On Tuesday afternoon, president Obama addressed a crowd assembled at the Morton H. Meyerson Symphony Center in Dallas, Tx. for an interfaith memorial service held for the five police officers who were shot and killed by a gunman on Thursday of last week. Michelle Obama, vice president Joe Biden and Jill Biden, and former president George W. Bush and Laura Bush were at the service as well.
Following remarks from local politicians, president Bush, prayers from local faith leaders, and music from an interfaith choir, the president took the podium and spoke about perseverance, hope, and finding meaning in sorrow. The president also spoke about each fallen officer individually, telling a bit about each of their lives and the last time they saw their families before being shot and killed.
In his speech, the president called the shooting an act of "demented violence" and "racial hatred." He further stated that he knows "Americans are struggling" to cope with all of the violence that has happened in the last week, making reference to the police killings of Alton Sterling and Philando Castile, and the targetting of police officers, adding that America is "not as divided as we seem."
The president also addressed the existence of racism within the criminal justice system, and said that those who fight for racial justice in the U.S. should not be dismissed as "trouble makers or paranoid," adding that it is wrong to dismiss the concerns of people of color regarding institutional racism.
The five offiers were fatally shot last during a demonstration protesting the killings of Sterling and Castile by 25-year-old Micah Johnson, who also wounded five other officers and two civilians. Before shooting, Johnson told police he wanted to target white officers. Johnson was killed by a police-deployed robotic bomb.
At the service, Dallas officers sat on the stage, with five seats reserved for the officers who were killed.
