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LA to DC: Leaders visit White House to talk race, police
Los Angeles Police Chief Charlie Beck, left, listens as rapper The Game speaks at a news conference following a meeting he and fellow rapper Snoop Dogg had with Beck and Mayor Eric Garcetti at police headquarters in Los Angeles Friday, July 8, 2016. The rappers led a peaceful march where they urged improved relations between police and minority communities in the wake of shootings in Dallas that left five police officers dead.
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Nick Ut/AP
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L.A.'s mayor and police chief were among dozens of law enforcement officers and elected officials who visited the White House Wednesday.
They joined other officers, public officials and Black Lives Matter activists from across the country for a meeting on race and policing.
Mayor Eric Garcetti says the forum allowed the different sides to air their grievances and seek solutions: "I think it was important for us to look at the structural ways that we can move forward, not just to feel each other's feelings but also to take those feelings forward."
LAPD chief Charlie Beck emphasized the importance of listening to diverse views: "All of us got to hear positions that maybe we haven't heard before. All of us got to walk a little bit in each others' shoes. You know, I think, and all of us agreed, the pathway through this for America is empathy."
Beck has been up against his own set of challenges.
Earlier this week, hundreds of protesters gathered in front of LAPD headquarters in downtown to protest a recent Police Commission decision. The civilian panel found police were justified in shooting to death a black woman last August.
Redell Jones, 30, was shot in an alley near the Baldwin Hills-Crenshaw shopping mall in South L.A. as she took lunging steps toward a Los Angeles police officer while holding a knife.
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