President Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder on Friday sharply criticized law enforcement in Ferguson. Holder said he was willing to dismantle the city’s police department.
President Obama listens to a question during a town-hall meeting at Benedict College on Friday.
Carolyn Kaster / AP
Obama made the comments while in South Carolina en route to Selma, Alabama. When asked about the Department of Justice report on Ferguson, he replied that the courts and police were not only abusive but "systematically was biased against African Americans."
He also said that what happened in Ferguson is "not a complete aberration."
"And one of the things that I think frustrated the people of Ferguson, in addition to the specific case of Michael Brown, was this sense of, you know what, we've been putting up for this for years, and now when we start talking about it, everybody is pretending like it's just our imaginations, like we're just paranoid, we're just making this stuff up," Obama said.
He added that it was "striking" that much of the evidence in the DOJ report actually came from Ferguson officials' own emails.
Attorney General Eric Holder arrives Andrews Air Force Base Friday.
Jose Luis Magana / AP
