Obama urges Americans not to despair over divisions after 'painful' week

WARSAW/DALLAS: President Barack Obama, seeking to soothe raw emotions after a former US soldier killed five policemen in Dallas and high-profile police shootings of two black men in Minnesota and Louisiana, has urged Americans not to view the United States as being riven into opposing groups.

"First of all, as painful as this week has been, I firmly believe that America is not as divided as some have suggested," Obama, who will cut short his European trip on Sunday to visit Dallas, told a weekend news conference in Warsaw.



"When we start suggesting that somehow there's this enormous polarization, and we're back to the situation in the '60s, that's just not true," Obama added. "You're not seeing riots, and you're not seeing police going after people who are protesting peacefully."

Authorities named former US Army Reserve soldier Micah Johnson, a 25-year-old African-American, as the lone gunman in Thursday night's sniper attack in Dallas, which came at the end of a march by hundreds of demonstrators decrying the fatal police shootings of black men days earlier.

Officials said Johnson had embraced militant black nationalism and expressed anger over shootings by police as well as a desire to "kill white people, especially white officers."

Dallas remained on edge on Saturday, with police headquarters and surrounding blocks cordoned off and SWAT teams deployed after police received an anonymous threat against officers across the city. Police searched a headquarters parking garage for a "suspicious person" but no suspect was found.



Thursday's deadly rally in Dallas followed the fatal police shootings of Philando Castile, 32, near St. Paul, Minnesota, on Wednesday, and Alton Sterling, 37, in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, on Tuesday.

Obama said "Americans of all races and all backgrounds are rightly outraged by the inexcusable attacks on police, whether it's in Dallas or any place else."

He added they also are rightly saddened and angered about the deaths of Sterling and Castile, and about "the larger, persistent problem of African-Americans and Latinos being treated differently in our criminal justice system."

Obama, the first black US president whose term in office ends next January, said he hopes he has been able to get all Americans to understand the nation's difficult legacy of race.

Obama said Americans cannot let the actions of a few define all.