May 18, 2015
President Obama noted progress but expressed a desire to strive for more economic and educational opportunities in Camden while speaking in the city Monday.
"Communities like some poor communities in Camden or my hometown of Chicago, they’re part of America, too," Obama told a crowd this afternoon at the Salvation Army Ray & Joan Kroc Corps Community Center. "The kids who grow up here are America’s children. They’ve got hopes, they’ve got dreams, they’ve got potential. We’re not investing in them."
Obama cited a dropping murder rate and applauded the work of his Task Force on 21st Century Policing to find better ways for law enforcement officers to patrol communities, asking them to stand during his speech for recognition.
He also announced the banning of some military equipment from use by local police departments. In cases where such equipment was necessary, the president said proper training would be required.
"We're going to prohibit some equipment made for the battlefield that is not appropriate for those police departments," Obama said.
The nation is paying large amounts of money to incarcerate people and not investing properly in education, to ensure that students have books and programs in schools, the president said.
As part of his visit, Obama toured the Real-Time Tactical Operational Intelligence Center at the Camden County Police Department Headquarters.
Earlier, it was announced that Obama would meet at some point Monday with Mayor Michael Nutter and other local officials in Philadelphia to thank them for their response to the Amtrak derailment last week. The president was not planning to visit the site of the derailment.
Camden's designation as a "Promise Zone" means it can leverage federal grants to increase economic opportunity, reduce crime and improve public health, Muñoz said. The president will talk about how such partnerships and community investments are a crucial part of creating opportunities for all Americans.
In addition, the city last month accepted the My Brother’s Keeper Community Challenge, a White House initiative to empower boys and young men of color.
Obama discussed how communities nationwide are starting to adopt the recommendations of his Task Force on 21st Century Policing and talk about new tools available to help cities build trust in their communities, including a blueprint for local law enforcement agencies nationwide and other tools, including a police data initiative, $163 million in community police grants and a tool kit to help local law enforcement agencies develop, implement and evaluate body cameras for their officers.
Camden and Philadelphia are two of 20 cities that have signed up for the police data initiative, committing to use data and technology in ways that enhance trust and reduce unnecessary uses of force. As part of the program, each local jurisdiction has agreed to open three police datasets not previously open to the public, Muñoz said.
President Obama listens to Camden County Police Chief Scott Thomson during a visit to the department's Real-Time Tactical Operational Intelligence Center. (Pablo Martinez Monsivais / AP)
Obama also announced plans to put in place new restrictions on the use of military equipment by police departments, following unrest in U.S. cities over the deaths of black men at the hands of police officers.
Obama banned police use of equipment such as explosive-resistant vehicles with tracked wheels like those seen on army tanks. For other types of equipment, such as MRAP (mine-resistant ambush protected) vehicles and riot shields, departments will have to provide added justification for their use.
The fatal shooting of unarmed teenager Michael Brown by a Ferguson, Missouri, police officer in August was followed by a string of highly publicized fatal encounters between police and black men, including Walter Scott who was shot by an officer while fleeing the scene of a traffic stop in North Charleston, South Carolina.
Last month, violent protests erupted in Baltimore after 25-year-old Freddie Gray died after sustaining spinal injuries while in police custody.
Protesters in Ferguson felt methods use by police to prevent demonstrations from turning violent were excessive, and the Justice Department has since launched a review of St. Louis County law enforcement's response to the unrest.
The turmoil in Ferguson and Baltimore also highlighted divisions between black and white Americans.
In a Reuters/Ipsos poll taken after the protests in Baltimore, 69 percent of respondents said America has a serious issue with race. Nearly three-quarters said there is more racism in the United States than the country is willing to admit.
In the aftermath of the Baltimore riots, Obama has been speaking out more about race, including in a speech in the Bronx on increasing opportunity for young minority men and during a panel discussion on poverty in Washington.
"Race issues have been more present over the past year for this country. We've seen, since Ferguson, issues that have been bubbling up in communities becoming much more present," said Rashad Robinson, executive director of colorofchange.org, a group that aims to strengthen the black community's political voice in America.
Robinson has met with Obama to discuss the issue.
Obama's remarks in Camden were the fourth time in as many weeks that he has held an event to discuss his ideas for improving life in poor black communities.
Obama, the country's first black president, has often been reticent to discuss race-related issues.
After the shooting of unarmed teenager Trayvon Martin by a volunteer neighborhood watchman in 2012, Obama discussed the issue in personal terms, saying that if he had a son, he would have looked like Martin.
In response to a question in 2009, Obama said he thought police in Cambridge, Massachusetts, had acted "stupidly" when they arrested Henry Louis Gates, an African-American Harvard professor who was mistaken for a burglar at his own home.
Obama faced a backlash from law enforcement groups who accused him of commenting before he knew all the details of the case. Obama later said he wished he had chosen his words more carefully and invited the professor and the police officer to the White House for a beer.
Michele Jawando, vice president for legal progress at the left-leaning Washington think tank Center for American Progress, said Obama faces a difficult balancing act on race.
"For a long time in this country we've had a hard time developing a narrative around poverty, around race, so when there are incidents like this that sit at the apex of both, different people are going to have different reactions to that," Jawando said.
The Reuters/Ipsos poll is measured with a credibility interval. In this case, the poll has a credibility interval of plus or minus 1.8 percentage points.
Reuters has contributed to this report.
