President Obama said Sunday that attacking police officers – physically or verbally – can only hurt the cause of reform in the criminal justice system, but cautioned that the actions of a few should not be used to discredit the entire Black Lives Matter movement. One such protest turned violent when five police officers were killed by a sniper in Dallas, Texas on Thursday night.
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Even as he appeared in Dallas, activists complained that he hasn’t visited Baton Rouge, La., or Falcon Heights, Minn., the sites of the shooting deaths of black men by white officers that prompted Thursday’s march in Dallas.
A policeman visits a makeshift memorial at the Dallas police headquarters, Monday, July 11, 2016, in Dallas.
He repeated that the vast majority of USA police officers are doing a good job, and rhetoric that portrays them otherwise does little to rally allies to support efforts to change a system broadly recognized as biased against minorities. The White House would say only that they discussed Spanish and European politics, and that Obama “stressed the value of the longstanding ties between the United States and Spain, the need for efforts to stimulate growth and create jobs, and the importance of continued cooperation on shared security challenges”.
After arriving from Spain late Sunday, Obama will fly Tuesday to Dallas, the scene of the massacre of police officers that, on the heels of two caught-on-video police shootings, has emerged as a tipping point in the national debate about race and justice.
“That includes protesters, that includes family members who have grave concerns about police misconduct, and they’ve said this is unacceptable”.
Kirk said Obama has done a good job speeding the healing process after several tragedies, including the West explosion that killed 15 people and injured more than 160 others and various mass shootings across the country.
He’s also planning to press for hate-crimes protections for law enforcement officers who are attacked.
“Maintaining a truthful and serious and respectful tone is going to help mobilize American society to bring about real change – and that is our ultimate objective”, Obama said.
The shootings again have raised questions about excessive police force, particularly against minorities.
The black Army veteran insisted on speaking with a black negotiator and wrote in blood on the wall of a parking garage where police cornered and later killed him, Dallas police chief David Brown said.
Obama was woken up by his national security team by the shocking news, and according to the White House he has had little sleep over the weekend juggling global meetings at the NATO Summit in Warsaw, Poland, with headlines showing an ongoing crisis at home.
Spain in large part was thrilled to welcome the first USA president to visit in more than a decade. Delivering the White House’s weekly address on Saturday, Biden offered a preview of Obama’s remarks, urging unity after a spate of police-related shootings, tinged with racial tensions.
U.S. President Barack Obama on Sunday thanked Spain for its military cooperation with Washington at the Rota naval base and emphasized that he wanted the Iberian nation to remain “strong and united” as one of the “closest” U.S. allies.
“We’ve had a hard week in the United States”, he told King Felipe VI before they met privately at the Royal Palace. The White House says more than a third of the inmates were serving life sentences.
He was supposed to spend two days in Spain but cut the visit short because of the shootings.
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“I was hoping for a longer stay”, Obama told Rajoy.
