Dallas' top cop urged young black men who fear the police and are angry about violent confrontations with law enforcement to "get off that protest line" and "become part of the solution."
"We're hiring," Dallas Police Chief David Brown said at a news conference Monday, just days after an ambush by an anti-white gunman in Dallas who killed five law enforcement officers,
a Fox News affiliate reports.
"Become a part of the solution. Serve your communities," Brown urged. "We're hiring. Get off that protest line and put an application in. And we'll put you in your neighborhood, and we'll help you resolve some of the problems you're protesting about."
Brown said he himself decided to get into law enforcement in 1983 after he watched his friends get caught up in the crack cocaine epidemic.
"It broke my heart and it changed what I wanted to do," he said,
Fox News reports. "I probably wouldn't protest or complain, I'd get involved and do something about it by becoming part of the solution," he added.
"And that's still in me, that keeps me going. I just love Dallas and I love serving.
"[For] all the crap we gotta take as police officers, the satisfaction we get from serving is much more gratifying," he added.
Brown became police chief in May 2010.
"They took an inner city kid like me with flaws and made me their police chief," he said, Fox News reports. "That's an extraordinary city and they have supported me through very difficult challenges. You don't see that everywhere."
Asked about bridging the gap between cops and black youth, many of whom have renewed marching in the streets after controversial videos surfaced early last week of police shootings in Minnesota and Louisiana, Brown answered with a mix of humor and understanding.
"I've been black a long time," he said. "It's not so much of a bridge for me. It's everyday living. I grew up here in Texas. A third generation Dallas-ite. It's my normal to live in this society that had a long history of racial strife.
"We're in a much better place than when I was a young man here, but we have much to do — particularly in my profession."
He also chided lawmakers for putting too many problems at the feet of police instead of trying to solve the issues, including mental health problems, drug addiction, and education troubles.
"That's too much to ask," Brown said. "Policing was never meant to solve all those problems. I just ask other areas of our democracy, along with the free press, to help us and not put the burden all on law enforcement to resolve."
The chief's advice prompted a
heart-felt accolade from conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh later Monday.
"That's not gonna sit well with the protester community, because the protester community, they don't think of themselves as the problem," Limbaugh said. "They think the cops are the problem."
"He's a brave man, that police chief, David Brown, in Dallas," Limbaugh added. "Just in two sound bites, a total about 60 seconds, he had very brave and courageous things to say."
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