WASHINGTON, July 14 (UPI) — President Barack Obama said there has been progress in the administration’s policing task force created after racially motivated protests in Ferguson, Mo., but there is still a lot of work that needs to be done.
Obama, in a four-hour meeting with law enforcement, civil rights leaders and members of the Black Lives Matter movement Wednesday, said there has been progress in training, outreach and policy on the local level, such as “systems of accountability” that allow departments to use collected data in a meaningful way. Still, the end game is out of reach, he said.
“There are cultural issues, and there are issues of race in this country, and poverty, and a whole range of problems that will not be solved overnight,” he said. “But what we can do is to set up the kinds of respectful conversations that we’ve had here — not just in Washington, but around the country — so that we institutionalize a process of continually getting better, and holding ourselves accountable, and holding ourselves responsible for getting better.”
Among those at the meeting where National Action Network the Rev. Al Sharpton, NAACP President Cornell Brooks, Black Lives Matter Minnesota activist DeRay McKesson, Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti and National Association of Police Organizations President Michael McHale.
