Obama calls for changes in police policies

WASHINGTON — Former President Obama, weighing in amid the national wave of racial tension and protest against police brutality, urged the nation’s mayors Wednesday to review police use-of-force policies and make other reforms to combat racism.

Citing the “epic changes and events” of the last week, Obama said the protests in dozens of cities following the death of a black man at the hands of Minneapolis police could represent “an incredible opportunity for people to be awakened” to the problems of systemic racism.

“This is a moment — and we’ve had moments like this before — where people are paying attention,” Obama said at a virtual town hall on police reform hosted by My Brother’s Keeper Alliance, a nonprofit group he established to help young black men. “The fact that people are paying attention is an opportunity to educate and mobilize.”

His speech on police reform was part of a broader effort by the former president to play an increasingly public role in policy debates and the Democrats’ critique of President Trump.

Obama was remarkably upbeat Wednesday given the three colliding crises that have had the biggest impact in minority communities — the disproportionate number of deaths and the related economic calamity spawned by the COVID-19 pandemic as well as police violence.

He said he was encouraged by the activism of young people, noting that young Americans historically have led major labor, civil rights and environmental reform movements. “It makes me feel as if this country’s going to get better,” he said.

Obama also said he saw signs of social progress in the differences between the largely black civil rights protests of the 1960s and those of the last week, which showed far more racial diversity.

The current protests show a “far more representative cross-section of America out on the streets peacefully protesting and who felt moved to do something,” he said.

Obama said that demonstrations were an important element of achieving police reform despite institutional resistance. “If you don’t have the political pressure to do it, they will resist,” he said.

He urged the nation’s mayors to commit to a review of policies governing use of force by their police, which has been spotlighted by the case of George Floyd, who died after an officer pinned him down by pressing his knee on his neck for nearly nine minutes.