| 1 | WASHINGTON - U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch voiced support for cops Monday and condemned the outbreak of violence in Ferguson, Mo., during the anniversary of the shooting death of Michael Brown. |
| 2 | "I strongly condemn the violence that was perpetrated against the community, including the police officers, in Ferguson last evening," Lynch said in an address to the National Fraternal Order of Police in Pittsburgh, prompting applause from officers. |
| 3 | "Not only does violence obscure any message of peaceful protest, it places the community, as well as the officers who are seeking to protect it, in harm's way," she said. |
| 4 | The address represented an effort by Lynch to affirm U.S. Department of Justice support for law enforcement despite attention on the deaths of unarmed black men and women in police hands. |
| 5 | Lynch, the former head federal prosecutor in Brooklyn, said the issues had "served as stark and tragic reminders of the tensions that exist in too many neighborhoods between law enforcement officers and the people we serve." |
| 6 | On Sunday, St. Louis County police officers shot and critically wounded a man who they said fired at them amid events commemorating the death of Brown, an 18-year-old killed in a confrontation with a white Ferguson officer. |