President Obama on Wednesday called for police reforms but did not mention President Trump and largely steered clear of the polarizing politics that have wracked the nation following the death of George Floyd.

Speaking at a virtual town hall from his home in the Kalorama neighborhood of Washington, D.C., Obama outlined changes he said would reduce police violence toward racial minorities.

The former president is of the opinion chokeholds should be outlawed and that officers should not be able to shoot at moving vehicles. He called on local police departments to establish clear use-of-force guidelines and said officers should have to intervene when another officer has become too rough with a suspect.

“I’m urging every mayor in this country to review your use-of-force policies with members of your community and to commit to reforms,” Obama said.

“Let’s go ahead and implement those. We need those in positions of power to say this is a priority,” he added.

Obama directly addressed Floyd’s family as well as the surviving relatives of other recent victims of police violence.

“The last few months, the kinds of epic changes and events in our country are as profound as anything I’ve seen in my lifetime,” Obama said.

“To those families who’ve been directed impacted, please know that … we grieve with you, and … we’re committed to the fight of creating a more just nation,” he added. 

Obama said last Wednesday that he was encouraged by the protests, which he described as evidence that a broad, multiracial cross-section of society had “awakened” to social injustices.

“What has happened over the last several weeks is that the challenges and structural problems here in the U.S. have been thrown into high relief,” Obama said.

“The outcomes … are the result of a long history of slavery, Jim Crow and redlining and institutional racism that too often have been the plague, the original sin of our society. In some ways, as tragic as these past few weeks have been … they’ve also been an incredible opportunity for people to be awakened to some of this … an opportunity to work together to tackle them and take them on and change America and make it live to its highest ideals,” he added.

The virtual town hall event is the first time Obama has made public remarks about the protests that have swept the nation in response to the death of Floyd, who died last week after former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin knelt on his neck for more than eight minutes.