Henrico County Sheriff Mike Wade, the Republican nominee for the open Virginia Fourth Congressional District seat, dismissed concerns about racial discrimination in officer-involved shootings, suggesting that most of the people shot are criminals anyway.
As reported by Blue Virginia’s Lowell Feld, the comments came during Thursday’s debate against Democratic nominee and State Sen. Donald McEachin.
Asked about how to improve relationships between law enforcement and African Americans, Wade lamented that “we always talk about the police officer as being the one that’s wrong in these situations and the media does a poor job.”
He then opined that “the greater problem in this area is the problem we have in this country of mental health and substance abuse.“
“The majority of those people in these situations that are shot are on the way to jail,” he Wade continued, “85 percent of the people that are in jail, according to the paper, have substance abuse problems and 30 percent of them have mental illness problems.”
McEachin, an African American, responded that he was “absolutely stunned” by his opponent’s comment, noting that “the man who was shot in Minnesota with a broken taillight was not on his way to jail” and recounted his own experiences being racially profiled by police (even with his state legislative license plates on his car.)
“I agree that all of ’em aren’t that way, but the majority of ’em do involve people that are going to jail,” Wade replied. “There’s two sides to the story, and we’ll never solve the problem if we just talk about your side of the story.”
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In a Facebook post on Friday, Wade called his own debate performance “a convincing victory for our vision for America.”
An earlier version of this story incorrectly identified Rep. Wittman in the photo caption.