AP fact check: Donald Trump’s made-up claims on shootings, tariffs
Playing defense, President Donald Trump made up facts in the aftermath of two mass shootings and as U.S. businesses braced for a potentially devastating trade war with China. Trump distorted science in seeking to assign blame on video games for the deadly shootings in Texas and Ohio, rather than on his own words that critics say contributed to a combustible racial climate spawning violence. He also pointed to an imminent magic solution in the form of legislation on background checks that was far from certain and misrepresented his record on gun control. On trade, Trump repeatedly exaggerated the benefits of tariffs and sought unfairly to fault the Federal Reserve — not his own policies — for any weakness in the U.S. economy. Trump says he will impose new taxes on hundreds of billions of dollars of Chinese imports on Sept. 1 that are almost certain to inflict pain on American consumers. Meanwhile, former Vice President Joe Biden claimed Trump did nothing on gun control, but in fact Trump banned bump stocks, a gun attachment deemed legal during the Obama-Biden administration. A look at recent claims and reality: TRADE TRUMP: “China wants to make a deal so badly. Thousands of companies are leaving because of the Tariffs, they must stem the flow.” — tweet Saturday. TRUMP: “China is losing so many — they’re losing — thousands and thousands of companies are leaving China now because of the tariffs.” — remarks to reporters Wednesday. THE FACTS: Not so fast. It’s true that many companies are rethinking their supply chains in an effort to dodge Trump’s tariffs on goods from China. Some are moving production to other countries such as Vietnam and Mexico. But there’s no evidence of a mass exodus. For one thing, relocating factories takes time — often 12 to 18 months. For another, it will be hard for multinationals to duplicate what they have in China — long-standing relationships with Chinese contractors and access to a vast array of specialized suppliers who can quickly deliver niche components. Trump is seeking to intensify pressure on China to reach a trade deal by saying he will impose 10% tariffs on the remaining $300 billion in Chinese imports he hasn’t already taxed. TRUMP: “China dropped the price of their currency to an almost a historic low. It’s called ‘currency manipulation.’ Are you listening Federal Reserve? This is a major violation which will greatly weaken China over time!” — tweet on Aug. 5. TRUMP: “China is intent on continuing to receive the hundreds of Billions of Dollars they have been taking from the U.S. with unfair trade practices and currency manipulation. So one-sided, it should have been stopped many years ago!” — tweet on Aug. 5. THE FACTS: He’s misrepresenting the facts. Trump is correct to be worried that China may decide to use its currency as a weapon in its ongoing trade war with the United States. But it is Trump’s own Treasury Department that had failed to cite China as a currency manipulator in five reports it had issued since Trump took office in January 2017, even though Trump promised in the 2016 campaign to do so right away. Treasury’s surprise move to formally label China a currency manipulator last Monday came after China allowed its currency, the yuan, to fall below the seven yuan-to-$1 level for the first time in 11 years. In the following days, China continued to lower the trading range for the yuan, showing the potential to use its currency as a weapon in the trade war with the United States. A weaker yuan would make Chinese goods less expensive in the United States, potentially offsetting some of the impact of the tariffs Trump has already imposed on $250 billion in Chinese goods and is threatening to widen to an additional $300 billion in goods next month. Those U.S. tariffs drive up the cost of Chinese imports to American consumers. Trump appeared to blame the Federal Reserve for not taking action against China in the currency area. In reality, the Treasury’s previous reports had repeatedly said that China did not meet the requirements established in U.S. law to be branded a currency manipulator. Under U.S. law, the Federal Reserve plays no role in deciding whether countries are unfairly manipulating their currencies. In its announcement, the Treasury Department contended that the real purpose of “China’s currency devaluation is to gain unfair competitive advantage in