ARIZONA

Wife of Arizona congressional candidate was out jogging. Then, she says someone shouted a racial slur

Ronald J. Hansen
Arizona Republic
Karl and Carla Gentles

Carla Gentles wanted to take her customary morning walk on Friday with her husband, Democratic congressional candidate Karl Gentles.

He said he couldn't go because he was trying to settle on what to say publicly about the death of George Floyd that sparked protests in Phoenix and nationwide.

That's when Carla Gentles, a former Army reservist who is African American, went for a jog alone around their northwest Phoenix neighborhood. She said a white male shouted a racial slur at her from a passing dark, four-door Volkswagen.

Carla Gentles filed a police report detailing what she could of a matter she and her husband said is a low-priority concern for Phoenix police, especially as the city deals with the protests and tries to avoid the vandalism that followed a gathering in Scottsdale.

But it has also helped focus their view that America's reckoning on racial justice is far from over.

Rather than let the incident pass unnoticed, Carla Gentles told the police and her husband referred to it in a campaign statement.

"I was just going to go home because at 51 years old, this is not the first time I've been called the N-word. It's not," Carla Gentles, a South Carolina native, said.

"But this is my home. This is my neighborhood. This is my park. ... This is what I do every day. I'm not going to change what I do.

"I did not wear that uniform representing the United States Army for 29 years to give everybody the right to do what they want to do, and you alter what brings me joy," she said.

Karl Gentles is running in a crowded field for the Democratic nomination in the Scottsdale-based 6th Congressional District currently represented by five-term incumbent Republican Rep. David Schweikert.

Gentles is seen as a long shot in his first congressional run for office, and he said he didn't want to make the incident seem political.

But he also didn't want to avoid raising an issue that has, at least for the moment, overshadowed even the coronavirus pandemic. 

"These are like little fires. They spark into other things. Who knows who these people are?" he said. "They may be running around town doing it to other black families. We certainly want to make sure that they are on notice. We're not just going to stand by think they have an open market on my wife, me, or any other person of color, for that matter." 

Carla Gentles said she called 911 from the Goelet A. Beuf Community Center, which was closed, but someone there allowed her to use the facility to contact the police. She said she filed a report with an officer at the site. 

The police department did not immediately release the report, which The Arizona Republic requested as part of a public records request.

Karl Gentles, a 35-year Arizona resident who owns a public relations agency with his wife, said the couple wanted the incident documented because they said attention to racial justice tends to drift.  

"This is an expression of what we are faced with every single day. We don't want the attention to be taken off of George Floyd and his death," Karl Gentles said.

"We have to keep our eye on the ball, and the ball is the social injustice and the killing of African American men and women across this nation. That's the ball, not the looting that's going on." 

Reach the reporter Ronald J. Hansen at ronald.hansen@arizonarepublic.com or 602-444-4493. Follow him on Twitter @ronaldjhansen.

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