Obama Pushes More Federal Oversight of Cops After Dallas Attack on Cops

President Barack Obama is harnessing the increasing attacks on police — and the periodic shootings of people by stressed cops — to push his agenda to federalize state and local police forces.

“I want to start moving on constructive actions that are actually going to make a difference,” he said during his evening press conference in Poland when he was asked about the Dallas attack.

Those actions, he said, would be based on the recommendations of the panel that he picked after the 2014 street riots in Ferguson, Missouri. The panel offered “practical concrete solutions that can reduce — if not eliminate — the problems of racial bias,” Obama said.

The dramatic shootings are an opportunity to push that agenda, Obama said. “If my voice has been true and positive, my hope would be that… [the panel] surfaces problems, it frames them, it allows us to wrestle with these issue and try to come up with practical solutions,” he said.

Obama began touting the panel’s recommendations in March 2015. The report, titled “President’s Task Force on 21st Century Policing Report,” was published in May 2015.

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