international trade.” It was the first time Treasury put China on the currency blacklist since 1994. The administration’s surprise announcement raised questions about what exactly had changed from the Treasury’s last report issued in May that said China did not meet the criteria to be labeled a currency manipulator. FEDERAL RESERVE TRUMP: “As your President, one would think that I would be thrilled with our very strong dollar. I am not!” — tweet Thursday. TRUMP: “The Fed’s high interest rate level, in comparison to other countries, is keeping the dollar high, making it more difficult for our great manufacturers like Caterpillar, Boeing …. John Deere, our car companies, & others, to compete on a level playing field. With substantial Fed Cuts (there is no inflation) and no quantitative tightening, the dollar will make it possible for our companies to win against competition.” — tweet Thursday. THE FACTS: The president is oversimplifying the Fed’s role in determining the dollar’s value and failing to take into account possible threats to the country from a weaker dollar. Trump is correct that U.S. interest rates play a role in determining the value of the dollar against other currencies. Higher U.S. rates tend to attract foreign investors who want to earn higher rates of return on dollar-denominated investments and this does push the dollar’s value higher. The Fed cut its key short-term rate by a quarter-point last week, its first reduction in more than a decade. But the Fed’s action in setting its short-term rate is only one factor influencing the dollar’s value. U.S. economic growth also plays a
Randall Woodfin responds to Bimingham weekend shootings: ‘we must double down’
Birmingham Mayor Randall Woodfin released a statement on Monday regarding several acts of violence against teenagers in Birmingham over the Labor day weekend. “We as a city must wrap our arms around our children,” Woodfin said in the statement. “We must double down on conflict resolution efforts for our youth. If they won’t come to us, we must go to them. Relationships matter. We must all take responsibility for being the source of wisdom, guidance, restraint and compassion that our children need. Accountability is what will heal our city.” 16-year old William Edwards, a junior at Woodlawn High School, and captain of the school’s football team was shot and killed from outside his east Birmingham home on Saturday. According to AL.com, the Birmingham Police have no suspect information. On Sunday night, seven teenagers were shot and injured outside Workplay, of one of Birmingham’s many music venues. Lady Woo, a local radio host told WBRC that the scene outside the venue sounded like a “war zone,” and the she wasn’t shocked by the violence. “In a perfect world, you would love to be able to party and enjoy life with young people and show them how you can have a good time, and not really be violent, and not have any issues. But once we got out here, it brought everything to the forefront of what we face now. We face a lot of division, no self control, no respect, nothing. It was just like a war zone,” Woo continued. Read Woodfin’s full statement below: This past weekend, Birmingham was stricken by violence against young people. The death of William Edwards in North East Lake and the seven young people injured by violence at WorkPlay are a devastating blow to our community. Our law enforcement officers have been dedicated in their response, but as a city we must realize that this goes deeper than arrests. We as a city must wrap our arms around our children. We must double down on conflict resolution efforts for our youth. If they won’t come to us, we must go to them. Relationships matter. We must all take responsibility for being the source of wisdom, guidance, restraint and compassion that our children need. Accountability is what will heal our city. Lives were changed this past weekend, and those lives are too valuable – too precious – to be labeled as statistics. No longer can we grieve and then go about our days – not when the lives of our neighbors have been changed forever. Know that your mayor and law enforcement are working fervently for a safer Birmingham, but we cannot do it alone. I ask that you – parents, family members, mentors, community leaders and friends – connect with the young people in your lives. Listen to them. Help them. Let them know that their life matters. Only then can healing begin.
