NORTH BERWICK, Maine — Maine Gov. Paul LePage is in hot water once again for comments about drug dealers arrested in the state, saying mug shots he’s collected show more than 90 percent of them are black or Hispanic.
The Portland Press Herald reports the Republican governor made the reference Wednesday at a town hall in North Berwick. A businessman asked how he could bring a company to Maine “given the rhetoric you put out there about people of color.”
LePage says he keeps a three-ringed binder of photos from drug busts and most “are black and Hispanic people from Waterbury, Connecticut; the Bronx; and Brooklyn.”
Some called his comments racially charged. LePage, who’s white, says he’s not racist.
In January, LePage said drug dealers with names like “D-Money, Smoothie, Shifty” from Connecticut and New York are getting Maine’s white girls pregnant. He also said that month that his state is too easy on drug dealers, and should “bring the guillotine back” and have “public executions.”
