America's police will be safer when they admit they have a problem, Pres. Obama declared on Sunday at a bilateral event with the prime minister of Spain in Madrid.
Fielding a question on Sunday, July 10, about the violence against police in Dallas, Texas last week, which left five officers dead, Obama said police officers will be safer once they acknowledge their failures:
"There are legitimate issues that have been raised, and there’s data and evidence to back up the concerns that are being expressed by these protesters.
"And if police organizations and departments acknowledge that there’s a problem and there’s an issue, then that, too, is going to contribute to real solutions. And, as I said yesterday, that is what’s going to ultimately help make the job of being a cop a lot safer. It is in the interest of police officers that their communities trust them and that the kind of rancor and suspicion that exists right now is alleviated."
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(I really hope this is a misquote... otherwise, what a fucking piece of shit)
Teh One Who Knocks
07-18-2016, 02:37 PM
Q Thank you, Mr. President. I wanted to ask you about the continued demonstrations we saw overnight in response to some of the police-involved shootings. But at the risk of suffering the same fate as one of my colleagues yesterday, I also wanted to return to the issue of Secretary Clinton's emails because some of the comments that you have made in the past yourself about this. You said in April that you continue to believe that she has not jeopardized America's national security. But this week, FBI Director Comey said that their assessment was that it was possible hostile actors gained access to her emails and that there’s evidence that they were extremely careless in their handling of very sensitive, highly classified information.
Do you accept that conclusion? And when you referred yesterday to the issue of over-classification, did you mean to suggest that some of the issues that were identified as classified might have been examples of that over-classification?
On to the other issue. You commented in the past on some of the tactics of the Black Lives Matter movement that you suggested have been counterproductive. We've seen continued protests, as I mentioned, overnight in many American cities over the Dallas tragedy. And as you prepare yourself to travel to Dallas, how would you advise the Black Lives Matter activists to approach this very sensitive issue -- situation?
And, Prime Minister Rajoy, the President said in an interview with El Pais that he hopes and expects this next Spanish government will remain committed to a strong relationship with the U.S. and to Europe. Are you in a position to make that kind of guarantee? And despite some of the concerns you raised about a possible third election, are you in a position to rule out the possibility? Thank you.
PRESIDENT OBAMA: Well, Mike, on the first question, this has been a criminal investigation. The FBI Director took the extraordinary step of explaining in methodical fashion how they arrived at their conclusion. The Attorney General accepted the recommendation of the investigators. And as a consequence, I think it's inappropriate for me to second-guess or comment extensively on the conclusion that they arrived at.
When I talked about the fact that there are legitimate concerns around how information travels in the State Department, it's across the spectrum. It has to do with the volumes of information that are now being transmitted, who has access to them; concerns about cyber-attacks and cybersecurity; concerns about making sure that we're transmitting information in real time so that we can make good decisions, but that it's not being mishandled in the process or making us more vulnerable.
And without commenting on what Director Comey said, I can tell you that Secretary Kerry is and has been concerned about this generally, and has stood up initiatives to try to improve those information flows, and that I'm concerned about this throughout the government, generally. It just has a particular salience when you're talking about diplomatic cables and issues involving national security.
And I don't think we have it perfectly solved. I think we're going to have to do better and learn from mistakes. And some of that will have to do with intentional -- or some of that will have to do with changing systems. Some of it will have to do with how we train personnel from the very top -- how I use my smartphone or BlackBerry all the way down to the lowest-level staffer.
But we've seen problems on this. WikiLeaks was a big piece of business. And it wasn’t intentional, but what it exposed was that there were a lot of vulnerabilities there. We know we've had hacking in the White House. And how people handle information, the precautionary steps that are taken -- all those things are being examined thoroughly. And I think it will be a work in progress.
With respect to your second question, one of the great things about America is that individual citizens and groups of citizens can petition their government, can protest, can speak truth to power. And that is sometimes messy and controversial. But because of that ability to protest and engage in free speech, America, over time, has gotten better. We've all benefited from that.
The abolition movement was contentious. The effort for women to get the right to vote was contentious and messy. There were times when activists might have engaged in rhetoric that was overheated and occasionally counterproductive. But the point was to raise issues so that we, as a society, could grapple with it. The same was true with the Civil Rights Movement, the union movement, the environmental movement, the anti-war movement during Vietnam. And I think what you're seeing now is part of that longstanding tradition.
What I would say is this -- that whenever those of us who are concerned about fairness in the criminal justice system attack police officers, you are doing a disservice to the cause. First of all, any violence directed at police officers is a reprehensible crime and needs to be prosecuted. But even rhetorically, if we paint police in broad brush, without recognizing that the vast majority of police officers are doing a really good job and are trying to protect people and do so fairly and without racial bias, if our rhetoric does not recognize that, then we're going to lose allies in the reform cause.
Now, in a movement like Black Lives Matter, there’s always going to be some folks who say things that are stupid, or imprudent, or overgeneralized, or harsh. And I don't think that you can hold well-meaning activists who are doing the right thing and peacefully protesting responsible for everything that is uttered at a protest site. But I would just say to everybody who’s concerned about the issue of police shootings or racial bias in the criminal justice system that maintaining a truthful and serious and respectful tone is going to help mobilize American society to bring about real change. And that is our ultimate objective.
Now, this week, people felt hurt and angry, and so some of this is just venting. But I think that the overwhelming majority of people who are involved in the Black Lives Matter movement, what they really want to see is a better relationship between the police and the community so that they can feel that it's serving them. And the best way to do that is to bring allies forward. That means -- that includes, by the way, the police departments that are doing the right thing, like Dallas, which has implemented the very reforms that Black Lives Matter has been seeking. That's part of why it's so tragic that those officers were targeted in Dallas, a place that is -- because of its transparency and training and openness and engagement in the community -- has drastically brought down the number of police shootings and complaints about misconduct.
The flip side of that -- and this is the last point I'll make -- is just as my hope would be that everybody involved in the Black Lives Matter movement, or other civil rights organizations or who are protesting -- just as I want all of them to maintain a respectful, thoughtful tone -- because, as a practical matter, that's what’s going to get change done -- I would hope that police organizations are also respectful of the frustration that people in these communities feel and not just dismiss these protests and these complaints as political correctness, or as politics or attacks on police. There are legitimate issues that have been raised, and there’s data and evidence to back up the concerns that are being expressed by these protesters.
And if police organizations and departments acknowledge that there’s a problem and there’s an issue, then that, too, is going to contribute to real solutions. And, as I said yesterday, that is what’s going to ultimately help make the job of being a cop a lot safer. It is in the interest of police officers that their communities trust them and that the kind of rancor and suspicion that exists right now is alleviated.
So I'd like all sides to listen to each other. And that's what we'll hopefully be able to accomplish over the course of the next week and over the course of the remaining months that I'm President.
https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2016/07/10/remarks-president-obama-and-prime-minister-rajoy-spain-after-bilateral
There is NO data to support this. He is really pissing me off.
I have heard black preachers are BLM rallies using more responsible language and tone. How in the fuck is he more emotional and pissed off about the BLM issues than cops getting mowed down?!?
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