President Obama thanked police officers assembled at the White House on Friday for his administration’s fourth convening of local and state law enforcement officials at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. since June.
Obama was not scheduled to stop by the “21st Century policing” event, but said he did so to say “thank you” for the “extraordinary work you do.”
He said the shootings of police officers in Dallas and Baton Rouge, La., are felt by officers and their families across the country. And while those deaths are getting a lot of media attention now, but down the road they will not.
The media goes from tragedy to tragedy, then “suddenly, two months from now, there’s a different story,” Obama said. “Except, that in one of your departments, somebody’s still getting shot; it just doesn’t warrant attention anymore, apparently, because it’s not part of the narrative.”
Obama said he wants to keep police safe and bridge the divide between law enforcement and minority communities because he’s “a citizen who’s going to depend on law enforcement for the rest of my life … so I got a big stake in this,” he said, reminding the audience that his term expires in a few months.
“It is my view, and let’s be honest, sometimes this is a controversial view, that one of the best ways to provide support to our police officers is to make sure that we are addressing potential underling tensions between officers and the communities where they are serving — that pretending sometimes that those tensions aren’t there is not gonna make things better.”
However, all the federal government can do is provide support, he said.
The “federal government is not responsible for the day-to-day policing of our communities,” he said. But Obama believes he can be a “convener” who brings people together to discuss best practices and what does and does not work.
The targeting of police and making both law enforcement and citizens safer is an issue that must always be at the forefront, he said.
“This is not a one-off; we’re just going to keep on at this,” Obama said.
