Obama calls on police chiefs to embrace gun control, justice reform

President Barack Obama called for greater understanding between law enforcement and communities of color Tuesday afternoon and urged the nation’s police chiefs to embrace the push for criminal justice reform and tighter gun controls.

In a wide-ranging remarks before an annual gathering of the International Association of Chiefs of Police in his hometown of Chicago, Obama praised officers for helping bring down the violent crime rate over the last 20 years but also said reforms were desperately needed to bolster public safety and address the issue of fairness in the system. 

“I reject any narrative that seeks to divide police and communities they serve. I reject a storyline that says, when it comes to public safety, it’s us versus them — a narrative that too often gets served up to us by cable news seeking ratings, tweets seeking retweets or political candidates seeking some attention,” he said. “That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t have a serious and robust debate over fairness in law enforcement and our broader criminal justice system when it comes to communities of color. I’ve talked to enough chiefs and beat cops around the country to know you care about these issues and want to do the right thing.”  

The president’s speech comes at a moment of escalating tension between law enforcement officers and minority communities, after a spate of high-profile incidents in the last year that activists say serve to highlight widespread racial bias and excessive use of force among police.

The re-examination of law enforcement practices frequently goes hand in hand with the national conversation about mass incarceration and why the the United States’ incarcerated population of 1.5 million is disproportionately black.  

Obama said changes were urgently need to make the entirety of the justice system “smarter and fairer.”

“This is not some bleeding heart attitude here. Violence is real in this city and around the country, and I have seen firsthand the devastation the drug trade has wrought on individual lives and entire communities,” he said. “It is possible for us to come up with strategies that effectively reduce the damage of the drug trade without relying solely on incarceration.”

Turning to the issue of gun safety, Obama said shoring up the nation’s gun laws would prevent police deaths, and he spoke of countless meetings he has had with the families of fallen officers.

“I could not honestly tell them that our country has done everything we could to keep this from happening again ... and that’s a travesty,” he said. “It’s time to be honest. Fewer gun safety laws don’t mean more freedom. They mean more fallen officers.  They mean more grieving families and more Americans terrified that they or their loved ones could be next.”

Some law enforcement officials have embraced the calls for reform.

Earlier this month, more than 130 police chiefs, prosecutors and sheriffs announced they were launching an initiative to cut the incarceration rate, calling for reduced arrests and an end to mandatory minimum sentences that often keep low-level offenders in prison for decades. Supporters of the effort include New York City Police Commissioner William J. Bratton, Philadelphia Police Commissioner Charles Ramsey and Los Angeles Police Chief Charlie Beck, some of whom had a hand in crafting the tough-on-crime policies that caused the prison population to balloon. 

Others, however, remain resistant. Even FBI Director James Comey seemed to counter the Obama administration’s message when he suggested on Monday that police may be holding back from doing their jobs effectively because of increased public scrutiny — the so-called Ferguson effect.

The White House has distanced itself from those remarks.