President Obama Expresses Uncertainty About Dallas Shooter’s Motives [Video]


President Obama is apparently unsure what specifically motivated the perpetrator of the Dallas police shootings.

During the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) Summit in Warsaw, Obama remarked that it is difficult “to untangle” what caused the sniper attack in downtown Dallas on July 7 that took the lives of five Dallas police officers and injured several others.

Obama has now left Warsaw and is heading to Madrid, Spain, to meet with the country’s recently reelected prime minister. He is apparently cutting the trip short, however, to return to the U.S. Sunday night as a result of recent events here. According to the Washington Post, NATO members have agreed to launch a “new joint intelligence and security division.”

Invited by the Mayor Mike Rawlings, Obama plans to travel to Dallas early next week after which he will convene a meeting at the White House with police officers and community leaders to find common ground.

Parenthetically, in November, Rawlings made headlines when he declared that he was more fearful of white males with guns than Syrian refugees.

In the Warsaw press conference, a reporter asked the president how he would describe the shooter’s motives in a way that might help America process what happened in Dallas on Thursday night. Was it domestic terrorism, a hate crime, or a mentally ill gunman, the journalist wondered. She also raised a question about Obama’s immediate default to the gun control agenda.

President Obama avoided characterizing the shooter’s motivations, however.

“It’s very hard to untangle the motives of this shooter…as we have seen with a whole range of incidents with mass shooters, they are by definition troubled…what triggers that what feeds it, what sets it off, I’ll leave that to psychologists and people who study these kinds of incidents.”

Among other things, the president also extolled the professionalism of the Dallas police force in the crisis.

In a Friday morning briefing, Dallas Police Chief David O. Brown explained that the shooter revealed his intentions during a standoff with police negotiators after cops cornered the suspect in a downtown Dallas parking garage.

“He was upset about Black Lives Matter. He said he was upset about the recent police shootings. The suspect said he was upset at white people. The suspect stated he wanted to kill white people, especially white officers.”

In a previous press availability in Warsaw the day before, President Obama described the police ambush as a “vicious, calculated, and despicable attack on law enforcement.”

On Friday, Attorney General Loretta Lynch told police officials “in the 45-minute meeting that a hate crime investigation would be on the table if more suspects are discovered,” Yahoo News detailed.

Cops found an arsenal of weapons in the suspect’s Dallas-area home. Three other persons who may or may not be involved in the shootings are reportedly in police custody.

“Officials said they had found no evidence that the gunman, Micah Johnson, 25, had direct ties to any protest or political group, either peaceful or violent, but his Facebook page showed that he supported the New Black Panther Party, a group that has advocated violence against whites, and Jews in particular,” the New York Times reported.

In the aftermath of the terrorist attack on the Pulse nightclub in Orlando on June 12 where 49 patrons were killed by a man who allegedly swore allegiance to ISIS, AG Lynch theorized that the shooter’s motivation or motivations may never be narrowed down to once cause. “This was clearly an act of terror and an act of hate,” she added.

As the Inquisitr separately reported today, three psychologists apparently suggest that fear, isolation, and a need for control seem to be the unholy trinity of all modern ills that could lead to police shootings and terrorist attacks.

In addition to calls for more gun control regulations, Breitbart News claims that the Obama administration will step up efforts to federalize local and state police agencies in the aftermath of the Dallas police shootings as well as the recent police shootings of civilians in Louisiana and Minnesota.

[Photo by Susan Walsh/AP]

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