WESTHAMPTON, N.Y. — Surrounded by a retinue of aides and members of her security detail, Hillary Clinton left a book signing on Sunday afternoon as two reporters asked questions about the protests in Ferguson, Missouri.
Clinton ignored them, exiting the bookstore through a backdoor.
Last week, Rev. Al Sharpton, the New York City preacher, called on Clinton and another possible presidential candidate, Jeb Bush, to speak out on the violence in Ferguson. "Jeb Bush, Hillary Clinton," he said, "don't get laryngitis on this issue."
But in the two weeks since the police shooting of Michael Brown, a black teenager, Clinton has not commented on the unrest in the St. Louis suburb.
On Sunday, she stayed quiet again, sticking to her routine at the signing at Books & Books, a shop on the main drag of this hamlet in the Hamptons.
The event capped off a two-month publicity tour to promote her memoir, Hard Choices. This month, Clinton and her husband have decamped to Amagansett for vacation. She is scheduled to appear at several Democratic Party fundraisers and at a campaign event in Iowa next month, Sen. Tom Harkin's annual steak fry.
Clinton's team added the Westhampton stop to her schedule just last week. A staffer at Books & Books said they started preparing for the event last Monday.
The owner, Jack McKeown, said he'd been trying for six months to schedule an event with Clinton. McKeown, who is also the former head of Clinton's publishing house, Simon & Schuster, told reporters he was able to get the signing on her calendar after running into an old mutual friend: Bob Barnett, the Washington lawyer who represents Clinton and negotiated her book contract.