Transcripts For CSPAN3 Hearing On Policing Practices Oversight 20240714

Advocacy groups who spoke before the house Judiciary Committee. Theyll talk about ways to improve Police Relations within the community and increase accountability among Law Enforcement. This is three hours and 40 minutes. House committee on the judiciary will come to order. The chair is authorized to declare recesses at any time. Welcome to the oversight hearing on Police Practices. Before we begin, i want to briefly recognize susan jensen whose last day on the committee after more than 20 years of service is tomorrow. Susan is highly respected on both sides of the aisle, as one of the preeminent experts on bankruptly, Administrative Law and the federal court system. It is a testament to her knowledge and fairness she worked as a senior counsel for republican and democratic chairs of this committee. First hired by former chair henry hyde for her expertise in bankruptcy law, susan moved to the democratic staff under john conyers, where she expanded her port follow to include Administrative Law and ethics issues. When i was elected to serve as chair i asked susan to serve as the Committee Parliamentarian in addition to her other dueties. Including preparing Committee Reports and working across the aisle to develop procedures for hearings, markups and other activities. Regular viewers of this committee will recognize her as the person sitting behind me providing me wise counsel. Susan has been essential to the operations of this committee in which she has been involved in nearly every piece of Committee Business over the past year. Although she will be leaving the committee she will continue Public Service as she transitions to a position with the Administrative Office of the u. S. Courts. I wish her well and i thank her for all her years of service to this committee. I know recognize the Ranking Member for any comments he may have. Thank you. Im glad we start off again so many things we agree and this is one. As you mentioned a minute ago, the two of our faces are on this screens of america a great deal, the greatest part about it, susan being behind us to soften the blow and to make sure that i behave. Sometimes shell disagree and make you and i Work Together but shes been amazing to work with. Sometimes people dont know they know our faces and these folks behind us on both sides are amazing. The staffs of democratic and republican members have to put up with us, which is amazing to start with, but in a Committee Role like this, susan, you have been a friend, you have been you are probably the one hear the name most often, john, susan called, was i in trouble and she said no. But susan, youre going to be missed and it will be hard to turn around and not see you here but i am so happy for you. The beneficiary is what you have done for the committee and what the Administrative Office of the courts is going to do. Theyre gaining, were losing and we acknowledge that. With that i yield back to the chairman. I thank the gentleman. [ applause ] i thank the gentleman for his comments. I will recognize myself for an opening statement. Todays hearing furthers our committees longstanding commitment to conduct meaningful oversight of state and federal Law Enforcement, as initiated by former chairman good last and his establishment of the bipartisan policing strategies working group. Together we have had productive conversations about improving relations between Law Enforcement officers and the communities they serve. Today we continue that important discussion. Without question, the vast majority of Law Enforcement office serve under difficult conditions, risking and sometimes losing their lives to protect us. There have been a disturbing number of incidents of force used by police against civilians, many of whom were unarmed, most people of color, and many of resulted in tragic death that have put strain on the relationships between Law Enforcement and their local communities. For example, in july 17, 2014, five new York City Police Department Officers attempted to arrest eric garner, a 42yearold father of six, for allegedly selling loose cigarettes by tackling him to the ground and placing him in an illegal chokehold. He repeatedly told the officers i cant breathe. The officers ignored his pleas as he slipped into unconsciousness and death. No one was held criminally responsible for mr. Garners death. We are fortunate to be joined by mr. Garners mother gen carr and i say the Justice System failed you, your son and your entire family. Shockingly the officer responsible for placing mr. Garner in a departmentally banned chokehold remained on the force for five years before being finally fired this past august. On september 9th, 2015, james blake, an africanamerican, professional tennis player, was standing outside the Grand Hyatt Hotel in midtown manhattan when officer james strastore for no reason charged him, wrestled him to the ground and placed him in handcuffs. New yorks Complaint Review board reviews complaints of policemans conduct determined that he used Excessive Force and recommended the officer be punished with charges that could lead to suspension or dismissal. Instead his only punishment was to lose five vacation days. Mr. Garners death and the assault on mr. Blake both at the hands of Police Officers sworn to preserve and protect protect and serve should alarm all americans regardless of party, regardless of political ideology, regardless of race, religion or gender. This is not a partisan issue. There are no sides. Too often the discourse of Police Misconduct descends into a false dichotomy of us versus them. Black lives versus blue lives versus black lives. This is a false and dangerous dichotomy. The United States stands as