BATON ROUGE, La. – President Barack Obama met Tuesday with the family of Alton Sterling, the black man in Louisiana whose death last month in a police shooting sparked protests and mass arrests.
Obama consoled the relatives during a brief meeting on the sidelines of his trip to Baton Rouge to tour flood damage and meet with affected residents. The White House said Obama also met with the families of officers killed or injured nearly two weeks later by a gunman, apparently in response to Sterling’s killing.
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The president spent roughly 25 minutes with the families at the airport before boarding his flight back to Washington.
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Obama was criticized for not visiting Baton Rouge after those two shootings. He did speak about the issues of policing, race and violence during a visit to Dallas to eulogize five police officers killed in another attack targeting law enforcement.