President Barack Obama has assured law enforcement officers across the United States they have the nation's "full-throated support" in the wake of the recent killings of eight police officers.
In an open letter to the law enforcement community, the president said, "Our nation grieves alongside you. Any attack on police is an unjustified attack on all of us."
Obama wrote the nation can no longer ask police to solve societal ills and that they should be given the necessary tools to "build and strengthen the bonds of trust" with those they serve.
"We will get through this difficult time together," the president wrote. He urged members of all segments of U.S. society to "come together to ensure that those who try to divide us do not succeed."
The letter was dated Monday, July 18, a day after three law enforcement officers were killed in an ambush in the southern city of Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Five police offers in the southern city of Dallas, Texas, were killed by a sniper several days earlier.
The president of the National Fraternal Order of Police, Chuck Canterbury, expressed appreciation for the president's letter and said, "The work now is to assist our communities by continuing to recognize that we are but one spoke in the wheel and we will do our part."