The Rev. Al Sharpton and Hillary Clinton are introduced at the 25th annual National Action Network convention in New York on April 13. | AP Photo Al Sharpton promises post-Labor Day Clinton endorsement The civil-rights leader tries to help the Democrat take a police-reform position that doesn’t sound anti-cop.

Rev. Al Sharpton, one of the nation’s most well-known civil rights activists, will endorse Hillary Clinton after Labor Day, offering the Democrat a belated boost in her effort to turn out the African American voters who twice put President Obama in the White House.

Sharpton told POLITICO he has “been in conversation with her people” about the exact timing of his endorsement, and has held off for so long mostly because he was completing a non-partisan voter education tour -- not out of any serious consideration of supporting Donald Trump’s candidacy. Last June, Sharpton said in an interview that he had not endorsed Clinton yet because he was "waiting to see what she's going to do about voter impediments" in 15 states.


But now, he said, “she’s showing balance where he’s showing hysteria,” referring to Trump’s recent bid for black voters at a rally in front of a uniformly white Milwaukee crowd. “How do you go to Wisconsin and appeal to black votes unless you’re playing a con game?" he said.

Clinton throughout the campaign has highlighted the stories of the Mothers of the Movement, women who have lost their unarmed sons and daughters at the hands of police, or in police custody. But her vocal support for criminal justice and police reforms that has so attracted Sharpton has also allowed Trump to brand himself as the “law and order candidate” and insinuate that Clinton is somehow anti-police.

On Thursday, Clinton tried to show that she does not want to concede that turf -- she participated in a meeting with a group of high-profile police chiefs from across the country. “I know, because of my own personal experience going back a number of years, how many officers every single day inspire confidence and make a difference,” Clinton said at the top of the meeting, which was held in Manhattan.

“I want to support them, our police officers, with the resources they need to do their jobs – to do them effectively, to learn from their efforts, and to apply those lessons across our nation,” Clinton said before posing for a photo and then closing the doors to the press.

With roughly 80 days to go before the election, Clinton’s outreach to the law enforcement community is critical for her campaign. While she leads Trump in national polls, a recent Pew Research Center Poll, which included third party candidates, showed Clinton trailing Trump 33 to 45 percent among white voters overall.

But if she can deny Trump the support of white male voters, the Republican nominee has virtually no remaining path to victory.

On Thursday, with New York City Police Commissioner Bill Bratton by her side and six other police chiefs seated at a roundtable, Clinton's appearance was meant to help remind cops – and reporters – of her support for families of law enforcement officers killed in the World Trade Center attacks on 9/11, when she served as senator from New York. Every chance she gets to do that, Democrats say, she chisels away at Trump’s support among voters who distrust her.

“Crooks don’t surround themselves with cops,” noted Democratic strategist Hank Sheinkopf. “The meeting helps make the crook labeling look ridiculous.”

Sheinkopf added: “The appearance of support from law enforcement can be used to create a centrist positioning, particularly in critical blue collar Midwest states where Trump has had significant support.”

Reform advocates said meeting with law enforcement officials represents the flip side of the same community outreach coin.

“It is really important she continues to engage law enforcement,” said Inimai Chettiar, director of the justice program at the Brennan Center for Justice. “You don't want it to seem a false choice between communities and police. As she's engaging communities and mothers and victims, it's equally important to engage police and prosecutors.”

Even Sharpton agreed. “She must deal with the fact that Trump has wrongly labeled her as anti-police,” he said. “To advocate good policing and police accountability is pro-police. It’s saying we do not believe all police are bad -- she should not cede him that ground.”

Thursday’s meeting in Manhattan included Bratton and the incoming NYPD chief James O’Neill; LAPD head Charles Beck; as well as police chiefs from Tucson, Seattle, Philadelphia, Camden County and Dallas County, Texas. Clinton was accompanied by her policy adviser Maya Harris.

“Supporting our police officers and improving policing go hand-in-hand,” Clinton told the group. “Everyone is safer when there is respect for the law and when everyone is respected by the law.”

During the Democratic primary, Clinton decried the “systematic racism in our criminal justice system” and called for “a very clear agenda for retraining police officers, looking at ways to end racial profiling, finding more ways to really bring the disparities that stalk our country into high relief.”

She was criticized, at times, for her previous support for Bill Clinton’s 1994 crime bill. That year, Hillary Clinton said in a speech: “We need more police. We need more and tougher prison sentences for repeat offenders….We need more prisons to keep violent offenders for as long as it takes to keep them off the streets.”

Chettiar noted that Clinton is not alone in becoming more progressive on incarceration issues. She said that many law enforcement officials have also moved leftward over the past two decades, and that Trump’s brand of “law and order” seems out of date even with conservative law enforcement leaders, who now also support reforms. In June, for instance, Trump said that police officers must know that the president is giving them the benefit of the doubt, "not always [believing] that what they've done is somehow wrong."

That was out of synch with the reform-minded tone of Ronal Serpas, the former superintendent of the New Orleans police department, who wrote Thursday in the National Review: “The message from law enforcement to politicians is clear: Using jail as a knee-jerk response to all crime doesn’t work. Reducing unnecessary incarceration will help us do our jobs better and keep crime down.”

Clinton’s meeting on Thursday was the result of an open letter sent by a group of law enforcement leaders dedicated to reducing crime and incarceration, which Serpas is a part of. The group, which represents close to 200 current and former police chiefs, sheriffs, prosecutors and attorneys general, sent the letter to both Clinton and Trump. A spokeswoman for the group said that only Clinton’s campaign responded.

“Mr. Trump has met with many law enforcement groups throughout his campaign and specifically this week,” said his spokeswoman, Hope Hicks. “He is committed to supporting and working with the law enforcement community at every level.” She did not say whether Trump planned to meet with the police commissioners.

Earlier this week, Trump attacked Clinton during a speech in Milwaukee designed to appeal to African-American voters. "A vote for her [Clinton] is a vote for another generation of poverty, high crime and lost opportunities," Trump said. "Crime and violence is an attack on the poor and it will never be accepted in a Trump administration."