WARSAW // President Barack Obama said the shooting of five Dallas police officers and the protests against police killings in Louisiana and Minnesota are not a sign of deeper divisions in the US.
“Americans of all races and all backgrounds are rightly outraged by the inexcusable attacks on police, whether it’s in Dallas or anyplace else,” said the US president, speaking from Warsaw on Saturday at the end of a Nato summit dominated by news of the unrest in America. “We cannot let the actions of a few define all of us.”
Without mentioning Micah Johnson by name, Mr Obama described the gunman in Dallas who shot dead five city police officers and wounded seven others and two civilians, as a “demented individual” whose motives were “very hard to untangle.”. For the second time in three days, the president sought to calm a nation shaken by protests over the killing of black men by police officers. What had been a peaceful protest in Dallas ended in the shooting of 12 police officers on Thursday, an attack Mr Obama had called, “vicious, calculated and despicable.’’
The president cut short his stay in Warsaw for the Nato summit to return to Washington on Sunday after visiting Spain. He will visit Dallas in the next few day, hoping to bridge divisions between the police and minority communities, said a White House spokesman. He also pointed out that marches through numerous American cities in protest at the police shootings in Baton Rouge, Louisiana and St Paul, Minnesota had passed off peacefully.
“When we start suggesting that somehow there’s this enormous polarisation and we’re back to the situation in the 60s and — that’s just not true,” said the president. “You’re not seeing riots, you’re not seeing police going after people who are protesting peacefully.”
The president’s plea for unity was echoed by the former girlfriend of Alton Sterling, who was shot in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Quinyetta McMillon, who has a son by Sterling, said she did not want his death to be divisive and was grieving with the families of those killed or wounded in Dallas.
“Now, I’m walking a mile with them. We’re wearing the same shoes right now,” she said. “I don’t want this to be a race thing.”
Video footage taken of two white officers tackling Sterling, 37, last Tuesday was posted online, setting off angry protests, and the Justice Department swiftly agreed to open a civil rights investigation.
The two officers involved, Blane Salamoni and Howie Lake II, are on administrative leave.
While acknowledging that racial tension is rooted in centuries of history, President Obama said, ““I firmly believe America is not as divided as some have suggested. There is sorrow, there is anger, there is confusion ... but there is unity. This is not who we want to be as Americans. As tough, as hard, as depressing as the loss of life was this week, we’ve got a foundation to build on.”
The candidates vying to succeed Obama cancelled campaign events and released conciliatory statements condemning the deaths and expressing condolences for the victims.
“Racial tensions have got worse, not better,” said Donald Trump while his Democrat rival Hillary Clinton said: “White Americans need to do a better job of listening.”* Associated Press
* Associated Press