President Obama in an interview airing Friday said the events in Ferguson, Mo., that sparked nationwide protests about how law enforcement departments treat minorities were not isolated.
Ahead of a trip to Selma, Ala., Saturday to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the civil rights march to Montgomery, Obama said lessons should be taken from the ongoing controversy over the police killing of 18-year-old Michael Brown.
“I don’t think that is typical of what happens across the country but it’s not an isolated incident,” Obama said on Sirius XM’s “Urban View” with Joe Madison.
“I think there are circumstances in which trust between communities and law enforcement have broken down, and individuals or entire departments may not have the training or the accountability to make sure that they are protecting and serving all people and not just some,” he added.
Obama’s remarks came just days after the Justice Department opted not to bring civil rights charges against Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson in the shooting of Brown. However, the Justice Department said the Ferguson Police Department had displayed systematic racial bias in how it treated the town’s minority residents.
As for the Selma visit, Obama said he wanted his own daughters to understand that the landmark protests were not some distant memory.
“This isn’t ancient history, and I worry sometimes that our kids, black or white, they are in a classroom where they see the ‘I have a dream’ speech during black history month and they kind of think that this is something that happened way back in the past,” he said. “This is something that happened within my lifetime.”