FBI reviews handling of terrorism-related tips
The FBI has been reviewing the handling of thousands of terrorism-related tips and leads from the past three years to make sure they were properly investigated and no obvious red flags were missed, The Associated Press has learned. The review follows attacks by people who were once on the FBI’s radar but who have been accused in the past 12 months of massacring innocents in an Orlando, Florida, nightclub, injuring people on the streets of New York City, and gunning down travelers in a Florida airport. In each case, the suspects had been determined not to warrant continued law enforcement scrutiny months and sometimes years before the attacks. The internal audit, which has not been previously reported, began this year and is being conducted in FBI field offices across the country. A senior federal law enforcement official described the review as an effort to “err on the side of caution.” The audit is essentially a review of records to ensure proper FBI procedures were followed. It’s an acknowledgment of the challenge the FBI has faced, particularly in recent years, in predicting which of the tens of thousands of tips the bureau receives annually might materialize one day into a viable threat. Investigations that go dormant because of a lack of evidence can resurface instantly when a subject once under scrutiny commits violence or displays fresh signs of radicalization. FBI Director James Comey has likened the difficulty to finding not only a needle in a haystack but determining which piece of hay may become a needle. Though there’s no indication of significant flaws in how terrorism inquiries are opened and closed, the review is a way for the FBI to “refine and adapt to the threat, and part of that is always making sure you cover your bases,” said the law enforcement official, who was not authorized to discuss the matter by name. The pace of the FBI’s counterterrorism work accelerated with the rise of the Islamic State group, which in 2014 declared the creation of its so-called caliphate in Syria and Iraq and has used sophisticated propaganda to lure disaffected Westerners to its cause. By the summer of 2015, Comey has said, the FBI was “strapped” in keeping tabs on the group’s American sympathizers and identifying those most inclined to commit violence. Social media outreach by IS has appealed to people not previously known to the FBI but also enticed some who once had been under scrutiny to get “back in the game,” said Seamus Hughes, deputy director of George Washington University’s Program on Extremism. “The fact that there was a physical location and a caliphate announced, it helped kind of drive folks back in when they might have drifted away,” Hughes said. The review covers inquiries the FBI internally classifies as “assessments” — the lowest level, least intrusive and most elementary stage of a terror-related inquiry — and is examining ones from the past three years to make sure all appropriate investigative avenues were followed, according to a former federal law enforcement official who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the process. Assessments are routinely opened upon a tip — whether from someone concerned about things such as activity in a neighbor’s garage, a co-worker’s comments or expressions of support for IS propaganda — and are catalogued by the FBI. The bureau receives tens of thousands of tips a year, and averages more than 10,000 assessments annually. FBI guidelines meant to balance national security with civil liberties protections impose restrictions on the steps agents may take during the assessment phase. Agents, for instance, may analyze information from government databases and open-source internet searches, and can conduct interviews. But they cannot turn to more intrusive techniques, such as requesting a wiretap or internet communications, without higher levels of approval and a more solid basis to suspect a crime or national security threat. The guidelines explicitly discourage open-ended inquiries and say assessments are designed to be “relatively short,” with a supervisor signing off on extension requests. Many assessments are closed within days or weeks when the FBI concludes there’s no criminal or national security threat, or basis for continued scrutiny. The system is meant to ensure that a person who has not broken the law does not remain under perpetual scrutiny on a mere hunch that a crime could eventually be committed. But on occasion, and within the past year, it’s also meant that people the FBI once looked at but did not find reason to arrest later went on to commit violence. In the case of Omar Mateen, that scrutiny was extensive, detailed and lengthy. Mateen, who shot and killed 49 people at an Orlando nightclub in June, was investigated for 10 months in 2013 and interviewed twice after a co-worker reported that Mateen had claimed connections to al-Qaida. As part of a preliminary investigation, agents recorded Mateen’s conversations and introduced him to confidential sources before closing the matter. That kind of investigation is more intensive than an assessment and permits a broader menu of tactics, but it also requires a stronger basis for suspicion. Mateen was questioned again in 2014 in a separate investigation into a suicide bomber acquaintance. Comey has said he has personally reviewed that inquiry’s handling and has concluded it was done well. The FBI in 2014 also opened an assessment on Ahmad Khan Rahimi, who last September was charged in bombings in Manhattan and New Jersey, based on concerns expressed by his father. The FBI said it closed the review after checking databases and travel and finding nothing that tied him to terrorism. Esteban Santiago, the man accused in the January shooting at the Fort Lauderdale, Florida, airport that killed five people, had also been looked at by the FBI. He had walked into the bureau’s office in Anchorage, Alaska, two months earlier and claimed his mind was being controlled by U.S. intelligence officials. In that case, too, the FBI closed its assessment after interviewing family members and checking databases. Each act of
