Politics

Dem Urges Cops To Learn ‘Way Of Peace’ In Wake Of Dallas Shooting

REUTERS/Larry Downing

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Juliegrace Brufke Capitol Hill Reporter
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Just hours after five Dallas cops were shot dead, the Congressional Black Caucus held a presser on violence against black men, in which Georgia Democrat Rep. John Lewis said law enforcement officials need to learn “a way of nonviolence.”

“There needs to be greater training of law enforcement, and sometimes I feel that maybe not only those of us that engage in nonviolent protests, but police officers need to be taught a way of peace, a way of love, a way of nonviolence,” he told reporters at the event Friday. “To respect the dignity and worth of every human being – that is what we are taught to do. We’ve been arrested, jailed and beaten – we didn’t fight back.”

Dallas police officers said Thursday one of the shooting suspects told police he was “upset about Black Lives Matter” and “wanted to kill white people,” especially white police officers. Snipers ambushed the police during a Black Lives Matter protest, killing five and wounding seven others.

Democrats have been pushing for the House to vote on a gun-control measure – having staged an unprecedented sit-in protest on the House floor when the GOP wouldn’t bring a measure that failed in committee to the floor – in the wake of the shooting in Orlando, Fla., killing 49 people in a gay night club in June.

“We have too many guns, there’s been too many problems, and we must act,” Lewis said.

Louisiana Rep. Cedric Richmond slammed GOP leadership for failing to get behind the gun control bills.

“When we look at this Congress we can do nothing but conclude that they are co-conspirators in the devaluation of the lives of men and women of color,” he said at the press conference. “The systematic devaluation from mass incarceration to the lack of investment in communities, so that we have little faith or concern about their futures.”

Richmond went on to say that he has called on the chairman of the Judiciary Committee to call a hearing on the use of deadly force because “we thought this country was at a tipping point where our young people were so frustrated, so angry and had not seen any action while their friends and family are mowed down in the streets, that that frustration was at a tipping point.”

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