the worlds greatest experiment in selfgovernment. Legitimacy and authority of our nations government rest upon the consent of its people, we the people. This prince. Applies to Law Enforcement which has been given the authority to use deadly force under color of law. There can be no doubt, unfortunately, that communities of color perceive Law Enforcement as a threat to their every day freedoms. These perceptions go back decades. Predating both the 1994 los angeles riots and the 1965 watts riots both of which were sparked by a lack of accountability for incidents of Police Brutality. These perceptions are reality for africanamericans. According to the center for policing equity, africanamericans are two to four times more likely than white americans to have force used against them. Far too long, however, police were just and humane treatment sisthave fallen on de ears. Have often been ignored or not believed. Mr. Garners killing and the series of other examples of Police Misconduct against africanamericans, many of which were caught on video make it unmistakably clear that claims of Police Misconduct are all too often real. To list just a few, august 5th, 2014, John Crawford was shot and killed by a Police Officer in a Walmart Store in beaver creek, ohio, for holding a toy bb gun. On august 9th, 2014, Michael Brown who was unarmed was shot and killed by police in ferguson, missouri. November 22nd, 2014, 12yearold tamir rice, unarmed, was shot and killed by police in cleveland, ohio. On april 2ed, 2015, eric harris who was unarmed was shot and killed by police in tulsa, oklahoma. On april 4th, 2015, walter scott who was unarmed was shot and killed by police in north charleston, south carolina. April 19th, 2015, freddie gray who was unarmed died in Police Custody in baltimore, married. On july 6th, 2016, Samuel Dubose unarmed was shot and killed by police in cincinnati, ohio. The frequency of these killings and the absence of full accountability for those responsible sent a message to members of the Africanamerican Community that black lives do not matter. Let me state clearly for the record that black lives matter. Our criminal Justice System including our Police Departments cannot function without africanamericans knowing that their lives matter equally and that system works to protect them just as it does every other citizen. We must also be able to put ourselves in the shoes of our Law Enforcement officers. We must be able to celebrate the service and sacrifices of our men and women in Law Enforcement who put their lives on the line day in and day out. We must recognize the psychological toll thats serving in such a dangerous job can take on individual Law Enforcement officers and their families. It is also critical we not paint Law Enforcement with a broad brush. Vast majority of officers execute their jobs with dignity, honor and respect for the citizens they serve and protect. Every american should take pride in them. Research shows that a small percentage of repeat offenders are responsible for the majority of incidents of misconduct. Todays hearing presents a unique opportunity for us to hear from some of the individuals of families affected by Police Misconduct. So i want to personally thank miss carr for speaking at this hearing on behalf of her son and mr. Blake for sharing his personal story with us. Today presents an opportunity for us to explore Bipartisan Solutions to make policing a safer more fulfilling job for Law Enforcement officers by restoring the trust and goodwill between the police and the communities they serve. We can reexamine the reforms advanced by president obamas task force on 21st Century Policing and determine what further solutions are warranted. For example, we should examine whether the incentives created by the doctrine of qualified immunity remain useful in todays environment and consider legislative proposals to end racial profile and restore trust between Law Enforcement and the community. And we should explore ways to strengthen Data Collection and use of force and racial profiling so that Police Departments can measure the practices they manage. Most important, we can all agree that too many lives are put at risk and have been lost in Police Citizen encounters and it is incumbent upon each of us to Work Together as fellow americans to solve this problem. I thank all of our witnesses for appearing and i look forward to their testimony. I now recognize the Ranking Member of the Judiciary Committee the gentleman from georgia, mr. Collins for his opening statement. Thank you, mr. Chairman. I appreciate that. Before i get started i would like to add to the record a letter from the Detectives Endowment Association of new york and also the National Association of Police Organizations a letter for the record. Without objection. Thank you. I appreciate the chairmans, you know, opening and i think you covered great deal of stuff. For me and i have a lot of notes here, one of the things to start out this, is it is very important that Excessive Force used ought to be punished. It should not be thought about, but punished and put before a proper due process procedure and acted on quickly. It should not be if its in a Minority Community in particular or any other community it needs to be looked at, processed and done so in a fair way to all involved so there is justice, there is so people do trust. The one thing i want to focus on and the chairman did a good job i think because it is very fair that theres a lot of things that have happened in communities that raise a lot of concerns. Even on this committee we have a job to look over and say how do we fix this. Theres officers on this committee and i serve with, and one of those who has put on the uniform and been out there. I