U.S. election voted top news story of 2016
The turbulent U.S. election, featuring Donald Trump‘s unexpected victory over Hillary Clinton in the presidential race, was the overwhelming pick for the top news story of 2016, according to The Associated Press’ annual poll of U.S. editors and news directors. The No. 2 story also was a dramatic upset — Britons’ vote to leave the European Union. Most of the other stories among the Top 10 reflected a year marked by political upheaval, terror attacks and racial divisions. Last year, developments related to the Islamic State group were voted as the top story — the far-flung attacks claimed by the group, and the intensifying global effort to crush it. The first AP top-stories poll was conducted in 1936, when editors chose the abdication of Britain’s King Edward VIII. Here are 2016’s top 10 stories, in order: 1. US ELECTION: This year’s top story traces back to June 2015, when Donald Trump descended an escalator in Trump Tower, his bastion in New York City, to announce he would run for president. Widely viewed as a long shot, with an unconventional campaign featuring raucous rallies and pugnacious tweets, he outlasted 16 Republican rivals. Among the Democrats, Hillary Clinton beat back an unexpectedly strong challenge from Bernie Sanders, and won the popular vote over Trump. But he won key Rust Belt states to get the most electoral votes, and will enter the White House with Republicans maintaining control of both houses of Congress. 2. BREXIT: Confounding pollsters and oddsmakers, Britons voted in June to leave the European Union, triggering financial and political upheaval. David Cameron resigned as prime minister soon after the vote, leaving the task of negotiating an exit to a reshaped Conservative government led by Theresa May. Under a tentative timetable, final details of the withdrawal might not be known until the spring of 2019. 3. BLACKS KILLED BY POLICE: One day apart, police in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, fatally shot Alton Sterling after pinning him to the ground, and a white police officer shot and killed Philando Castile during a traffic stop in a suburb of Minneapolis. Coming after several similar cases in recent years, the killings rekindled debate over policing practices and the Black Lives Matter movement. 4. PULSE NIGHTCLUB MASSACRE: The worst mass shooting in modern U.S. history unfolded on Latin Night at the Pulse, a gay nightclub in Orlando. The gunman, Omar Mateen, killed 49 people over the course of three hours before dying in a shootout with SWAT team members. During the standoff, he pledged allegiance to the Islamic State. 5. WORLDWIDE TERROR ATTACKS: Across the globe, extremist attacks flared at a relentless pace throughout the year. Among the many high-profile attacks were those that targeted airports in Brussels and Istanbul, a park teeming with families and children in Pakistan, and the seafront boulevard in Nice, France, where 86 people were killed when a truck plowed through a Bastille Day celebration. In Iraq alone, many hundreds of civilians were killed in repeated bombings. 6. ATTACKS ON POLICE: Ambushes and targeted attacks on police officers in the U.S. claimed at least 20 lives. The victims included five officers in Dallas working to keep the peace at a protest over the fatal police shootings of black men in Minnesota and Louisiana. Ten days after that attack, a man killed three officers in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. In Iowa, two policemen were fatally shot in separate ambush-style attacks while sitting in their patrol cars. 7. DEMOCRATIC PARTY EMAIL LEAKS: Hacked emails, disclosed by WikiLeaks, revealed at-times embarrassing details from Democratic Party operatives in the run-up to Election Day, leading to the resignation of Democratic National Committee chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz and other DNC officials. The CIA later concluded that Russia was behind the DNC hacking in a bid to boost Donald Trump’s chances of beating Hillary Clinton. 8. SYRIA: Repeated cease-fire negotiations failed to halt relentless warfare among multiple factions. With Russia’s help, the government forces of President Bashar Assad finally seized rebel-held portions of the city of Aleppo, at a huge cost in terms of deaths and destruction. 9. SUPREME COURT: After Justice Antonin Scalia‘s death in February, President Obama nominated Merrick Garland, chief judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals, to fill the vacancy. However, majority Republicans in the Senate refused to consider the nomination, opting to leave the seat vacant so it could be filled by the winner of the presidential election. Donald Trump has promised to appoint a conservative in the mold of Scalia. 10. HILLARY CLINTON’S EMAILS: Amid the presidential campaign, the FBI conducted an investigation into Clinton’s use of a private computer server to handle emails she sent and received as secretary of state. FBI Director James Comey criticized Clinton for carelessness but said the bureau would not recommend criminal charges. Stories that did not make the top 10 included Europe’s migrant crisis, the death of longtime Cuban leader Fidel Castro, and the spread of the Zika virus across Latin America and the Caribbean. Republished with permission of The Associated Press.
