Miami

U.S. Attorney General Lynch Meets with SoFla Students

U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch spent time with students in Miami-Dade Friday morning to discuss trust and the relationships between young people and the police.

The conversation was part of a two-day stop in South Florida for the nation's top cop. Lynch is making several stops across the nation to discuss policing issues and ways of building trust and cooperation between law enforcement and local citizens.

Lynch met with students at Miami's Booker T. Washington High School along with local law enforcement officials. After that, she held a roundtable on policing at Miami-Dade College.

Some students discussed the role of social media and highly publicized incidents of police brutality. Some told Lynch that they'd rather go to someone else for help than the police.

Lynch said that in her experience, it's young people who find themselves facing the most trust issues with police and how to deal with violence in their communities.

"The people that I found who were most involved were students," she said. "They were young people who were facing the issues of how to relate to police officers."

Some students expressed a desire for officers to take more time getting to know students and spending time in their environment, which would help foster a relationship built on trust and mutual respect.

The attorney general is visiting Miami and five other cities as part of an initiative to improve trust, cooperation and public safety between law enforcement and local citizens.

The initiative comes amid a national debate about police use of force and tactics following high-profile police shootings of unarmed young men in such places as Ferguson, Missouri, and Cleveland.

Later Lynch will visit Portland, Oregon; Indianapolis; Fayetteville, North Carolina; Phoenix and Los Angeles.

Copyright AP - Associated Press
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