Priorities.
Via CBS News
One year after Michael Brown’s death in Ferguson, Missouri — and the subsequent deaths of Eric Garner, Tamir Rice, Freddie Gray and other unarmed black men across the nation who met their end at the hands of police officers — President Obama is still struggling to address law enforcement issues and criminal justice reform.
“Over the past year, we’ve come to see, more clearly than ever, the frustration in many communities of color and the feeling that our laws can be applied unevenly,” Mr. Obama said Saturday in a video.
That frustration, the president said, propelled his administration into action. The White House launched a task force on community policing efforts, and the Justice Department began initiatives doling out money to buy body cameras and collect data on the use of force. Mr. Obama even met personally with police officers for their ideas on improvement.
But while the president touted progress on improving police efforts across communities, he warned that “the issues raised over the past year aren’t new, and they won’t be solved by policing alone.” The recent violence that broke out in Ferguson on the anniversary of Brown’s death has only further proven Mr. Obama’s point.
“We simply can’t ask our police to contain and control issues that the rest of us aren’t willing to address–as a society,” Mr. Obama said.