Obama: ‘All Americans Should be Deeply Troubled’ by Police Shootings of Alton Sterling & Philand
*President Barack Obama says “all Americans should be deeply troubled” by the fatal shootings this week of Alton Sterling by police in Baton Rouge, Louisiana and Philando Castile by police in Falcon Heights, Minnesota.
“We’ve seen such tragedies far too many times, and our hearts go out to the families and communities who’ve suffered such a painful loss,” wrote POTUS in a Facebook message posted Thursday afternoon.
President Obama said he can’t comment more specifically while the cases are being investigated, but was encouraged that the federal Justice Department is conducting a civil rights investigation into the case in Baton Rouge, where Sterling was shot by two white police officers.
“Regardless of the outcome of such investigations, what’s clear is that these fatal shootings are not isolated incidents,” Obama wrote. “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.”
Read President Obama’s full Facebook message below:
President Obama 5 hours ago.
All Americans should be deeply troubled by the fatal shootings of Alton Sterling in Baton Rouge, Louisiana and Philando Castile in Falcon Heights, Minnesota. We've seen such tragedies far too many times, and our hearts go out to the families and communities who've suffered such a painful loss. Although I am constrained in commenting on the particular facts of these cases, I am encouraged that the U.S. Department of Justice has opened a civil rights investigation in Baton Roug...
