Bush: Garner decision 'hard to understand'

Former president George W. Bush is also questioning a grand jury's decision not to indict a New York police officer whose chokehold led to the death of Eric Garner.

"You know, the verdict was hard to understand," Bush told CNN's State of the Union. "But I hadn't seen all the details — but it's sad that race continues to play such an emotional, divisive part of life."

Bush said he was saddened while watching video of Garner's death.

Also from CNN:

"Bush discussed the recent racial unrest that followed a Missouri grand jury's failure to indict Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson, who is white, in the shooting death of Michael Brown, who was black, over dinner with his former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

"'We talked about this subject, and yeah — she just said, you gotta understand that there are a lot of black folks that are incredibly, more and more, distrusting of law enforcement,' Bush said. 'Which is a shame, because law enforcement's job is to protect everybody.' "