come at it a different position. I think this is why we have this hearing today. Because im going to take it from a perspective that i dont think anybody wants to see justice go unserved. And i think the interesting perspective here is my perspective is that there is no one that wants the bad actors out of Law Enforcement more than Law Enforcement itself. Im the son of a Georgia State trooper. I made the joke before that i thought the law and the law won every time. Okay. 62, 250 pounds in a blue and gray uniform with a. 357 i was a scrawny kid from gainesville but daddy loved us and he was in georgia and understood that. Im the kid that would watch dad go out to work and when he would come home at night he would come in with his uniform torn, blood on his collar, and how does that affect an 8, 9yearold kid . Thats my daddy. Thats the man that to this day 80 years old a big teddy bear now, but this is the man that i admired to this day i am who i am because of him. What would happen, my dad was a strong man and is a strong man, and one of the interesting things i always found was is when something would go wrong with an officer and we had an officer in georgia who was a Georgia State trooper i knew personally, im tempted to call it a mistake, im not, it was a crime. Had a sexual encounter with someone in his custody and he was punished for it. More amazing my dads reaction. My dad came home and didnt he was upset and mad i could tell it because the chairman talked about how this plays out in the police force it played out at home. It played out because my dad came home and didnt talk about it. Mad as he could be about somebody tarnishing the badge and the uniform he wore. There is no one i believe honestly in this country who wants bad actors who do bad things out of the police force more than the police themselves and if someone who understand this and watched my father live it every day when he was painted with that broad brush the chairman spoke of im glad were not going to use when he was painted because of others, it affects everybody. And a high risk many times low reward area. Some of the things i would love to see us talk about the thin blue line denotes a separation from order and chaos should always be there. No one in our country should not look at our police force and know this is what keeps us all safe no matter who we are or what our beliefs or what the color of our skin. It is what keeps us different than the rest of the world. A safe, Orderly Police force that carries out our laws faithfully and executes them to the best of their ability. But too often i served on that Police Working group and ive been all over the country in georgia and other places and we have problems in our police force because theres too many folks who are bad actors who get pushed from one job to another. Lets talk honestly. Bad actors cant make it at one and go to another police force, do you know him, yeah, got another job. One police chief is saying thank god, the other i dont know what i got into. You know why because of pay, benefits, i live in a Rural Community in north georgia. My north georgia kids live in my smaller counties are going to go to work with the Sheriffs Department but theyre making an amount that they can go 40 miles down the road and double their salary. Or they cant make it in one of those they can go somewhere else and get another job no matter what their record is. As we come to this hearing today, it does need to be a hearing of what ill call the terrible acts. We need to acknowledge them and we need to admit that Justice Needs to be served. Theres nothing about this hearing that all should think the 98 or 99 whatever percent of those men and women who wake up every day with only one responsibility, taking care of their communities, and taking care of the lives they have, and they want nothing more than these bad actors to go away so they can do their job an when they lay their head down at night they know theyve done their best, want to be respected because they have done their job and not because somebody else has acted badly. When that happens then our Law Enforcement understand we respect them, we love them and were going to help them where they need help. And for every other 10yearold kid who watches their dad go out not knowing if theyre going to come home or when they do theyre beat up and battered because they were out helping others. When they see their dad or mom upset because their profession, their profession, their calling, is tarnished by those who would tarnish it justice must be swift, it must be firm and fairly applied because if not, we lose who we are. We would not be who we are without our police force. We now need to help them make it better and with that i yield back. I thank the gentleman without objection all other Opening Statements will be included in the record. Note that the gentle the lady from massachusetts is here with us, and we thank her for attending. I will now introduce todays witnesses. G gwenn carr the mother of eric garner who died during his arrest by Police Officers. As a result of this tragic event she became a leading advocate for improving policing practices and facilitates the this stops today program through the nonprofit eric, eliminating racism and inequality collectively. Shes here today to share her personal experience. Ron davis, serve as director of the u. S. Department of Justice Community Oriented Policing Services office from 2013 to 2017. December 2014 he was appointed to serve as the executive director of the president s task force on 21st century messing. Prior to serving as cops director he was the chief of police of east palo alto, california, more than eight years and served 20 years with the oakland Police Department. Director