Dan Coats says Donald Trump hasn’t made up his mind on VP
The Latest on the 2016 presidential campaign ahead of the Republican and Democratic national conventions (all times EDT): 1:30 p.m. Indiana Sen. Dan Coats says Donald Trump hasn’t made up his mind about who to select as his running mate. Coats told The Associated Press Wednesday that he spoke with Gov. Mike Pence late Tuesday — one of the names on Trump’s shortlist of potential running mates — and Pence told him there’s still no decision. “I think he’s the front-runner,” Coats said, adding, “I think he ought to be the front-runner.” Coats said Pence is “pretty calm about the whole thing.” He added that Trump is cognizant that he needs to make a decision by Friday given gubernatorial succession rules in Indiana. But he concluded that “reading Donald Trump’s mind is not the easiest thing to do.” ___ 1:20 p.m. Hillary Clinton says the Republican Party of Abraham Lincoln has been transformed into “the party of Trump.” Rattling off a series of attacks against her GOP rival, Clinton says Trump is “dangerous,” ”divisive,” ”fear-mongering” and is “pitting American against American.” Even stalwart Republicans, she says, should be alarmed by Trump’s policies and racist rhetoric. Clinton is casting Trump as ignorant of the Constitution, dismissive of U.S. law and lacking the character to be trusted with American security. “Imagine if he had not just Twitter and cable news to go after his critics and opponents, but also the IRS – or for that matter, our entire military,” she says. “Do any of us think he’d be restrained?” ___ 1:07 p.m. Hillary Clinton is calling on the country — including herself — to “do a better job of listening” rather than fueling political and other divisions after a series of high-profile shootings. Clinton says the country must address both gun violence, criminal justice reform and find ways to better support police departments. “I know that just saying these things together may upset some people,” she says. “But all these things can be true at once.” Clinton is speaking in the Illinois Old State House chamber in Springfield, the site of Abraham Lincoln’s his famous address about the perils of slavery. She is trying to use the symbolic site to contrast her call for civility with what she sees as rival Donald Trump’s polarizing campaign. Clinton said she has work to do, as well. She says that as someone “in the middle of a hotly fought political campaign, I cannot claim that my words and actions haven’t sometimes fueled the partisanship that often stands in the way of our progress.” Clinton adds, “I recognize that I have to do better too.” ___ 12:29 p.m. Donald Trump is meeting with finalists for the job of his vice presidential running mate. Trump met Tuesday with New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and his family. Early Wednesday, Trump and his children met with Indiana Gov. Mike Pence and his family. Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich also was said to be a finalist. All three have auditioned for the job by opening for Trump at campaign rallies over the past week. Trump was expected to make an announcement on Friday. ___ 10:20 a.m. Republican Donald Trump huddled with Indiana Gov. Mike Pence at the governor’s mansion in Indiana on Wednesday morning amid swirling speculation about Trump’s vice presidential deliberations. Pence and Trump walked out of the residence together just before 10:30 a.m. The pair was joined inside by Pence’s wife, Karen, as well as Trump’s daughter, Ivanka, and his son-in-law Jared Kushner. Trump is said to have narrowed his short list down to a trio of top contenders, including Pence. Pence joined Trump at a fundraiser and a rally on Tuesday where he received a warm reception from the crowd. ___ 10:15 a.m. The lead super PAC backing Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton has begun targeting Spanish-speaking voters in Colorado, Nevada and Florida as part of a $35 million online effort it announced earlier this year. An online ad from Priorities USA features video clips of Trump calling Hispanics “drug dealers” and “criminals” and leading his supporters in the chant: “Build that wall! Build that wall! Build that wall!” In Spanish, an on-screen message declares that “hatred is growing in our country.” The ad campaign also includes a website: unidoscontratrump.org, which means “united against Trump.” The same message will appear in banner ads on social media. The three targeted states all have significant Latino populations. Trump insists he can do better among Hispanics than the less-than-30 percent Republican Mitt Romney drew in 2012 after calling for “self-deportation” for immigrants in the country illegally. ___ 7:35 a.m. Bernie Sanders says he agrees with the harsh remarks that Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg has made about Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump. The Vermont senator declined to say whether it is appropriate for a sitting Supreme Court justice to openly criticize a White House contender. But he tells ABC’s “Good Morning America” that he agrees Trump is a “total opportunist” and said “the record clear is quite clear that he lies just a whole lot of the time.” Ginsburg in a series of interviews with The Associated Press, The New York Times and CNN has called Trump unqualified to be president and joked that she would move to New Zealand if he won. Trump said in a tweet that Ginsburg should resign. Sanders’s comments came a day after he formally endorsed Hillary Clinton as the Democratic nominee for president. Asked if he is open to being her running mate, Sanders said, “I doubt that will happen.” He said his focus is on helping Clinton win. He says, “We cannot have a man with Trump’s temperament with the nuclear code and running this country.” 