactics fostered by former New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, now a major Trump supporter, who promoted the practice. Trump again credited policing under the Republican mayor with reducing crime in the candidate's hometown.

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio rejected the claim on Thursday, warning Trump against embracing a tactic that would worsen relations between police and the minority community.

De Blasio attributed the sharp drop in crime to another strategy adopted by Bill Bratton, the city's longtime police commissioner, who retired less than a week ago.

Bratton championed the "broken windows" policing strategy that emphasizes pursuit of crimes no matter how minor. In his resignation letter he attributed the decline in crime in New York City, the nation's largest with 8.5 million people, to additional officers and an emphasis on building bonds within neighborhoods.

De Blasio, who supports Clinton, said in an interview with CNN that Trump "should really be careful because if we reinstitute stop-and-frisk all over this country, you would see a lot more tension between police and community."

Police tactics and deadly encounters with African-Americans, many of them unarmed, have sparked protests and unrest across the country.

De Blasio credited the continued drop in crime in New York City in recent decades to a crime reduction strategy adopted by Bratton called CompStat, which employs statistical strategies to achieve more effective policing.

(Additional reporting by Doina Chiacu; editing by Daniel Bases and Jonathan Oatis)