davis received his b. A. From Southern Illinois university and completed a Senior Executive estate at Harvard University Kennedy School of government. Patrick yose, captain, the National President of the fraternal order of police. Since 1984 he has served in a variety of roles in the st. Charles parish in louisiana and the command of the special services department. Earned a bachelor of science from Mountain State university and associated science from Nichols University and graduate of the fbi National Academy. Reverend al sharpton founder of the National Action network, Advocacy Organization attended Brooklyn College and received an nonrare doctorate of die skin vinenity, from Virginia Union university as well as an Honorary Degree from ap bible college. James blake is a former tennis professional and currently a correspondent and host for the tennis channel. Hes the tournament director for the miami open. I suppose we can get good tickets. Mr. Blake is here to speak about his personal experiences with Law Enforcement. Gina hawkins has served more than 30 years in Law Enforcement and the chief of police for the North Carolina Police Department. She also serves as an executive board member of the National Organization of black Law Enforcement executives. Chief hawkins received her bachelor of science from Georgia State university and master of science from Johns Hopkins university and graduate of the fbi National Associates academy. Heather mcdonald, the thomas w. Smith fellow a the Manhattan Institute for policy research and written books on the criminal Justice System and previously clerk for judge steven rhine hard on the u. S. Court of appeals for the ninth circuit and received her b. A. From yale university, ma from chair college and Jd Stanford University law school. Philly atibaga is the cofounder and president for policing equity and serves as professor of Police Equity of john j. College of criminal justice and has written on policing issues. He received his ab from Harvard University and m a p hd from stanford university. Finally linda garcia, is the policing Campaign Director at the Leadership Conference on civil and human rights. Before joining the Leadership Conference miss garcia served as a Trial Attorney in the special litigation section of the Civil Rights Division of the department of justice and also serve as a law clerk to judge guison in the Eastern District of court, b. A. From hunteder college and j. D. From fordham law school. We welcome all of our distinguished witnesses and thank them for participating in todays hearing. Now if you would please rise i will begin by swearing you in. Raise your hand, please. Do you swear or affirm under penalty of perjury the testimony youre about to give is true and correct to the best of your knowledge, information and belief so help you god . You may be seated. The record let the record show the witnesses answered in the affirmative. Please note that each of your written statements will be entered into the record in its entirety. Accordingly i ask that you summarize your testimony in five minutes. To help you stay within that time there is a timing loob light on your table. When the light switches from green to yellow you have one minute to conclude your testimony when the light turns red it signals your five minutes have expired. Miss carr, you may begin. Good morning. Turn the mic on. Speak closely. Okay. Yes. Chairman nadler, and members of the Judiciary Committee, i thank you for having me this morning. My name is gwenn carr. I am the mother of eric garner. Five years ago my beloved son eric was murdered by people who were supposed to serve and protect. On july 17th, the nypd Police Officers approached my son, one of them put him in an illegal chokehold. Eric cried out 11 times, i cant breathe, 11 times he said i cant breathe. But those officers who were on the scene that day, they didnt seem to care. Eric died that day. There was a video that captured the incident, including the choke hold and my sons cry saying that he couldnt breathe. This went viral around the world. So my thought today how come no one was held accountable . No one was held and charged for my sons death. Not only the officer that murdered my son, but all the officers who were on the scene need to stand accountable for his death that day. I will never forget that day in july. I got up that morning and i spoke to eric, i spoke to him about ten minutes and afterwards we said our goodbyes, he said, i love you mom, i said i love you too, eric. Never knowing that would be our last and final conversation. My entire life was uprooted on that july day. I felt helpless in a dark place, scattered in millions of pieces. It is impossible to describe the pain that i felt that day. Losing a child is just indescribable. Having the burden of finding out exactly what happened to your child by the police who was responsible for his demise. How is a person supposed to get answers . Who do she go to for help . Most people cant even comprehend how difficult it is to suddenly lose a child and to fight for five years and just get an ounce of accountability. It has impacted our lives in many devastating ways. Almost two months ago, i lost my husband. He was my partner in every sense of the word. He fought the long fight with me even though he wasnt in front of the cameras, he supported me and he really supported the cause. My granddaughter erica, she died december 17th of a heart attack. She was only 27 years old. But when my son was murdered, she fought the good fight. She fought until she became ill. I say she died of a broken heart. These are the wounds of the seen and unseen from the Police Brutality. The loss of loved ones and no recourse, no accountability. The entire family