5:25 a.m. Hillary Clinton is turning to the symbolism of Abraham Lincoln’s “House Divided” speech to argue that the nation needs to repair its divisions after high-profile shootings in Texas, Louisiana and Minnesota. Clinton’s campaign says the Democratic presidential candidate will talk about the importance of uniting
On Dallas trip, Barack Obama will try to make sense of shootings
For President Barack Obama, the decision to return early from an overseas trip after a series of shocking shootings will prove to be easy compared to his next challenge: Comforting an America rattled by the violence. After arriving from Spain late Sunday, Obama will fly Tuesday to Dallas, the scene of the massacre of police officers that, on the heels of two caught-on-video police shootings, has emerged as a tipping point in the national debate about race and justice. Obama is due to deliver remarks at an interfaith memorial service and is expected to meet with victims’ families and with local law enforcement officials mourning their own. Former President George W. Bush, his wife, Laura, and Vice President Joe Biden will also attend, and the ex-president will deliver brief remarks. To some degree, the trip is a familiar ritual for a president who has embarked in recent years on similar consolation missions with relentless frequency. But it’s clear that Obama views the moment as distinct. In choosing to the deliver a high-profile speech, the president has tasked himself with ministering to Americans as they make sense of a frustrating cloud of issues swirling around the shootings. The president sees delivering this sort of guidance a core part of his leadership, so much so that some of his memorable speeches were in honor of mass shooting victims, including his challenge to protect children from guns in Newtown, Conn. – “We’re not doing enough.” – and his singing of “Amazing Grace” after the shooting in a black church in Charleston, S.C. But it’s far from clear whether these moments fostered movement – either on legislation or race relations – and Obama has had to face the limits of his rhetoric. As he has in the past, Obama will search this week for a way to break through. As he traveled to Poland and Spain last week for meetings with European leaders, the president was publicly working through his thoughts. At times, he acknowledged “anger” and “confusion” in the public, and at other times he seemed to downplay the enormity of events. On the shootings by police of black men in Minnesota and Louisiana, Obama called for more activism and reforms. And he sought to impress upon white Americans what he said he and other African Americans already know: The problem is real. On the shooting in Dallas, Obama cast Micah Johnson, the sniper killed in a standoff with police, as “demented” and his motives as unknowable. People should not believe that “the act of a troubled individual speaks to some larger political statement across the country,” he said. “It doesn’t.” Obama also pointed to other forces driving discontent at home and in Europe – lone-wolf terrorism or economic instability wrought by globalization – and tried to sell his policies aimed at each. The comments highlighted this president’s rationality and a tendency to analyze people’s fears rather than validate them – both traits that at times have limited his ability to connect. Asked Saturday about rising worries about safety, Obama cited crime statistics. He bluntly dismissed comparisons to the domestic turbulence of the 1960s as overblown. “That’s just not true,” he said. Obama’s remarks also captured the president continuing to try to serve as bridge builder between white and black Americans, protesters and police. It’s a role that helped catapult him to political stardom, but one he’s struggled to inhabit as president during a period of sharp political polarization and continued racial tensions. Still, Obama wasn’t about to cede the role this week. White House officials said the decision to trim his trip to Spain by one day was driven in part by not wanting other, divisive voices to fill the void left in his absence. On Sunday, a few hours before returning home, Obama tried again to walk a center line, as he issued a plea for better understanding between police and demonstrators taking part in the protests across the country. “I’d like all sides to listen to each other,” he said. Republished with permission of the Associated Press.
