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| President Barack Obama and first lady Michelle Obama attend an interfaith memorial service for the fallen police officers and members of the Dallas community at the Morton H. Meyerson Symphony Center in Dallas, Tuesday, July 12, 2016. |
DALLAS
(AP) -- President Barack Obama urged Americans rattled by a week of
violence and protests to find "open hearts" and new empathy Tuesday in a
speech that seesawed between honoring police officers for their bravery
and decrying racial prejudice that can affect their work.
Obama
stood next to five empty chairs for the white police officers killed
last week by a black man seeking vengeance for police killings. Behind
him, underscoring his message of unity: Dallas police officers, a
racially diverse church choir and local officials who ranged from black
Police Chief David Brown to former President George W. Bush, a Dallas
resident.
Obama sought to reassure the nation
that he understands the impact of the unsettling events of the past week
- including the killing of two black men by white police officers as
well as the Dallas attacks.
Disturbing videos of the events have "left us wounded and angry and hurt," he said."
It is as if the deepest fault lines of our democracy have suddenly been exposed, perhaps even widened."
Undaunted,
the president urged Americans to cast aside such doubt and replace it
with faith in the nation's institutions and progress.
"Dallas,
I'm here to say we must reject such despair. I'm here to insist that we
are not as divided as we seem.
And I know that because I know America. I
know how far we've come against impossible odds," he said.
The
president spoke steps away from the chairs left empty for the five men
killed last Thursday while protecting hundreds of people protesting the
killings of black men in Louisiana and Minnesota. The Army veteran
killed by police after the Dallas attack said he was motivated by
revenge.
"The soul of our city was pierced,"
Mayor Mike Rawlings said, as he welcomed the president and a line of
public officials, including Bush, who attended with his wife, Laura,
Vice President Joe Biden and his wife, Jill, and Brown. The group on
stage capped the ceremony by holding hands and swaying to the "Battle
Hymn of the Republic" - a symbol in sight and song of the service's
unity theme.
"Too often we judge other groups
by their worst examples, while judging ourselves by our best
intentions," Bush said. "And this has strained our bonds of
understanding and common purpose."
Bush and
other speakers paid tribute to the fallen officers - Brent Thompson, a
43-year-old newlywed; Patrick Zamarripa, 32, a Navy veteran who served
in Iraq; Michael Krol, 40, an athlete and basketball lover; Michael
Smith, 55, a former Army Ranger and father of two, and Lorne Ahrens,
whose wife is a police detective.
No one
expressed his appreciation for the men more memorably than Brown, who
has emerged as the steady and charismatic face of the Dallas police. The
chief spent part of his time reciting Stevie Wonder's "I'll
Be Loving
You Always" to express his affection for his officers.
For
Obama, the moment was a chance to try to defuse what some have
described as a national powder keg of emotions over race, justice, gun
violence and policing. The president positioned himself as both an ally
of law enforcement and a sympathizer of the Black Lives Matter movement.
It's a posture neither side has completely accepted.
Law
enforcement officials have sharply criticized Obama and some of his
policies, including a decision to stem the flow of military-grade
equipment to local departments. One prominent voice, William Johnson,
executive director the National Association of Police Organizations,
accused Obama of waging a "war on cops."
Some
protesters, meanwhile, questioned why Obama rushed home from Europe this
week to attend the service in Dallas before meeting with the
communities grieving their dead in Minnesota and Louisiana.
In
a gesture aimed at the answering that, Obama telephoned members of the
families of Alton Sterling and Philando Castile, the men killed in
confrontations in Baton Rouge and suburban St. Paul, as he flew to
Dallas.
The White House said Obama worked late into the night on his speech, consulting Scripture for inspiration..
After
years of delivering emotional pleas for peace at similar memorials,
Obama acknowledged his fatigue and the limits of his words on Tuesday.
"I'm
not naive," he said. "I've seen how inadequate words can be in bringing
about lasting change. I've seen how inadequate my own words have been."
When
he has doubts, he said, he remembers a passage from Ezekiel, in which
the Lord promised to take "your heart of stone, and give you a heart of
flesh."
"With an open heart we can learn to
stand in each other's shoes and look at the world through each other's
eyes," Obama said. "So that maybe the police officer sees his own son in
that teenager with a hoodie, who's kind of goofing off but not
dangerous. And the teenager, maybe the teenager will see in the police
officer the same words, and values and authority of his parents."