is trau traumatized. Each and every time we enter the courtroom or watch the officer responsible for my sons death get a pay raise, or hear the department of justice saying theyre not going to seek charges, or when an officer who is the Commanding Officer of the person who was on the scene when my son was murdered said it was not a big deal that eric laid on the ground d. O. A. , i come before you today not only to share my sons story, or the long quest of justice that weve been seeking for five years, but i urge you to take immediate action to imply the national changes and standards towards policing in 2015, i stood with representative Hakeem Jeffries as we introduced the bill that would make chokeholds illegal under federal civil rights law. Once the bill is reintroduced, this season i call for you to support and vote for legislation. The Excessive Force use the excusive use of force prevention act 2019 please vote for it. Violent police have no place in this society so like you said, mr. Nadler, lets get them out of here. No officer who is not there to do his job should be on the police force. So again, i ask you, to please, to please vote on this bill. Miss carr, thank you for your moving testimony. The committee understand how difficult this was for you and has agreed not to subject you to questions out of respect. We now invite you to join us for the remainder of the hearing in the front row if you so desire. Mr. Davis. Good morning, mr. Chairman. Ranking member collins and distinguished Committee Members, my name is ronald davis and i had the distinct honor as serving of the United States department of Justice Office of Community Policing services in the obama administration. I also served as the executive director of president obamas task force on 21st drin policing. Before my service in the administration i spent close to 30 years in local policing, 20 years in the great city of oakland, california, and eight years as police chief in the great city of east palo alto. My testimony is based on these perspectives and my perspective as a black man and father of black children. First, in the 20year police veteran i know firsthand the complex and dangerous nature of being a Police Officer. As a police chief, i had to tell a wife that her husband, one of my brave Police Officers, was shot and killed in the line of duty. I personally seen the toll being a Police Officer takes on so many. Ive lost friends and colleagues to suicide, a threat growing at an exponential rate but also seen a lot of positive changes in policing in areas such as technology, crime reduction, diversity training and Community Policing. However as a black man i know that despite these efforts, significant Racial Disparities exist in our policing and criminal Justice System and do not believe the disparities exist because its full of racist is. Many of the systems and practices and policing that exist today were designed in the 1950s and 60s to enforce laws and oppress black americans. We must ac knowledge the history of policing and the role the police have played and continue to play through draconian discriminatory policing practices. With that being said i think its fair to say that positive changes have started especially through some of the work of president obamas task force on 21st Century Policing. I testified here today, my concern is that its not that we havent made progress. My concern is this department of justice is attempting to stop this progress returning to the failed policies and practices of the 80s and 90, policies that resulted in unequal justice. I was a street cop in oakland during the 80s and 90s and i can tell you firsthand the nostalgia for the policing practices of those easy is misplaced. I worked in units that made thousands of arrests. I witnessed these practices destroy the future of thousands of young men of color with with unfair sentencing practices. We know these caused significant Collateral Damage and did not work. What did work in oakland was to many policing and the use of evidence based programs such as operation operation cease fire and deterrent strategies. Those will argue the tactics of the 0e9s is it work and if taking a lot of people to jail and having numbers go up and down a success it worked. Our democracy Public Safety is not just the absent of crime it must include the presence of justice and this idea taking from dr. Kings quote on peace must serve as the foundation for how we evaluate in our criminal Justice System. As most of you know the american policing system is by designed controlled locally so policing practices are accountable to local Community Values and their priorities. It is disheartening to hear the attorney general of the United States attack local morris and prosecutors for the efforts to respond to the local community. It is disheartening to hear people including those in this Administration Talk about how they support the men and women of Law Enforcement yet their actions do not back this rhetoric. Dont tell me you support Law Enforcement and local control of police and threaten to take away Grant Funding if local police refuse to enforce laws, cops having the resources necessary to do their job and vote against funding to hire and train more cops and do not demand Community Respect for Law Enforcement while advocating for those very policies that you know will destroy that trust. I remind you that in new york it was first the officers and their union that was against stop question and frisk but it was implemented nonetheless and when it went bad the officers were blamed. Now the Justice Department is advocating for a return to the same policies ignoring the lessons of the past ignoring the voices from the field. Once again placing onchsds and the community