Shooting of Dallas officers spurs acts of kindness to police
The Dallas shooting that killed five officers has spurred an outpouring of support for police, not only in Texas but hundreds of miles away. Around the country, people have showed up at local departments with flowers, sent social media messages or called to say thanks. They delivered coffee, pizzas, cakes and moments of solace for officers grieving after the deadliest day for U.S. law enforcement since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. SHARED SORROW One after another, members of the public lined up to hug uniformed officers at a community prayer service Friday in Dallas. Two patrol cars serving as a memorial outside of police headquarters were adorned with flowers, signs and flags by some of the people pausing to pay their respects to the five officers killed and seven wounded. John Fife, with his ball cap in hand, passed a red rose to an officer sitting in a vehicle guarding those headquarters. In another corner of the country, a Seattle officer accepted a matching flower from Jasen Frelot, one of several people from the faith community there who set out to show police support. ‘WE NEED THEM’ Officers also received roses in the Cleveland suburb of South Euclid, where they found single stems on their cruiser windshields Friday morning. The Rev. Carmen Cox Harwell, a Beachwood pastor and a former police chaplain, said she put flowers on Beachwood and South Euclid officers’ cars as a sign of gratitude. “I just want them to know that they’re loved and they’re supported and we need them,” she told WOIO-TV. COMFORT FOOD Abigail Bullard had similar thoughts while home with her 6- and 10-year-old sons in suburban Philadelphia, where the younger boy’s fascination with emergency services personnel has developed into a friendship with a few Radnor Township officers. Bullard had observed the kinship within their profession and knew they’d be affected by this week’s news, so she and her sons delivered cookies and soft pretzels as comfort. “It was important to me to say, here we have two young black children that are trying to do the right thing because friends of ours have had a death in the family,” she said. When she shared the story on Facebook, she concluded it simply: “Not all young black men are bad, and not all police officers are bad.” A few miles down the road, the Lower Merion Police Department said its officers had heavy hearts but full bellies after another woman and her son delivered a stack of pizzas Friday. They also received coffee and doughnuts, a gesture reported by numerous police departments this weekend. One of them, the Voorhees Police Department in New Jersey, said such actions “have made us feel better during a very sad time to be a police officer.” STOPPED FOR THANKS Still others simply stopped officers on the street to chat or offer hugs. “It’s just been amazing. Our guys can’t go out this morning without getting stopped by people wanting to thank them,” Dustin Dwight, a spokesman for Louisiana State Police Troop L, told NOLA.comThe Times-Picayune on Friday. In Chattanooga, Tennessee, officers were getting extra handshakes from strangers at a local concert Friday night. “They always comfort and, I guess, wrap their arms around us, to protect us as well as we protect them,” Chattanooga Sgt. Tommy Meeks told WRCB-TV. ‘ROUGH FEW DAYS’ In Ballwin, Missouri, where a suburban St. Louis policeman was shot and critically hurt during a Friday traffic stop, Andrew Kulha brought the investigators water. He told KMOV-TV he thought it had “been a rough few days to be an officer.” The Dallas shooting occurred during a Thursday night protest over fatal police shootings of black men in Minnesota and Louisiana earlier in the week. Republished with permission of the Associated Press.
