Remarks
by the President at Memorial Service for Fallen Dallas Police Officers
Morton H. Meyerson Symphony Center
Dallas, Texas
Scripture
tells us that in our sufferings there is glory, because we know that suffering
produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope.
Sometimes the truths of these words are hard to see. Right now, those
words test us. Because the people of Dallas, people across the country,
are suffering.
We’re
here to honor the memory, and mourn the loss, of five fellow Americans -- to
grieve with their loved ones, to support this community, to pray for the
wounded, and to try and find some meaning amidst our sorrow.
For
the men and women who protect and serve the people of Dallas, last Thursday
began like any other day. Like most Americans each day, you get up,
probably have too quick a breakfast, kiss your family goodbye, and you head to
work. But your work, and the work of police officers across the country,
is like no other. For the moment you put on that uniform, you have
answered a call that at any moment, even in the briefest interaction, may put
your life in harm’s way.
Lorne
Ahrens, he answered that call. So did his wife, Katrina -- not only
because she was the spouse of a police officer, but because she’s a detective
on the force. They have two kids. And Lorne took them fishing, and
used to proudly go to their school in uniform. And the night before he died,
he bought dinner for a homeless man. And the next night, Katrina had to
tell their children that their dad was gone. “They don’t get it yet,”
their grandma said. “They don’t know what to do quite yet.”
Michael
Krol answered that call. His mother said, “He knew the dangers of the
job, but he never shied away from his duty.” He came a thousand miles
from his home state of Michigan to be a cop in Dallas, telling his family,
“This is something I wanted to do.” Last year, he brought his girlfriend
back to Detroit for Thanksgiving, and it was the last time he’d see his family.
Michael
Smith answered that call -- in the Army, and over almost 30 years working for
the Dallas Police Association, which gave him the appropriately named “Cops
Cop” award. A man of deep faith, when he was off duty, he could be found
at church or playing softball with his two girls. Today, his girls have
lost their dad, for God has called Michael home.
Patrick
Zamarripa, he answered that call. Just 32, a former altar boy who served
in the Navy and dreamed of being a cop. He liked to post videos of
himself and his kids on social media. And on Thursday night, while
Patrick went to work, his partner Kristy posted a photo of her and their
daughter at a Texas Rangers game, and tagged her partner so that he could see
it while on duty.
Brent
Thompson answered that call. He served his country as a Marine. And
years later, as a contractor, he spent time in some of the most dangerous parts
of Iraq and Afghanistan. And then a few years ago, he settled down here
in Dallas for a new life of service as a transit cop. And just about two
weeks ago, he married a fellow officer, their whole life together waiting
before them.
Like
police officers across the country, these men and their families shared a
commitment to something larger than themselves. They weren’t looking for
their names to be up in lights. They’d tell you the pay was decent but
wouldn’t make you rich. They could have told you about the stress and
long shifts, and they’d probably agree with Chief Brown when he said that cops
don’t expect to hear the words "thank you" very often, especially
from those who need them the most.
No,
the reward comes in knowing that our entire way of life in America depends on
the rule of law; that the maintenance of that law is a hard and daily labor;
that in this country, we don’t have soldiers in the streets or militias setting
the rules. Instead, we have public servants -- police officers -- like
the men who were taken away from us.
And
that’s what these five were doing last Thursday when they were assigned to
protect and keep orderly a peaceful protest in response to the killing of Alton
Sterling of Baton Rouge and Philando Castile of Minnesota. They were
upholding the constitutional rights of this country.
For a
while, the protest went on without incident. And despite the fact that
police conduct was the subject of the protest, despite the fact that there must
have been signs or slogans or chants with which they profoundly disagreed,
these men and this department did their jobs like the professionals that they
were. In fact, the police had been part of the protest’s planning.
Dallas PD even posted photos on their Twitter feeds of their own officers
standing among the protesters. Two officers, black and white, smiled next
to a man with a sign that read, “No Justice, No Peace.”
And
then, around nine o’clock, the gunfire came. Another community torn
apart. More hearts broken. More questions about what caused, and
what might prevent, another such tragedy.
