President Barack Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder both condemned the shooting attack on two police officers in Ferguson, Mo. early Thursday morning.
“Violence against police is unacceptable. Our prayers are with the officers in MO. Path to justice is one all of us must travel together. —bo” the tweet, sent from the official White House account, read. Tweets signed “-bo” come directly from the president’s hand.
Holder, whose Justice Department had recently released a report that laid out the deeply-ingrained racism in Ferguson’s justice system, slammed the “damn punk” who he said ambushed the police officers.
“What happened last night was a pure ambush,” Holder said at a press conference. “This was not someone who was trying to bring healing to Ferguson — this was a damn punk.”
Police were searching Thursday for a suspect in a shooting, near the end of a protest in Ferguson, that left a bullet lodged behind one officer’s ear and hit another in the shoulder. The two officers have been treated and released from the hospital.
Holder said the shootings “turned my stomach,” but struck an optimistic tone, adding that he had seen “important signs of progress” in Ferguson in the days after the report was released. He said, however, the shootings won’t help.
“These are people who protect us, keep us safe, and they have the right — they have the right — to come home at night,” Holder said.