President Barack Obama said Thursday night that there was “no excuse” for the shooting of two police officers at a protest outside the Ferguson, Mo. police department.
“What had been happening in Ferguson was oppressive and objectionable and was worthy of protests. But there was no excuse for criminal acts,” he said in an appearance on ABC’s “Jimmy Kimmel Live.”
The President called for the arrests of whoever shot the officers, but said that the crime shouldn’t detract from the issues raised by the protests in Ferguson.
“What we need to do is to make sure that like-minded, good-spirited people on both sides — law enforcement, who have a terrifically tough job, and people who understandably don’t want to be stopped and harassed just because of their race — that we’re able to work together to try come up with some good answers,” he said.
Obama added that a scathing Justice Department report released last week, which found blacks were disproportionately stopped and ticketed by police in order to raise revenue for the city, showed that the Ferguson community had “very legitimate grievances.”
“There was a whole structure there, according to the DOJ report, that indicated both racism and just a disregard for what law enforcement is supposed to do,” he said.
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