I
know that Americans are struggling right now with what we’ve witnessed over the
past week. First, the shootings in Minnesota and Baton Rouge, and the
protests, then the targeting of police by the shooter here -- an act not just
of demented violence but of racial hatred. All of it has left us wounded,
and angry, and hurt. It’s as if the deepest fault lines of our democracy
have suddenly been exposed, perhaps even widened. And although we know
that such divisions are not new -- though they have surely been worse in even
the recent past -- that offers us little comfort.
Faced
with this violence, we wonder if the divides of race in America can ever be
bridged. 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. We turn on
the TV or surf the Internet, and we can watch positions harden and lines drawn,
and people retreat to their respective corners, and politicians calculate how
to grab attention or avoid the fallout. We see all this, and it’s hard
not to think sometimes that the center won't hold and that things might get
worse.
I
understand. I understand how Americans are feeling. But, 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.
(Applause.) I know we’ll make it because of what I’ve experienced in my
own life, what I’ve seen of this country and its people -- their goodness and
decency --as President of the United States. And I know it because of
what we’ve seen here in Dallas -- how all of you, out of great suffering, have
shown us the meaning of perseverance and character, and hope.
When
the bullets started flying, the men and women of the Dallas police, they did
not flinch and they did not react recklessly. They showed incredible
restraint. Helped in some cases by protesters, they evacuated the
injured, isolated the shooter, and saved more lives than we will ever
know. (Applause.) We mourn fewer people today because of your brave
actions. (Applause.) “Everyone was helping each other,” one witness
said. “It wasn’t about black or white. Everyone was picking each
other up and moving them away.” See, that’s the America I know.
The
police helped Shetamia Taylor as she was shot trying to shield her four
sons. She said she wanted her boys to join her to protest the incidents
of black men being killed. She also said to the Dallas PD, “Thank you for
being heroes.” And today, her 12-year old son wants to be a cop when he
grows up. That’s the America I know. (Applause.)
In
the aftermath of the shooting, we’ve seen Mayor Rawlings and Chief Brown, a
white man and a black man with different backgrounds, working not just to
restore order and support a shaken city, a shaken department, but working
together to unify a city with strength and grace and wisdom.
(Applause.) And in the process, we've been reminded that the Dallas
Police Department has been at the forefront of improving relations between
police and the community. (Applause.) The murder rate here has
fallen. Complaints of excessive force have been cut by 64 percent.
The Dallas Police Department has been doing it the right way.
(Applause.) And so, Mayor Rawlings and Chief Brown, on behalf of the
American people, thank you for your steady leadership, thank you for your
powerful example. We could not be prouder of you. (Applause.)
These
men, this department -- this is the America I know. And today, in this
audience, I see people who have protested on behalf of criminal justice reform
grieving alongside police officers. I see people who mourn for the five
officers we lost but also weep for the families of Alton Sterling and Philando
Castile. In this audience, I see what’s possible -- (applause) -- I see
what's possible when we recognize that we are one American family, all
deserving of equal treatment, all deserving of equal respect, all children of
God. That’s the America that I know.
Now,
I'm not naïve. I have spoken at too many memorials during the course of
this presidency. I’ve hugged too many families who have lost a loved one
to senseless violence. And I've seen how a spirit of unity, born of
tragedy, can gradually dissipate, overtaken by the return to business as usual,
by inertia and old habits and expediency. I see how easily we slip back
into our old notions, because they’re comfortable, we’re used to them.
I’ve seen how inadequate words can be in bringing about lasting change.
I’ve seen how inadequate my own words have been. And so I’m reminded of a
passage in *John’s Gospel [First John]: Let us love not with words or
speech, but with actions and in truth. If we’re to sustain the unity we
need to get through these difficult times, if we are to honor these five
outstanding officers who we’ve lost, then we will need to act on the truths
that we know. And that’s not easy. It makes us uncomfortable.
But we’re going to have to be honest with each other and ourselves.
