Renee Hopkins, Executive Director of the Alliance for Gun Responsibility, released the following statement on today’s tragic shooting of law enforcement officers in Baton Rouge, Louisiana:

More families are grieving tonight in Baton Rouge. We grieve with them.

When violence hits one of our communities, it strikes all of them and hurts all of us. It’s been a summer full of pain across our country.

If we have learned anything in this hard month, it is that responding to the forces of hate that seek to divide us requires more than violence. Tomorrow, we must re-commit ourselves to the hard work of building safe and just communities free from this vicious cycle.

In the words of Montrell Jackson, a black Baton Rouge police officer who was shot and killed today, “These are trying times. Please don’t let hate infect your heart.”