Remarks by the President After Meeting with the Families of Victims of the Umpqua Community College Shooting

Roseburg High School Roseburg, Oregon

     I just want to first of all say thank you to Mayor Rich.  I want to thank Governor Brown.  Most importantly, I want to thank the entire community and the entire state of Oregon for coming together at this terrible time to support the families.

     I just had a chance to talk to them.  Obviously, in moments like these, words aren’t going to bring their loved ones back.  But the one thing that they shared is how much they appreciate the entire UCC community coming together, how much they appreciate all their neighbors, all their friends, and people all across the country who have offered to help, sent their thoughts and their prayers.

     What I just told the Mayor is that if there’s anything that we can do at the federal level to help the community heal from this loss, obviously we're going to be there.  And I know that flying out here with some of the members of the Oregon delegation, they feel the same way.  And the Governor, obviously, is paying a lot of attention to how we can be most helpful to the families.

     But there are going to be I think moments as we go forward where we're going to have to come together and figure out how do we stop things like this from happening.  And I’ve got some very strong feelings about this, because when you talk to these families, you’re reminded that this could be happening to your child, or your mom, or your dad, or your relative, or your friend.  And so we're going to have to come together as a country to see how we can prevent these issues from taking place.

      But today, it’s about the families and their grief, and the love we feel for them.  And they surely do appreciate all the support that they’ve received.