The Baltimore riots show that police departments must hold officers accountable for wrongdoing, President Obama said Wednesday.
Obama told Steve Harvey on his morning show that though he supports the Baltimore police officers injured by rioters — adding that there is no excuse for that kind of violence — police departments need to work on accountability and transparency in order to build more trust in minority communities.
“It’s in their interest to root out folks who aren’t doing the right thing, to hold accountable people when they do something wrong, instead of just the closing-ranks approach that all too often we see that ends up just feeding greater frustration and ultimately, I think, putting more police officers in danger,” Obama said. The interview was taped Tuesday and broadcast on radio stations nationwide Wednesday morning.
Retraining police and providing them with body cameras isn’t going to be the end-all-be-all solution, he said. Issues like poor education, drugs, absent fathers and limited job opportunities need to be addressed.
“If all we’re doing is focusing on retraining police but not dealing with some of these underlying issues, then these problems are going to crop up again,” Obama said. “People have a tendency once the fires have been put out, the cars aren’t being tipped over, you know, there’s not some media crisis, then folks want go back and focus on whatever reality TV thing is going on.”
He added: “Unfortunately we’ve seen these police-related killings or deaths too often now. And obviously everybody is starting to recognize that this is not just an isolated incident in Ferguson or New York, but we’ve got some broader issues.”
Obama will not immediately visit Baltimore, but once things clear up, he said, “I think there’s going to be a time I go back to Baltimore.”
(h/t The Associated Press)
