Barack Obama Quotes

Law enforcement must be guardians in our communities, not warriors against our own people.

We have greater awareness of where we're falling short than we used to. Just take the example of community police relations.

Here's what I learned as a mayor and a governor. The way you make communities safer and the way you make police safer is through community policing. You build the bonds between the community and the police force, build bonds of understanding, and then when people feel comfortable in their communities, that gap between the police and the communities they serve narrows. And when that gap narrows, it's safer for the communities and it's safer for the police.

We have to have a national conversation about how police forces should interact with the African-American community, who happens to be paying their salary, who want to be served and protected, who these officers are take an oath to do so.

I want to foster a positive relationship between police officers and the communities they protect.

At a policy level, we can support protecting and serving as opposed to militarization or disproportionate response. Step one is making sure we don't militarize and actually call for a review of military equipment in New York police forces.

We can't pick out certain incidentals that don't go our way and act like the cops are all bad... Do you know how bad some of these neighborhoods would be if it wasn't for the cops?

Cops should not be separate from the black community or any community. Their salaries are paid for by the communities they police. They should be working for the communities they police. But as we saw in Ferguson, Missouri, they are not always doing that.

We have to restore trust between communities and the police.

We have to bring back respect to law enforcement.

We have to work with the police. We have to make sure they respect the communities and the communities respect them.

We need to rebuild bonds of trust between our police officers and our communities.

At a time when we must seek to rebuild trust between law enforcement and the local community, I am deeply concerned that the deployment of military equipment and vehicles sends a conflicting message.

I think we're all safer when the police respect the communities they're supposed to serve, and the communities respect the law.

Community policing is a great idea. It's worked in the Hoosier state.

We need to support our police officers and make sure that community policing becomes something that becomes the standard across the country.

The police belongs to the people and the people belong to the police.

As mayor, I would support law enforcement, not knock it down.

What we need in our countries is a good police force with a civilian mentality and some cheap light arms, not an army that needs to maintain its power with sophisticated weapons

There is a necessity for police offers to control themselves as well as the people in the streets... Our police are there to help people, not to hurt people.

We are safer when communities respect the police and the police respect the communities.

Having the support of our communities is absolutely essential to productive and sustainable crime prevention efforts. While there are law enforcement agencies that have meaningful and transparent relationships with all segments of their communities, it is fair to say that there are other agencies that need to further enhance relationships and build trust within their communities, particularly among disenfranchised segments.

We must transform the relationship between police and the communities they serve.

There is a legitimate role for the police to keep the peace, but there should be a difference between a police response and a military response.

Our neighborhoods are safer when there is trust between communities and the police who are in charge of protecting them.