Obama stressed the need to build "trust between police officers and departments in the communities that they serve.” | Getty Obama huddles with top law enforcement aides on policing

CLEVELAND — President Barack Obama met with his top law enforcement aides at the White House to discuss more ways to help police on Tuesday evening, even as Republicans continued attacking the president for stoking tensions over policing.

The Oval Office meeting wrapped up just as news broke that an officer had been shot and succumbed to his wounds in Kansas City. It also followed an open letter Obama penned to police forces on Monday in which the president sought to bolster his support for law enforcement after several days of criticism that his responses to the attacks on police in Dallas and Baton Rouge were insufficient.


“I strongly believe that there is no contradiction between us protecting our officers, honoring our officers, making sure that they have all the tools they need to do their job safely, and building trust between police officers and departments in the communities that they serve,” Obama told reporters at the end of the private meeting on Tuesday. “In fact, those things are complementary and not contradictory.”

The meeting included Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson, Attorney General Loretta Lynch, FBI Director James Comey and White House Counsel Neil Eggleston.

But Republicans continued their rhetorical assault on Obama. “He blamed the police” for the latest round of violence, said Sen. Jeff Sessions in remarks formally nominating Donald Trump for the Republican presidential nomination on Tuesday night.

“Tensions have been very high, and I blame the president. He has the bully pulpit,” said Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick. In an interview with POLITICO in Cleveland on Tuesday, the Republican repeated his call for Obama to light the White House in blue to commemorate police. “Eight police officers killed in two weeks and he won’t turn on the blue lights.”

Patrick added, “It’s the president being stubborn, and while he’s being stubborn, people are getting killed, and the public is very concerned.”

Obama said on Tuesday, as he has before, that he wants the federal government to do more to help the 18,000 law enforcement agencies around the country to work together. And he acknowledged that local departments don’t have enough money to provide things like bullet-proof vests for their entire forces.

“My intention over the next several months, as long as I'm in this office, is to continue to look at best practices, figure out what’s working well; listen to our police departments in how we can help them; engage the community; build up trust. What kind of equipment do they need? What kind of training do they need? What kind of recruitment strategies do they need? And then to do everything we can to convene all parties concerned, including Congress, to make sure that they can get those resources,” Obama said.

Obama has been meeting with activists and police officials in the wake of not only the attacks on police, but the deaths of two black men at the hands of police earlier this month. Obama has frequently spoken of racial disparities in the criminal justice system, and his administration has driven a sweeping effort intended to improve community policing. But rank-and-file officers have bristled at his messages, and his perceived slights of the police have become a major theme of the Republican National Convention.

Even as Obama has worked to offer unequivocal support to police, they’ve also asked him to take specific steps. The National Sheriffs' Association and the Fraternal Order of Police have called on him to reconsider the administration’s new restrictions on military equipment for local police, for example. While the White House has been noncommittal on that front, Obama said Tuesday that over the past few weeks, there have been “much more constructive conversations and the offering up of very concrete recommendations and suggestions for how we can do better.”

Obama concluded, “This is not going to be something we can do just from this office, or from the Department of Justice or the Department of Homeland Security. This is something that is going to have to be bottom-up.”