Obama will try Tuesday to help grief-stricken Dallas begin to heal less than a week after its officers were killed and others wounded by an Army veteran-turned-sniper.
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Visiting yet another city heartbroken by a mass shooting, US President Barack Obama tried to defuse tensions that have erupted in the past week – first when black men in Louisiana and Minnesota were killed by police, then when a gunman who said he was angry about those and similar deaths opened fire on officers in Dallas.
Cunningham said the Dallas Police Department exemplified that commitment to their community when officers used themselves as human shields to protect bystanders from possibly being shot.
As the stepson of a police officer and someone who simply values human life, I am saddened by the deaths of the five police officers who lost their lives in Dallas last Thursday. “It is as if the deepest fault lines of our democracy have suddenly been exposed, perhaps even widened”.
He’s right about the need for Americans to bridge this divide and to reject violence, which solves nothing and only makes matters worse. How dare you stand next to me in the same uniform and murder somebody. “I know how far we’ve come against impossible odds”, he said.
As the meeting got underway the White House released a list of attendees, which included elected officials and police chiefs from Louisiana and Minnesota, where the recent shootings of two black men by police officers sparked protests around the country. “God Bless this handsome country and God’s speed to those fallen officers in this funeral service”.
Bush smiled, swayed and moved his arms up and down while holding the hands of wife Laura Bush and first lady Michelle Obama during the Dallas Police Choir’s rendition of “The Battle Hymn of the Republic”. “And this has strained our bonds of understanding and common goal”.
A day later, funerals were held in the Dallas area for two of the five officers, Lorne Ahrens, 48, and Brent Thompson, 43. Your loved one’s time with you was too short. The president positioned himself as both an ally of law enforcement and a sympathizer of the Black Lives Matter movement. It’s a posture neither side has completely accepted.
The request to light the White House in blue was made in a statement released Friday by Jon Adler, president of the Federal Law Enforcement Officers Association. Obama and Biden attended the memorial service for the fiv.
“We’re not at a point yet where communities of color feel confident that their police departments are serving them with dignity and respect and equality”, Obama said.
It’s also poor judgment on the president’s part, which is why his remarks in Dallas were so welcome.
“It would just be nice for him to say, ‘Hey, I support what you’re doing, ‘” said Scott Hughes, chief of police in Hamilton Township, a suburb of Cincinnati, Ohio.
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“If we can not even talk about these things”, he said, “if we can not talk honestly and openly not just in the comfort of our own circles, but with those who look different than us or bring a different perspective, then we will never break this unsafe cycle”. The intriguing thing about #BlueLivesMatter is the “blue” identity being a police officer.
