Law enforcement, activists to meet with President Obama at White House

She said she’s scared for her daughter’s future and asked the president, “What do we do?”

In addition to the five officers killed, nine more people were wounded during an anti-police brutality march held in downtown Dallas last week.

Rawlings read the names of the five officers who were shot and killed: Lorne Ahrens, Michael Kroll, Michael Smith, Brent Thompson, Patrick Zamarripa.

“At times it seems like the forces pulling us apart are stronger than the forces binding us together”, Bush said.

Undaunted, the president urged Americans to cast aside such doubt and replace it with faith in the nation’s institutions and progress. “We must reject such despair”. We recognize that we are brothers and sisters, sharing the same brief moment on Earth and owing each other the loyalty of our shared humanity. “I know it’s just lighting, but it does send a clear message”, Chris Bradshaw posted on Hannity’s Facebook page.

“We learned a lot about the shocking emotions that police have going to work every day and they felt our pain of having to tell our children to be careful of policemen”, Sharpton said. The focus comes a few days after a black Army veteran killed five police officers in revenge for police shooting black men in Baton Rouge, Louisiana and the Minneapolis suburbs. The speakers didn’t just honor the officers, but addressed the importance – and pitfalls – of modern policing.

With their deaths, former President George W. Bush said Dallas is grief-stricken, heartbroken, and forever grateful.

While gripping the hands of FLOTUS and his wife Laura Bush, W. smiled and swayed gleefully from side to side, at one point singing directly into Michelle Obama’s ear.

Obama said it would be key to repeat the “kind of respectful conversations we’ve had here” across the country. “And this has strained our bonds of understanding and common objective”. “And we’ll go through the same cycles of periodic conflicts between the police and communities and the occasional riots in the streets, and everybody will feign concern until it goes away, and then we’ll go about our business as usual”.

Another user wrote, “Are you kidding me?”

But for many in law enforcement, Obama’s words, while welcome, are greeted with suspicion.

“Americans, I think, have a great advantage”. One prominent voice, William Johnson, executive director the National Association of Police Organizations, accused Obama of waging a “war on cops”. So what a golden opportunity it was of Obama to get himself invited to speak at the interfaith memorial service – a service he knew would draw national attention and be watched by millions of impressionable voters.

The White House said Obama worked late into the night on his speech, consulting Scripture for inspiration.

On Thursday, the president is scheduled to participate in a town-hall event on race that will be simultaneously televised on ESPN and ABC. “I’m not naive”, he said Tuesday.

The president recognised the limits of rhetoric: “I’ve seen how inadequate words can be in bringing about lasting change”.

“We know there’s evil in this world, that’s why we need police departments”, Obama said. In each instance, he acknowledges the hard and unsafe work that police do.