SALT LAKE CITY (AP) - The four Republicans in the race for Utah governor clashed Tuesday over the response to a police-brutality protest that included the burning of a police car.
Former Utah House Speaker Greg Hughes said the National Guard should been called in sooner during the May 30 protest in Salt Lake City, the Deseret News reported. Businessman Thomas Wright also said Republican Gov. Gary Herbert’s order was “a little late.”
Former ambassador and governor Jon Huntsman Jr. related the protests to his experiences in China and Russia, saying military on the streets was “an admission of failure” to meaningful talk to opponents.
The three have also been critical of the state’s response to the coronavirus pandemic as they seek to undermine Lt. Gov. Spencer Cox, considered a front runner along with Huntsman.
Cox said he was “very proud” of the way police officers protected the protesters’ right to assemble and as well as how National Guard eventually stepped in. He also touted the administration’s moves to ban chokeholds similar to the one police used on George Floyd, the Minneapolis man whose death has touched off protests around the world.
Huntsman spoke in a sequestered area of the theater because he has COVID-19.
The winner of the GOP primary on June 30 will have a heavy advantage in conservative Utah against Democrat Chris Peterson in November. Herbert is not running again.
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