It's a tough position for a politician. But not being a politician, I think you can speak from the heart and be ok in this situation and he probably should have done that. There is no video of the shooting. 15 years ago, video was rare, 20 years ago non existent. The shooting is under investigation. He has asked just about everybody from outside the department to help investigate it. Thats a good call. You can acknowledge that there have been incidents where minorities were shot by police when it wasn't warranted. And you can acknowledge that in the majority of cases the deadly force was reasonable. He should tell those demanding justice to understand that there is a process in place, and just as they don't want people to jump to the conclusion the minority must have been doing something to deserve being shot, it's not fair to jump to the conclusion the minority must have been shot for no reason.