While speaking in the Rose Garden today, President Obama shared his thoughts on the recent protests following the death of Freddie Gray — a 25-year-old Baltimore native who died while in police custody.
The President noted that the events in Baltimore called attention to the urgent need throughout the country to build trust between communities and their police.
“This has been going on for a long time,” he said. “This is not new, and we shouldn’t pretend that it’s new… If our society really wanted to solve the problem, we could — it’s just that it would require everybody saying, ‘This is important, this is significant.'”