Speaking in Poland at a press conference, President Obama asserted that he doesn’t know what motivated the Dallas police murderer Micah X. Johnson. “It’s hard to unpack his motives,” the President declared, despite the killer’s declaration to police that he wanted to kill white people, white police officers.
After sighing heavily, the President addressed gun control by saying “we can make it harder” for killers to commit crimes. “Part of what’s creating tensions between communities and the police is that police are having a hard time in communities where they know where guns are everywhere.”
“At the protests in Dallas one of the challenges . . . there are a bunch of people participating in the protest who have weapons on them. Imagine if you’re a police officer and you’re trying to figure out who’s shooting at you and there are a bunch of people who have guns on them.”
The President also claimed that the gun in the car in the Minnesota police shooting (of a licensed carrier) “caused in some fashion those events.” The President promised that “I won’t stop talking about [“gun safety”]. It’s part of the problem.”
The President also highlighted the drop in violent crime, while stirring racial controversy. Violent crime is down to 60’s levels, the President informed. But “that doesn’t lessen people’s understandable fear if they see a video clip of someone getting killed.”
While videos of police shootings have elevated people’s consciousness of police prejudice, “I don’t think that people were not aware of the fact that there is evidence of racial bias in our criminal justice system . . . It hurts.”