Obama: Racial bias in Ferguson police not isolated

WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama said the type of racial discrimination found in Ferguson, Mo., is not unique to that police department, and he cast law enforcement overhaul as a chief struggle for today’s civil rights movement.

Obama said improving civil rights and civil liberties with police is one of the areas that “requires collective action and mobilization” 50 years after pivotal civil rights marches brought change to the country. The president made his first remarks about this week’s Justice Department report of racial bias in Ferguson, which found officers routinely discriminating against blacks by using excessive force.

“I don’t think that is typical of what happens across the country, but it’s not an isolated incident,” Obama told The Joe Madison Radio Show on Sirius XM radio’s Urban View channel.

Obama’s interview was to preview his trip Saturday to Selma, Ala., where he plans to speak from the Edmund Pettus Bridge, where white police officers beat civil rights protesters on March 7, 1965.

Read Saturday's Arkansas Democrat-Gazette for full details.

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