Obama has to twin sympathy over the Dallas attack and for rattled law enforcement officers around the country with support for black Americans who say police are too quick to use violence against them.
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During the service, Mayor Mike Rawlings, Obama, former President George W. Bush, Dallas Police Chief David Brown, and faith leaders spoke, each leaving their own mark.
Seeking to be heard by two groups who have dismissed him – activists and law enforcement groups have complained he ignores their demands – Obama called on police to acknowledge institutional racial bias but also condemned the killing of the white officers by a black gunman as an act of “racial hatred”. She also said to the Dallas PD: ‘Thank you for being heroes.’ And today, her 12-year-old son wants to be a cop when he grows up. It’s as if the deepest fault lines of our democracy have suddenly been exposed, perhaps even widened.
Undaunted, the president urged Americans to cast aside such doubt and replace it with faith in the nation’s institutions and progress.
“I have spoken at too many memorials during the course of this presidency”, Obama said in Dallas. I’m here to insist that we are not as divided as we seem, and I know that because I know America.
“When African-Americans from all walks of life, from different communities across the country voice a growing despair at what they perceive to be unequal treatment … we can not simply turn away and dismiss those in peaceful protest as trouble makers or paranoid”, he said.
“But Americans, I think, have a great advantage, to renew our unity we only need to remember our values – we’ve never been bound together by blood”, Bush said.
As the nation mourns the loss of the five officers killed in last week’s ambush in Downtown Dallas the officers’ respective families begin the process of laying their loved ones to rest. The Army veteran killed by police after the Dallas attack said he was motivated by revenge.
Bush along with President Barack Obama spoke during Tuesday’s memorial.
Bush said the slain officers were the “best among us”. “And this has strained our bonds of understanding and common objective”.
“When the bullets started flying, the men and women of the Dallas police. did not flinch and they did not react recklessly”. Always. Until you are me and I am you.
President Barack Obama on Tuesday praised Dallas police officers including the five slain at a protest against police violence last week for saving lives during the deadliest day for US law enforcement in nearly 15 years.
Mr. Obama also had strong words for some of those protesting police conduct.
The service for Thompson, 43, drew hundreds of law enforcement officers in crisp formal uniforms to The Potter’s House, the Dallas megachurch headed by celebrity Bishop T.D. Jakes.
“I know that Americans are struggling right now with what we’ve witnessed over the past week”, Obama said Tuesday at a memorial service for the slain officers in Dallas.
Judge Glenda Hatchett is representing the mother of Philando Castile, a black man who was shot by officer in Minnesota. “They showed incredible restraint”, President Obama said.
“I approved it. And I’ll do it again if presented with the same circumstances”, he said. I’d like to conclude with the word to the families, the spouses, and especially the children of the fallen.
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“Another community torn apart, more hearts broken, more questions about what caused and what might prevent another such tragedy”, President Barack Obama said.
