Barack Obama Quotes

The kind of violence, looting, destruction that we saw from a handful of individuals in Baltimore, there's no excuse for that. That's not a statement. That's not politics. That's not activism. That's just criminal behavior.

We have to face it: in America today the way to have fun and celebrate is to break a store window and take something. That's the way it is, today in America, and we have to accept it.

Shoot to maim or cripple anyone looting any stores in our city.

There is no American right to loot stores, or to burn buildings, or to fire rifles from the rooftops. That is crime—and crime must be dealt with forcefully and swiftly, and certainly—under law.

Peaceful demonstrations are essential to our democratic system. Unfortunately, some individuals have engaged in unlawful and dangerous activity, including arson, rioting, looting, and damaging public and private property.

Let me completely condemn these sickening scenes; scenes of looting, scenes of vandalism, scenes of thieving, scenes of people attacking police, of people even attacking firefighters. This is criminality pure and simple and it has to be confronted.

We should get inside, beat up the police and bust up the whole building. Where are your guns and bombs?

A rioter with a Molotov cocktail in his hands is not fighting for civil rights any more than a Klansman with a sheet on his back and mask on his face. They are lawbreakers, destroyers of constitutional rights and liberties and ultimately destroyers of a free America.

I just think it's really upsetting when you see a community just go out and burn down stores and trash cars.

I am deeply worried because we are seeing an unleashing of violence by 2,000 to 3,000 thugs who come to smash and loot. My objective is to avoid mistakes by the police, so that people can protest in safety.

(The city is being) destroyed by thugs who in a very senseless way are trying to tear down what so many have fought for, tearing down businesses, tearing down or destroying property, things that we know will impact our community for years.

I urge the citizens of Ferguson who have been peacefully exercising their First Amendment rights to join with law enforcement in condemning the actions of looters, vandals and others seeking to inflame tensions and sow discord.

I could see flames from the windows of my chambers. For the next three or four days we had major rioting here in Washington and I stayed at the court day and night.

When anarchy is declared, the first thing we do, let's kill all the anarchists.

I wouldn't have expected an audience of ours to burn down our equipment.

This administration and the people of Chicago have never condoned brutality at any time, but they will never permit a lawless violent group of terrorists to menace the lives of millions of people, destroy the purpose of this national political convention, and take over the streets of Chicago.

They [the Mormons] have plundered or robbed and burned every house in Gallatin, our county seat, among the rest our Post Office, have driven almost every individual from the county, who are now flying before them with their families, many of whom have been forced out without necessary clothing, their wives and little children wading in many instances through the snow without a shoe. When the miserable families are then forced out, their houses are plundered and then burned. They are making this universal throughout the county. They have burned for me two houses and, sir, think this not exaggeration, for all is not told. And for the truth of all and every statement here made, I pledge the honor of an officer & gentleman.

Guerrilla parties are making dreadful slaughter upon the Union men in Missouri and stealing and destroying their property... The entire route across the State... bears the marks of the ravages of war... Anarchy reigns in Missouri.

Let us not be carried away by the undisguised agitations of leaders who virtually asked people to take the law into their own hands.

Looting is a natural response to the unnatural and inhuman society of commodity abundance. It instantly undermines the commodity as such, and it also exposes what the commodity ultimately implies: the army, the police and the other specialized detachments of the state's monopoly of armed violence.

Riot – A popular entertainment given to the military by innocent bystanders.

Those who don't build must burn. It's as old as history and juvenile delinquents.

I see you've destroyed another police vehicle. Perhaps you now hold the record.

The more laws and orders are multiplied, the more theft and violence increase.

When the thing is finally sparked, the white man is not there - he's gone. The merchant is not there, the landlord is not there, the one they consider to be the enemy isn't there. So, they knock at his property. This is what makes them knock down the store windows and set fire to things, and things of that sort.