Rev. Anthony Thompson, whose wife Myra Thompson was killed in the Emanuel AME Church shooting last June, appears in a new Hillary Clinton campaign ad set to run ahead of S.C.’s first-in-the-South primary.
The ad opens with Rev. Thompson describing the initial phone call he got about the shooting at the church. Myra Thompson was one of nine killed at Emanuel on June 17, 2015. Since then, he has been outspoken in support of strengthening gun laws in an effort to prevent attacks like the one at Emanuel. In the ad, Clinton cites her plan to increase background checks and close what’s become known as the “Charleston loophole,” a lapse that’s said to have allowed the suspected shooter to legally obtain the gun used in the attack.
“Hillary is really committed to making sure that the guns don’t get into the wrong hands,” Thompson says in the ad. “So no family ever has to go through anything like this again.”
The ad comes as candidates are focusing their campaigns on South Carolina, which holds its Democratic primary on February 27. Clinton’s opponent U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders is said to be rolling out ads featuring S.C. elected officials who have endorsed his campaign. One, state Rep. Justin Bamberg, is the attorney representing the family of Walter Scott and initially endorsed Clinton. On Thursday, Sanders also released a four-minute ad featuring the daughter of Eric Garner, the New York City man who suffocated and died while a police chokehold. A two-minute version of that ad is being prepped to air nationally.
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