We
know that the overwhelming majority of police officers do an incredibly hard
and dangerous job fairly and professionally. They are deserving of our
respect and not our scorn. (Applause.) And when anyone, no matter
how good their intentions may be, paints all police as biased or bigoted, we
undermine those officers we depend on for our safety. And as for those
who use rhetoric suggesting harm to police, even if they don’t act on it themselves
-- well, they not only make the jobs of police officers even more dangerous,
but they do a disservice to the very cause of justice that they claim to
promote. (Applause.)
We
also know that centuries of racial discrimination -- of slavery, and subjugation,
and Jim Crow -- they didn’t simply vanish with the end of lawful
segregation. They didn’t just stop when Dr. King made a speech, or the
Voting Rights Act and the Civil Rights Act were signed. Race relations
have improved dramatically in my lifetime. Those who deny it are
dishonoring the struggles that helped us achieve that progress.
(Applause.)
But
we know -- but, America, we know that bias remains. We know it.
Whether you are black or white or Hispanic or Asian or Native American or of Middle
Eastern descent, we have all seen this bigotry in our own lives at some
point. We’ve heard it at times in our own homes. If we’re honest,
perhaps we’ve heard prejudice in our own heads and felt it in our own
hearts. We know that. And while some suffer far more under racism’s
burden, some feel to a far greater extent discrimination’s sting.
Although most of us do our best to guard against it and teach our children
better, none of us is entirely innocent. No institution is entirely immune.
And that includes our police departments. We know this.
And
so when African Americans from all walks of life, from different communities
across the country, voice a growing despair over what they perceive to be
unequal treatment; when study after study shows that whites and people of color
experience the criminal justice system differently, so that if you’re black
you’re more likely to be pulled over or searched or arrested, more likely to
get longer sentences, more likely to get the death penalty for the same crime;
when mothers and fathers raise their kids right and have “the talk” about how
to respond if stopped by a police officer -- “yes, sir,” “no, sir” -- but still
fear that something terrible may happen when their child walks out the door,
still fear that kids being stupid and not quite doing things right might end in
tragedy -- when all this takes place more than 50 years after the passage of
the Civil Rights Act, we cannot simply turn away and dismiss those in peaceful
protest as troublemakers or paranoid. (Applause.) We can’t simply
dismiss it as a symptom of political correctness or reverse racism. To
have your experience denied like that, dismissed by those in authority,
dismissed perhaps even by your white friends and coworkers and fellow church members
again and again and again -- it hurts. Surely we can see that, all of us.
We
also know what Chief Brown has said is true: That so much of the tensions
between police departments and minority communities that they serve is because
we ask the police to do too much and we ask too little of ourselves.
(Applause.) As a society, we choose to underinvest in decent
schools. We allow poverty to fester so that entire neighborhoods offer no
prospect for gainful employment. (Applause.) We refuse to fund drug
treatment and mental health programs. (Applause.) We flood
communities with so many guns that it is easier for a teenager to buy a Glock
than get his hands on a computer or even a book -- (applause) -- and then we
tell the police “you’re a social worker, you’re the parent, you’re the teacher,
you’re the drug counselor.” We tell them to keep those neighborhoods in
check at all costs, and do so without causing any political blowback or
inconvenience. Don’t make a mistake that might disturb our own peace of
mind. And then we feign surprise when, periodically, the tensions boil
over.
We
know these things to be true. They’ve been true for a long time. We
know it. Police, you know it. Protestors, you know it. You
know how dangerous some of the communities where these police officers serve
are, and you pretend as if there’s no context. These things we know to be
true. And if we cannot even talk about these things -- if we cannot talk
honestly and openly not just in the comfort of our own circles, but with those
who look different than us or bring a different perspective, then we will never
break this dangerous cycle.
In
the end, it's not about finding policies that work; it’s about forging
consensus, and fighting cynicism, and finding the will to make change.
