President Barack Obama has finally responded to the tragic shooting death of Trayvon Martin for the first time since the controversy erupted on a national scale.
“If I had a son, he’d look like Trayvon,” Obama said on the steps of the White House today, noting how the issue has affected him on a personal level, and not just on a political or legal level. “I think [Trayvon’s parents] are right to expect that all of us as Americans are going to take this with the seriousness it deserves, and we are going to get to the bottom of exactly what happened.”
“Obviously, this is a tragedy,” he said. “I can only imagine what these parents are going through, and when I think about this, I think about my own kids, and I think every parent in America should be able to understand why it is absolutely imperative that we investigate every aspect of this and everybody aspect of this, and that everybody pulls together — federal, state and local — to figure out exactly how this tragedy happened.”
President Obama continued, “I think all of us have to do some soul searching to figure out how does something like this happen. And that means we examine the laws and the context for what happened, as well as the specifics of the incident.”
Watch President Obama speak out about Trayvon Martin below:
