Obama: Police shootings show US has a ‘serious problem’
WASHINGTON — The fatal police shootings of two black men in Louisiana and Minnesota show the U.S. has a “serious problem,” President Barack Obama said Thursday. He said he shares feelings of “anger, frustration and grief” that police killings have triggered across the country.
In his first public reaction to the shootings, Obama said it is clear they were not isolated incidents, adding that the U.S. had “seen such tragedies far too many times.” He said all Americans should be “deeply troubled” by the deaths in Baton Rouge and suburban St. Paul.
“They are symptomatic of the broader challenges within our criminal justice system, the racial disparities that appear across the system year after year, and the resulting lack of trust that exists between law enforcement and too many of the communities they serve,” Obama wrote in a Facebook post.
Obama’s diagnosis of the problem reflected a growing sense of frustration and willingness to speak out publicly about police killings despite the risk of making law enforcement officers feel under attack.