a seat. i just wanted to come by to say thank you for being here and the extraordinary work that you do each and every day. i was a little bit delayed. some of you are aware there were shootings in germany. we don't yet know exactly what's happening there. obviously our hearts go out to those who may have been injured. it is still an active situation. and germany is one of our closest allies, so we're going to pledge all of the sport they may need in dealing with these circumstances. it is a good reminder of something that i've said over the last couple of weeks which is our way of life our freedoms and our ability to go about our business every day raising our kids and seeing them grow up and graduate from high school and

now about to leave their dad -- i'm sorry. i'm getting a little too personal. i'm getting a little too personal there. [laughter] president obama: that depends on law enforcement. it depends on the men and women in uniform every single day under some of the most adverse circumstances imaginable making sure to keep us safe. obviously we have gone through a really tough time these last couple of weeks. on a whole bunch of fronts. most recently i had the tough job of talking to the widows of those police officers killed in baton rouge. i know that for men and women in uniform, each loss like that is

like a loss in your own family. i want to come by and make sure that all of you knew how grateful the american people are for your service, how appreciative we are of your sacrifice. as a general proposition, you guys are not looking for the spotlight. you want to do your jobs and keep your communities safe, and you also want to come home to your own families at the end of a tough day. and for you to put yourself out like that is one of the greatest gifts that you could give your fellow citizens. our job is to support you in every day that we can. it is my -- sometimes this is a controversial view -- that one of the best ways to provides support to the police officers is to make sure that we are addressing potential underlying

tensions between officers in the communities where they are serving. that pretending sometimes those tensions aren't there is not going to make things better. but when we're able to bring people together and strengthen those bonds, then that's going to make the lives of police officers on a day-to-day basis just a little bit easier. and it is going to make our streets safer and it is going to create the kind of atmosphere whereby we continue to bring crime rates down to near historic levels. i made this point at a press conference yesterday. we're in political season. there's a lot of discussion. as disturbing as some of the upticks in crime that we've seen in some of our cities around the country, including my hometown

of chicago violent crime is substantially lower today than it was ten years ago, 20 years ago, or 30 years ago. over the last four or five years, we've seen violent crime rates that we haven't seen since the 1960's. that's not an accident. that's in part because police departments around the country have gotten really smart about preventing crime. and they are working with communities in all kinds of smart ways. we can build on that progress. it is going to do exactly what you are doing today and that is trying to figure out how to work together to ensure that our police departments and our communities are aligned in what we all want which is families that are safe, people abiding by

the law, making sure that our kids are growing up in an environment where they can go to school and get an education and get a job and raise families of their own without fearing that somehow they are going to be struck down by a bullet or harassed and pedaled drugs to by somebody who is in intend on breaking the law. so this is the fourth in a series of gatherings with law enforcement that we've organized just since june. it builds on the work that we did in our task force for 21st century policing. my hope is that it's been useful in gives you tools and best practices to give you a sense of how departments on the cutting edge are using data to train officers and engage with the communities. we are also hopefully hearing from you about what you've

learned in your experience works and doesn't work and where the federal government can partner with your departments and state and local law enforcement to do even better. the fact is there's policing being done every single day. we've seen them organize community panels and cookouts to bring officers together with civil rights leaders and young people. many of you, i'm sure, saw the viral videos of police saying basketball with kids or dancing the nay nay which, you know that was a brave officer that did that. there are a lot more examples that don't make their way to the twitter feed. i want to encourage you to look at the task force in way that is are tailored to your community

and needs. i also want you to look because our job really is as a convener. the federal government is not responsible for policing of our communities. we do have the ability to project best practices and let people share what they've seen that works. we do have good ideas about how to facilitate more discussions in your own communities. we are working with the departments about how to collect data and what we've learned with respect to training that can make police work safer and more effective. and part of the reason that i wanted to stop by here is invariably what happens is the media's attention shifts. you know, there's a tragedy and

a state of police officers down or shooting and it captures the media's attention. then suddenly two month's from now there's a different story. except in one of your apartments, somebody is getting shot. it doesn't warrant attention because it is not part of the narrative. what i promised those who were angry about minute and baton rouge, but i also promised the widows and families and children of folks in dallas and baton rouge was that this was something we need to care about all the time. this is something we're going to sustain. this is not a one off. you know, we're going to keep on at this.

progress is not always going to be as quick as we would like. there are going to be misunderstandings sometimes and there are going to be temptations for politics to fan the flames of division instead of trying to bring people together. but look i'm -- i'm only going to be president for six more months. but i'm a citizen who is going to depend on law enforcement for the rest of my life. we've got two daughters and hopefully way in the future some grandchildren who are going to depend on law enforcement. so i've got a big stake in this. and i'm going to make sure that i can do everything that i can to move this in a positive direction so that out of some heartbreaking tragedy we can look back five years from now, ten years from now, 15 years from now and say, you know what? we kept getting better. and police officers are honored

their communities are supporting them, they are safer, and those communities truly recognize they are being served and protected by the men and women in blue. thank you very much, everybody. god bless you.

[inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations]

president obama: i can't take selfies. i'd never get out of here. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] president obama: thank you everybody. god bless you. [applause] >> c-span's "washington journal" live every day with news and policy issues that impact you.

coming up this morning elizabethtown college associate profession, kyle kopko, to discuss the elections and the impact of election victories. and poll numbers as hillary clinton announced her running mate. they will also discuss the final nomination before the convention in philadelphia. be sure to watch "washington journal" live at 7:00 a.m. eastern. join the discussion. this sunday night on "q & a" jean edward smith on his biography of george w. bush. >> maybe bush's worst fault is

the fact that he's a born-again christian who brings the ideology into the presidency. he believes that he was god's agent here on earth to fight evil. bush called the president of france on the telephone, trying to get france to join in the attack. during the course of the conversation he told the president that we're fighting gogenmegog. now creatures in the new testament, that's the center of the universe for many evangelicals and fundamentalist christians, and bush generally believed that. bush