Several people around the country were arrested for making threats against law enforcement in the wake of a week of racially charged bloodshed that included shootings by police in Louisiana and Minnesota and Thursday’s rampage that killed five Dallas law enforcement officers. Mr. Earnest said the president wanted to emphasize “the challenging job that police officers across the country have”.
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The president’s extended remarks on the issue likely foreshadowed the message he will deliver Tuesday in Dallas, when he addresses an interfaith memorial service for the slain officers.
Obama, who noted he’s been receiving regular updates on the Dallas shootings, said he’d conveyed condolences to the city’s mayor, Mike Rawlings, and indicated the Federal Bureau of Investigation was involved in investigating the shootings, which left 5 police officers dead.
Obama originally planned to spend Sunday and Monday in Spain, including a half-day of sightseeing in the south. But he cut it to one day by scrapping the sightseeing and his standard question-and-answer session with young adults. He says the process is sometimes messy and controversial, but the ability to engage in free speech has improved America. You’re not seeing police going after people who are protesting peacefully.
“We have to make sure that all of us step back, do some reflection and make sure that the rhetoric we engage in is constructive and not destructive”.
“He let the officer know that he had a firearm and he was reaching for his wallet and the officer just shot him in his arm”, Reynolds said as she live streamed the shooting on Facebook.
U.S. President Barack Obama addresses a press conference during the second day of the NATO Summit at the Polish National Stadium in Warsaw on Saturday.
In an earlier statement via The Atlantic, Obama revealed that he and the First Lady share the same sentiments of many Americans, “anger, frustration, and grief”. Tourists and curiosity seekers lined some streets in hopes of catching a glimpse of Obama, and local TV aired live coverage of his movements and comments.
Obama’s meeting with Rajoy came as Spain grapples with high unemployment and remains in the grip of a political crisis sparked by two general elections that produced no clear victor.
King Felipe also gave the president a gift for visiting: Per the Royal Palace, the King gave him an English edition of Don Quixote, edited by Penguin and translated by John Rutherford, with leather covers stamped with a United States seal and the Royal House seal.
After the meeting with Rajoy, Obama lauded the long-standing ties between the USA and Spain and complimented new economic policies that he said had begun to “bear fruit” in a country with about 20 percent unemployment.
Spain has been gripped by a political stalemate for months, with Rajoy unable to rally the political support he needs to form a new coalition government following a late-June election. But the shootings forced Obama into a hurried one.
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“That’s the spirit that I want to build on”, Obama said. But he said Spain had “turned a corner”, and that a proposed European trade deal with the United States would open up even more opportunities.
