“Everything you say matters,” Patrick said to Obama at the town hall. “I would ask you to be careful not to be too quick to condemn the police without due process or until the facts are known.” Obama gave a long and layered response in which he reiterated his pain at recent events and emphasized how much he stands behind police and all law enforcement in the United States. This president has regularly had to attend funerals, memorials, and ceremonies for fallen officers, often forced to address a country that has woken up to fresh violence.

“Some are trying to use this moment to divide police and the communities you serve,” Obama wrote in the two-page document that was distributed to all law-enforcement personnel in the country. “I reject those efforts, for they do not reflect the reality of our nation.” He offered “full-throated support” and assured officers that “we proclaim loudly our appreciation for the acts of service you perform.”

It is possible that this kind of rebuttal might only be expected from Obama—a president who has endured race-based attacks and who, some claim, could lead the country to become “post-racial.” But as Obama has often repeated, he is president of the whole country, a point he makes in his letter. “Any attack on police is an unjustified attack on all of us,” he said. “You remind us that loving our country means loving one another.”

The letter is a call for unity and support for law enforcement. But that a sitting president felt he needed to say this, and to defend his support for the police, is itself a suggestion that the country is deeply divided.

This article is part of our Next America: Criminal Justice project, which is supported by a grant from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.

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