In an interview with NBC Nightly News' Lester Holt Vice President Joe Biden shared his reaction to the shootings of Alton Sterling and Philando Castile.
His response was short and straightforward:
"How did we get here?"
"I looked and saw ... an African American on the ground with two police officers over top of him," he said. "What I didn't know at the time is that a homeless person called in and said there's a guy threatening me with a gun."
While acknowledging that institutional racism "exists throughout our society," Biden said the way to begin to close this perception gap is fairly straightforward: cops need to be better trained in de-escalation tactics. And they need to know who they're policing, just as citizens need to know who they're being policed by.