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 Obama will ban police use of equipment such as explosive-resistant
vehicles with tracked wheels like those seen on army tanks, the
White House said in a fact sheet. For other types of equipment, such
as MRAP (mine-resistant ambush protected) vehicles and riot shields,
departments will have to provide added justification for their use.
Obama will announce the steps, which are the result of an executive
order, during a visit later on Monday to Camden, New Jersey, where
he plans to push efforts to encourage trust-building between police
and the communities they serve.
The fatal shooting of unarmed teenager Michael Brown by a Ferguson,
Missouri police officer in August was followed by a string of highly
publicized fatal encounters between police and black men, including
Walter Scott who was shot by an officer while fleeing the scene of a
traffic stop in North Charleston, South Carolina.
Last month, violent protests erupted in Baltimore after 25-year-old
Freddie Gray died after sustaining spinal injuries while in police
custody.
 Protesters in Ferguson felt the methods use by police to prevent the
demonstrations from turning violent were excessive, and the Justice
Department has since launched a review of St. Louis County law
enforcement's response to the unrest.
The turmoil in Ferguson and Baltimore also highlighted divisions
between black and white Americans.
In a Reuters/Ipsos poll taken after the protests in Baltimore, 69
percent of respondents said America has a serious issue with race.
Nearly three-quarters said there is more racism in the United States
than the country is willing to admit.
In the aftermath of the Baltimore riots, Obama has been speaking out
more about race, including in a speech in the Bronx on increasing
opportunity for young minority men and during a panel discussion on
poverty in Washington.
"Race issues have been more present over the past year for this
country. We've seen, since Ferguson, issues that have been bubbling
up in communities becoming much more present," said Rashad Robinson,
executive director of colorofchange.org, a group that aims to
strengthen the black community's political voice in America.
Robinson has met with Obama to discuss the issue. DIFFICULT
BALANCING ACT
Obama's remarks in Camden will be the fourth time in as many weeks
that he has held an event to discuss his ideas for improving life
for poor black communities.
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Obama, the country's first black president, has often been reticent
about discussing race issues.
Following the shooting of unarmed black teen Trayvon Martin by a
volunteer neighborhood watchman in 2012, Obama discussed the issue
in personal terms, saying that if he had a son, he would have looked
like Martin.
In response to a question in 2009, Obama said he thought police in
Cambridge, Massachusetts, had acted "stupidly" when they arrested
Henry Louis Gates, a black Harvard professor who was mistaken for a
burglar at his own home.
Obama faced a backlash from law enforcement groups who accused him
of commenting before he knew all the details of the case. Obama
later said he wished he had chosen his words more carefully and
invited the professor and the police officer to the White House for
a beer.
Michele Jawando, vice president for legal progress at the
left-leaning Washington think tank Center for American Progress,
said Obama faces a difficult balancing act on race.
"For a long time in this country we've had a hard time developing a
narrative around poverty, around race, so when there are incidents
like this that sit at the apex of both, different people are going
to have different reactions to that," Jawando said.
The Reuters/Ipsos poll is measured with a credibility interval. In
this case, the poll has a credibility interval of plus or minus 1.8
percentage points.
(Reporting by Julia Edwards; Editing by Caren Bohan and Paul Simao)
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