“It’s unfortunate – it’s just really sad. It makes me feel like it’s never going to end. There definitely needs to be a solution sooner than later. I think my initial thought, too, was, ‘This needs to end.’
“I just hope this is a wake-up call for everyone in society. There needs to be a permanent solution for everyone’s lives. Everybody’s lives matter. We need to find a way to be able to get along just as human beings as society.”
Fellow convention attendee Waudieur Rucker-Hughes, 68, of Riverside, Calif., said her first thought when she heard about the killings was, “It was terrible. It’s one thing to protest something that’s happening. But anyone that I know would not even begin to think that. Because we know all policemen are not bad. They deserve to go home at night, and they don’t deserve to be harassed to the point of killings.”
Denise Williams, president of the NAACP Springfield Chapter, said she had been in touch with Springfield Police Chief Stephen Moody and Clark County Sheriff Gene Kelly.
“I was glued to the TV watching the news waiting to see what the complete details were … however, my heart is saddened and we definitely need to remain calm and in prayer,” she said.
Derrick Foward, president of the Dayton Unit of the NAACP, said police accountability, particularly in the deaths of black men, is needed to address the issue.
“Until our nation starts to grapple with the underlying issues of law enforcement accountability, our nation will probably start to continue to see a lot more of these acts, of uncharacteristic acts, of violence,” he said. “It does not make it right that someone would do any harm to any law enforcement agency … our hearts go deeply out to the law enforcement officers who have lost their lives in Baton Rouge. I would urge calm inside our community.”
Caroline Reinwald contributed to this report.
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