Wichita protest decries U.S. police killings as Obama calls them ‘serious problem’

The fatal police shootings of two black men in Louisiana and Minnesota show the U.S. has a “serious problem,” President Obama said Thursday. He said he shares feelings of “anger, frustration and grief” that police killings have triggered across the country.

In his first public reaction to the shootings, Obama said it is clear they were not isolated incidents, adding that the U.S. had “seen such tragedies far too many times.” He said all Americans should be “deeply troubled” by the deaths in Baton Rouge and suburban St. Paul.

“They are symptomatic of the broader challenges within our criminal justice system, the racial disparities that appear across the system year after year, and the resulting lack of trust that exists between law enforcement and too many of the communities they serve,” Obama wrote in a Facebook post.

Obama’s diagnosis of the problem reflected a growing sense of frustration and willingness to speak out publicly about police killings despite the risk of making law enforcement officers feel under attack.

“To admit we’ve got a serious problem in no way contradicts our respect and appreciation for the vast majority of police officers who put their lives on the line to protect us every single day,” Obama said. “It is to say that, as a nation, we can and must do better to institute the best practices that reduce the appearance or reality of racial bias in law enforcement.”

These kinds of deaths are not rare, with more than 500 people having been shot and killed by police so far this year, an average of nearly three per day, according to a Washington Post database tracking such shootings.

Fatal encounters with law enforcement have rocked cities across the country in recent years, with the protests that follow often fueled by longstanding unrest felt by residents uneasy with how they are policed.

Wichita protest

Djuan Wash, a community organizer, broke down in tears at a protest in Old Town Square late Thursday.

Wash, who has hosted many such protests for Sunflower, said he is tired of having to do so.

“I’ve spent a lot of time crying about this,” he said in reference to the fatal shootings. “This is something that has been devastating to me, and it’s outrageous.

“We are here to stand with the families in refusing to be quiet.”

A cadre of Wichita’s most prominent community organizers, including Wash, Mike Shatz, Brandon Johnson, Meko Haze, Danielle Johnson, Joseph Shepard, and state legislators including Sen. Oletha Faust-Goudeau and Rep. Gail Finney, were in attendance.

At its peak, the protest attracted about 100 to 150 people to the square.

Many of the speakers at the protest centered their message on electing legislators this fall that would reform the criminal justice system.

“The problems in this city, in this state are real and they are bad,” said Haze, who runs the website Dailyhaze.com. “It is not the worst in the country, but it is not the best by far. We have some serious issues, and Facebook posts and holding signs are no longer going to do this.”

Jondalyn Crosby, a local fitness instructor, canceled her regularly scheduled Thursday night session to bring her class to the protest.

She said standing up and making her voice heard was more important than any class they could have been in.

“It all starts with one candle lighting another and it just continues,” Crosby said. “There is no small, minute anything when it comes to justice. All it takes is that one person to make a big difference.”

Absent from the protest was any presence from the Wichita Police Department, aside from a patrol car parked nearby to keep the peace.

Faust-Goudeau said she met earlier Thursday with Wichita Police Chief Gordon Ramsey, who told her police representatives would not be in attendance.

“They plan to meet with African-American community leaders to still work together to build that bridge, that gap between police and the African-American community,” she said. “I’m looking forward to that.”

Minnesota shooting

As outrage mounted Thursday over the fatal shooting of Philando Castile, a black Minnesota man killed during a traffic stop, authorities in Minnesota turned to what has now become a familiar playbook: They expressed shock, offered condolences and vowed a thorough investigation.

Minnesota Gov. Mark Dayton said Thursday that he had spoken with Denis McDonough, the White House chief of staff, to personally request a federal investigation in addition to the state investigation. Dayton then went to an NAACP news conference to express his condolences to relatives of Castile, the 32-year-old driver who was killed.

“I can’t tell you how sorry I am that this is terrible tragedy forced upon your family,” Dayton said.

Diamond “Lavish” Reynolds, Castile’s girlfriend, responded: “I don’t want you guys to say you’re sorry. I want justice.”

Dayton, speaking over shouts of those assembled and before he left without taking questions, responded: “You will get justice. You deserve justice. You will get justice.”

While Dayton had asked the Justice Department to launch its own investigation, federal officials said that as of Thursday afternoon, they had not begun a separate probe and instead were ready to aid the state investigation.

“The Department of Justice will continue to monitor the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension investigation into the death of Philando Castile and stands ready to provide assistance to the Bureau as needed,” a spokesman for the department said. “The Department is prepared, as necessary, to conduct further investigation and consider this matter under applicable federal law.”

Protesters quickly gathered outside Dayton’s mansion in the hours after word of the shooting began to spread online, fueled by a live video stream Reynolds posted on her Facebook page showing the bloody aftermath of the traffic stop. In the feed, which had been viewed more than 4 million times by Thursday, Reynolds said that Castile had let the officer know he had a legal firearm and was reaching for his wallet then the officer opened fire.

Castile appeared to lose consciousness in the video while the St. Anthony, Minn., police officer is seen shouting in the background. “Ma’am, keep your hands where they are,” he yelled at Reynolds. “I told him not to reach for it! I told him to get his hands up.” In response, Reynolds said: “You told him to get his ID, sir, his driver’s license.”

On Thursday, Reynolds said the officer fired five times, and she added that authorities did not check Castile for a pulse and that it took 15 minutes for paramedics to arrive.

The fatal incident occurred in Falcon Heights, Minn., a small suburb in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area.

Louisiana shooting

Castile’s death came on the heels of another high-profile police shooting, in Baton Rouge, La., where a white officer killed a black man, Alton Sterling.

In both cases, cellphone video footage of the incident or its immediate aftermath quickly circulated on social media, fueling anger and protests over the police officers’ actions.

The Justice Department opened a civil rights investigation into the shooting of Sterling, who was killed by police during an altercation outside of a convenience store where he was selling CDs. Police say he was armed and an eyewitness said he had a gun in his pocket.

Sterling was a convicted felon, which would have barred him from legally carrying a gun, according to court records.

Cellphone video posted online set off angry protests in this city of about 229,000, where 54 percent of the population is black and more than 25 percent live in poverty.

A group of community and faith-based leaders called Together Baton Rouge asked the Justice Department on Thursday to widen the scope of its investigation, saying it should include possible criminal violations such as battery, assault with a deadly weapon, negligent homicide and manslaughter.

This story was originally published July 7, 2016 at 9:15 PM with the headline "Wichita protest decries U.S. police killings as Obama calls them ‘serious problem’."