Can
we do this? Can we find the character, as Americans, to open our hearts
to each other? Can we see in each other a common humanity and a shared
dignity, and recognize how our different experiences have shaped us? And
it doesn’t make anybody perfectly good or perfectly bad, it just makes us
human. I don’t know. I confess that sometimes I, too, experience
doubt. I've been to too many of these things. I've seen too many
families go through this. But then I am reminded of what the Lord tells
Ezekiel: I will give you a new heart, the Lord says, and put a new spirit
in you. I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart
of flesh.
That’s
what we must pray for, each of us: a new heart. Not a heart of
stone, but a heart open to the fears and hopes and challenges of our fellow
citizens. That’s what we’ve seen in Dallas these past few days.
That’s what we must sustain.
Because
with an open heart, we can learn to stand in each other’s shoes and look at the
world through each other’s eyes, 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.
With
an open heart, we can abandon the overheated rhetoric and the
oversimplification that reduces whole categories of our fellow Americans not
just to opponents, but to enemies.
With
an open heart, those protesting for change will guard against reckless language
going forward, look at the model set by the five officers we mourn today,
acknowledge the progress brought about by the sincere efforts of police
departments like this one in Dallas, and embark on the hard but necessary work
of negotiation, the pursuit of reconciliation.
With
an open heart, police departments will acknowledge that, just like the rest of
us, they are not perfect; 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.
(Applause.) And I understand these protests -- I see them, they can be
messy. Sometimes they can be hijacked by an irresponsible few.
Police can get hurt. Protestors can get hurt. They can be
frustrating.
But
even those who dislike the phrase “Black Lives Matter,” surely we should be
able to hear the pain of Alton Sterling’s family. (Applause.) We
should -- when we hear a friend describe him by saying that “Whatever he
cooked, he cooked enough for everybody,” that should sound familiar to us, that
maybe he wasn’t so different than us, so that we can, yes, insist that his life
matters. Just as we should hear the students and coworkers describe their
affection for Philando Castile as a gentle soul -- “Mr. Rogers with
dreadlocks,” they called him -- and know that his life mattered to a whole lot
of people of all races, of all ages, and that we have to do what we can,
without putting officers' lives at risk, but do better to prevent another life
like his from being lost.
With
an open heart, we can worry less about which side has been wronged, and worry
more about joining sides to do right. (Applause.) Because the
vicious killer of these police officers, they won’t be the last person who
tries to make us turn on one other. The killer in Orlando wasn’t, nor was
the killer in Charleston. We know there is evil in this world.
That's why we need police departments. (Applause.) But as
Americans, we can decide that people like this killer will ultimately
fail. They will not drive us apart. We can decide to come together
and make our country reflect the good inside us, the hopes and simple dreams we
share.
“We
also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces
perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope.”
For
all of us, life presents challenges and suffering -- accidents, illnesses, the
loss of loved ones. There are times when we are overwhelmed by sudden
calamity, natural or manmade. All of us, we make mistakes. And at
times we are lost. And as we get older, we learn we don’t always have
control of things -- not even a President does. But we do have control
over how we respond to the world. We do have control over how we treat
one another.
America
does not ask us to be perfect. Precisely because of our individual
imperfections, our founders gave us institutions to guard against tyranny and
ensure no one is above the law; a democracy that gives us the space to work
through our differences and debate them peacefully, to make things better, even
if it doesn’t always happen as fast as we’d like. America gives us the
capacity to change.
Only by working
together can we preserve those institutions of family and community, rights and
responsibilities, law and self-government that is the hallmark of this
nation. For, it turns out, we do not persevere alone. Our character
is not found in isolation. Hope does not arise by putting our fellow man
down; it is found by lifting others up.
And
that’s what I take away from the lives of these outstanding men. The pain
we feel may not soon pass, but my faith tells me that they did not die in vain.
I believe our sorrow can make us a better country. I believe our
righteous anger can be transformed into more justice and more peace.
Weeping may endure for a night, but I’m convinced joy comes in the
morning. We cannot match the sacrifices made by
Officers Zamarripa and Ahrens, Krol, Smith, and Thompson, but surely we can try
to match their sense of service. We cannot match their courage, but we
can strive to match their devotion.
May
God bless their memory. May God bless this country that we love.
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