Obama says police are "scapegoated" too often for society's failures
President Obama on Tuesday told an audience of police chiefs in Chicago that they are too often blamed for failures in society, but said law enforcement also must make the effort to alleviate tensions with communities.
In an address to the International Association of Chiefs of Police, Mr. Obama praised its members for their service and said they are held responsible too often.
"Too often, law enforcement gets scapegoated for the broader failures of our society and criminal justice system. I know that you do your jobs with distinction no matter the challenges you face. That's part of wearing the badge," said Mr. Obama, drawing applause from the crowd.
Mr. Obama said if people in the room were polled, they would have different takes on what occurred in Ferguson or in New York.
"The media tends to focus on the sensational and controversial," he said. "As a society, we send to lurch from shock to complacency on these issues. We have to resist that impulse."
"With today's technology, if one of your officers does something irresponsible the whole world knows about it," said Mr. Obama, who then said when police do good work, it rarely appears on the evening news.
At the same time, the president argued that data shows there is "some racial bias in the system."
"You know as well as I do, the tensions in some communities, those sentiments don't just come out of nowhere," he said. "We all have a responsibility to do something about about it....Eliminating bias is not something that falls on the police."
The president repeated his goals to give police the resources and equipment they need, pass criminal justice reforms and implement "commonsense" gun safety reforms.
"I know we won't all agree on this issue. But it's time to be honest - fewer gun safety laws don't mean more freedom, they mean more danger, more danger to police, more fallen officers, more grieving families," said Mr. Obama, who has been exploring ways to implement tougher gun requirements using his executive authority.
"I'm going to keep calling on the folks in Congress to change the way they think about gun safety," he added.
He also refuted claims by GOP presidential candidates and conservative media that he is trying to take away Americans' Second Amendment rights.
"Please do not believe this notion that I'm out to take people's guns away," he said.
The president said that fewer than 100 Americans have been killed by terrorists on U.S. soil since 9/11, but 400,000 people have been shot and killed. In the afternoon, he said he met with families of police officers who were killed in the line of duty, which he said he does "too often."
His speech comes the same day that the Justice Department released a report that reveals ambushes and surprise attacks against police are on the rise.
The DOJ also opened a civil rights probe Tuesday into an arrest in a South Carolina classroom in which a police officer was caught on video violently arresting a black female student.
