Barack Obama has said the shootings of two police officers in Ferguson, Missouri, were “criminal acts”. The president said whoever carried out the shootings, outside the city’s police headquarters early Thursday morning, “need to be arrested”.
The president was appearing on a late-night talkshow, Jimmy Kimmel Live, on Thursday.
“What had been happening in Ferguson was oppressive and objectionable and was worthy of protest,” he said, referring to demonstrations over the shooting of Michael Brown, an unarmed 18-year-old, by a white police officer last year, subsequent protests and a damning US Justice Department report on the city’s government and policing.
“But there was no excuse for criminal acts,” Obama said. “And whoever fired those shots shouldn’t detract from the issue. They’re criminals, they need to be arrested.
“And then what we need to do is make sure that like-minded, good-spirited people on both sides – law enforcement, who have a terrifically tough job, and people who understandably don’t want to be stopped and harassed just because of their race – that they are able to work together to come up with some good answers.”
Earlier on Thursday, Rudy Giuliani, the former Republican mayor of New York who has been a persistent critic of the president’s expressions of sympathy for protesters against perceived police brutality, said Obama was to blame for the latest shootings in Ferguson.
“It’s the tone that’s set by the president,” Giuliani said, adding that it was “the obligation of the president … to explain to the American people and the world that our police are the best in the world; they are the most trained; they are the most restrained”.
Giuliani also called the shooting of Brown by officer Darren Wilson – who has not been charged – “a justifiable homicide”.
The two Ferguson officers who were shot were released from hospital on Thursday. One was shot in the shoulder; the other still had a bullet lodged beneath his ear.
Police investigations continued after a raid on a house early on Thursday in which three people were arrested but later released. Unconfirmed reports said new suspects had been identified. Ferguson remained calm overnight.
“There is a sense of unease, a sense of nervousness among the officers,” Lieutenant Gerald Lohr, St Louis County police’s commander for the night, told the Guardian. “They’re all human. They all have wives and children to go home to. The fact that two officers got shot puts everyone at unease. But the expectation is that they’ll be professional. It’s not personal.”
Michael Makin, a 19-year-old protester, said: “I hate that it happened. It could just make us all look bad. But no matter what happens, we have got to keep the movement going, keep it positive and make changes for the better. We can’t let youth go to waste.”
After taping his appearance on Jimmy Kimmel Live, Obama attended a Democratic National Committee fundraising evening in Santa Monica, California.
