FOR THE 11th TIME, PRESIDENT OBAMA ATTENDS THE AFTERMATH OF A VIOLENT ATTACK

…More prayers for the families of those killed in the Dallas attack

 

The nation is left divided from the recent fatal shootings of Dallas police officers.

 

It was obvious that the president had spent a considerable amount of time working on and practicing the presentation that he gave at the memorial service for the five slain police officers in Dallas, Texas.  Unfortunately, this was the 11^th time that the president has had to perform this type of sad, ceremonial presentation.

 

President Obama also showed that he again was when needed, capable of accessing the gospel to find the necessary passages from the Bible, when his own words were inadequate for offering solace to the families of the officers and to those that had survived the attack.

 

But for this 11^th time, the president sought to unify a city and a nation left divided and raw from these recent fatal shootings of the Dallas police officers. 

 

What is so ironic, is that this is a city that has been recognized over the last decade for bringing their police departments and the communities together, not for the type of division that has occurred in cities such as Ferguson, MO, or Baltimore, MA.

 

In this latest visit, it was once again a city that is now  heartbroken by another mass shooting.  The president tried to ease the tensions that have arisen in recent days when black men in Louisiana and Minnesota were fatally shot by the local police.  And it was during the peaceful protest of those remote killings, that a black Dallas gunman, who during the attack told the police that he was angry over those two police killings, and he then decided to open his assault rifle fire, targeting only white Dallas police officers.

 

President Obama praised the Dallas police officers and sharply criticized those who would paint all police as bigoted or that choose to seek violence against law enforcement.  But he also acknowledged the very real fear and pain among black Americans who have felt targeted or mistreated by police officers.

 

During his 40 minutes of remarks, the president once again showed his compassion with an emotional service occurring less than a mile from where the five officers were killed.

 

Because the service was being held in Dallas, the Southern influence was so apparent as the president was introduced so eloquently by the artist performer Stevie Wonder.  When the president was first introduced, his initial comment was, “I’m so glad I met Michelle first, because she loves Stevie Wonder.”  The subsequent laughter immediately calmed the audience and made everyone more comfortable.  The music provided by the massive church choir had the distinctive sound you would expect from a Southern church, and the outstanding rendition of The Battle Hymn of the Republic was of the magnitude reminiscent of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. 

 

The president's presentation also echoed what the Dallas Police Chief David Brown had said a day earlier about local police officers being asked to take on too much of society’s problems. 

 

He said that too great a burden is being placed on the police departments, which is the cause of much of the tension between communities and their police officers.  He stated that it was time for the communities to stop expecting that when the schools, or the government, or society in general doesn’t do their job, they “leave it to the law to take care of the problems”.  The closest individual to being “the law” of course, is the local police officer.  But you can’t expect the police to provide all the answers for the drug issues, for the results of alcohol abuse, or of domestic conflicts, or for the school's failures, or the mental health problems, but many times, it’s the local police officers that still get that call.

 

“We ask police to do too much and we ask too little of ourselves,” Obama said during his remarks. 

 

And Obama was interrupted by applause when he spoke in the concert hall that was half filled with law enforcement officials.  However, the families of those slain officers did not clap when he spoke about the “Black Lives Matter” protests that had been ending when the sniper began his attack.

 

“All of it [the attack] has left us wounded and angry and hurt,” Obama said. “It’s as if the deepest fault lines of our democracy have suddenly been exposed, perhaps even widened.”

 

Obama continued: “We wonder if an African American community that feels unfairly targeted by police, and police departments that feel unfairly maligned for doing their jobs, can ever understand each other’s experience.”

 

“I’m not naive,” Obama said. “I’ve spoken at too many memorials during the course of this presidency. I’ve hugged too many families that lost a loved one to senseless violence.”

 

It was not known until later that during the trip to Dallas, the president had called family members of Alton Sterling, the man fatally shot by police in Baton Rouge last week, and the families of Philando Castile, the man slain in Minnesota a day later. He used the calls to offer condolences to them on behalf of the American people, this was not announced by the White House until that same afternoon.

 

“The tragedy is very fresh in our minds… too fresh for some people, I feel,” said one Dallas officer seated near the stage, who declined to give his name. “They clapped when we were praised, but when it came to race relations it was more of a stony silence where I was sitting.”

 

Five seats in the service had been left open with folded American flags in memory of the officers killed in Dallas, the open seats were reserved for those who “died for that cause of protecting others”, said Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings.

 

Speaking directly to police and protesters alike, Obama urged law enforcement to see “that insisting we do better to root out racial bias is not an attack on cops, but an effort to live up to our highest ideals.” And he also urged those demonstrating to “guard against reckless language in going forward.”

 

Officers from across Texas came to support their fallen colleagues.  They were dressed in formal dress as a mark of respect, their black uniforms accompanied by badges with black ribbons across them. These ribbons had the word “Dallas” written in large, white letters.

 

Security at the symphony hall was very tight, as it has been for most vigils in this city.  Helicopters circled overhead as Secret Service agents patrolled the perimeter. Several police officers said later they had mentally checked for escape routes, fearing the worst.

 

Obama is seeking to reopen dialogue with police agencies and other groups on ways to rebuild trust among African American and other communities. Obama met this week for nearly two hours with leaders of eight law enforcement groups.  He informed them that he considered the killing of the five police officers in Dallas “a hate crime” and that he would work actively to serve as an intermediary between minority activists and police.

 

In recent days, demonstrations have broken out from New York to San Francisco after those deaths of two black men by the local police in Minnesota and Louisiana.  The demonstrations were reminiscent of the protests that had erupted after the deaths of the two black men in Ferguson and Baltimore.

 

This interfaith memorial service was in honor of the Dallas officers killed by a 25-year-old black man, Micah Johnson.  Johnson had opened fire during that very peaceful rally and downtown protest to those killings in Louisiana and Minnesota.

But before Johnson was killed by a robot-carried bomb, the police say he told them he was angry about the recent police shootings in Louisiana and Minnesota and wanted to kill as many white police officers as possible.  He also claimed to have placed explosives at other places in Dallas, and explosive materials were later found in his home.  But fortunately, no bombs or explosives were located in any other locations.

 

Brittany Packnett, a Black Lives Matter activist and member of the president’s Task Force on 21st Century Policing, said in an interview, “What we are talking about is, how do we create a society that replaces order with justice so that violence is not the place where people feel they have to turn,” she said. “So instead, they’re experiencing peace and equity every day of their lives.”

 

One wonders how many more memorial services like this that the president will have to attend before his presidency is over?

 

Copyright G.Ater  2016