“Washington, D.C. – Attorney General Eric Holder, along with President Barack Obama, condemned the shooting attack on two police officers in Ferguson, Mo. early Thursday morning. A tweet sent from the official White House account read: “Violence against the police is unacceptable. Our prayers are with the officers in MO. Path to justice is one all of us most travel together” –bo.” Tweets signed “-bo” come directly from the president’s hand.

“Holder, whose Justice Department had recently released a report that laid out a deeply-ingrained racism in Ferguson’s justice system, slammed the “damn punk” who he said ambushed the police officers. Holder said at a press conference: “What happened last night was a pure ambush. This was not someone who was trying to bring back healing to Ferguson – this was a damn punk.”

“Police were searching Thursday for a suspect in a shooting, near the end of a protest in Ferguson, that left a bullet lodged behind one officer’s ear and hit another in the shoulder. The two officers have been treated and released from the hospital.

“Holder said the shootings “turned my stomach,” but struck an optimistic tone, adding that he had seen “important signs of progress” in Ferguson in the days after the report was released. He said, however, the shootings won’t help. “These are people who protect us, keep us safe, and they have the right – they have the right – to come out at night,” Holder said.

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““This heinous assault on two brave law enforcement officers was inexcusable and repugnant,” he added. “I condemn violence against any public safety officials in the strongest terms, and the Department of Justice will never accept any threats or violence directed at those who serve and protect our communities – from this cowardly action, to the killing of an officer in Philadelphia last week while he was buying a game for his son, to the tragic loss of a Deputy US Marshal in the line of duty in Louisiana earlier this week.”

However, speaking exclusively to Newslo after the press conference, the Attorney General emphasized that “the culprit(s) will be hunted down and punished most severely, but that that’s only half of the solution to the problem.”

“As long as there are guns out there, trouble and death will just keep claiming innocent people. That’s why I feel that gun control is the way to go, especially in flammable environments like Ferguson, where the situation can escalate quite rapidly, as we’ve all witnessed, unfortunately. But, if neither the criminals nor the police have guns, peace and the process of healing will have a much greater chance of coming to life. Violence is just not the way to go, ever,” Holder concluded.