in untenable conditions. This is why this hearing is important. Through its grant program, Technical Assistance and civil Rights Enforcement the Justice Department can play a role to help out the 16 to 18,000 Police Agencies in the United States. To make sure that whether the department has four cops or 40,000 cops, that they have access to the best policies and training and practices in the country. There is much the federal government can do to help police and my time is winding down i will give you a couple recommendations. The first recommendation is that we rescind the sessions memo and restore the ability for the Civil Rights Department to conduct pattern and practice investigations. That we work collaboratively with local Law Enforcement and communities to develop strategies to enhance Public Safety. That we restore funding to train officers and deputies in implicit bias and procedural justice increasing funding to the National Institute of justice to conduct research and investigate crime strategies, we work with local prosecutors instead of criticizing them to reform the krim Justice System, that we expand the efforts to develop strategies to enhance officer safety and wellness and support the act that that makes sure that accountability is in every department in this country. I should be able to drive anywhere in this country and expect the same treatment. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Thank you. Good morning. Chairman nadler, Ranking Member collins, distinguished members of the committee. I thank you for the opportunity to appear here today and speak on behalf of the nearly 350,000 members of the fraternal order of police. My name is patrick. Over a month ago i was elected president of the National Fraternal order of police. We are the nations oldest and largest Law Enforcement organization. My full testimony has been submitted for the record and with the chairmans permission i would like to summarize at this point. My profession is evolving. Some of these changes are driven by technology. Others by society. And, of course, by our own internal efforts to improve Public Safety and the services we provide to the communities. As a Law Enforcement officer i spent 35 years of my career answering calls for help and im here today to let you know that the fraternal order of police is ready to sit with anyone who generally wants to work collectly to improve policing. Were calling on you for your help. Law enforcement officers were once respected. Parents would tell their children if you need help find a Police Officer. This may no longer be true. Recent events indicate a growing personal view officers with suspicion and disdain. We are a Public Servants not public enemies. We live and raise our families in the same communities and were vested in the success of these communities. Ambush attacks on Law Enforcement officers have been increasing. Over the last eight years a recent study by the fbi concluded that many of these cases were motivated by the desire to hurt or kill a Police Officer. Congress needs to act to reduce this targeted violence by passing hr 1325 and protect and serve act introcaused by representatives rutherford and demens. Chief, thank you. Thank you for your stedfast support for Law Enforcement. This will not make every attack on an officer a federal crime but what it will do is give the u. S. Department of justice a tool in certain limited circumstances to fight back against targeted attacks like those that occurred in dallas, texas, baton rouge, louisiana, my home state. Last year this committee passed this legislation unanimously and the house passed it a vote of 38235. Passing this legislation again would demonstrate that this house supports the men and women in Law Enforcement because right now, were feeling abandoned. These changes in attitudes are having an impact on our ability to retain and recruit the best and brightest. Applications for positions in Law Enforcement have decreased this year by as much as 66 leaving too many agencies short shifted and overworked. My organization is also working to improve. We have engaged many of the organizations here today. Represented here today on issues of body cameras and improving Law Enforcement transparency while still protecting privacy rights. We have participated in each and every Public Meeting for the president s task force on 21st Century Policing and we have supported the majority that bodys findings and we have worked with this committee to implement many of them. We have engaged with the administration in many of the groups represented here today to support the historic First Step Act while many of our fellow Law Enforcement organizations chose to withhold their support the fop was able to support it because we engaged in a conversation and were able to committed to improve not just our profession but the criminal Justice System as a whole. I think everyone can be proud of the results because we achieved it while working together. Another issue of which there is bipartisan support is addressing the issue of Mental Health and wellness among the men and women in Law Enforcement. Being a Police Officer is not an easy job. Its evolved into including the role of therapist, major counselor, addiction specialist and spiritual adviser. Some statistics suggest a Police Officer will experience more traumatic events in a six month period than an average person experiences in a lifetime. It can take a tremendous toll on well being. First responders have five times more ptsd than a civilian. Little has been done to address this and a number of Police Suicides seem to be under reported. In 2017 there were 140 officers who took their own lives. In contrast in that year, 46 officers were fatally shot and killed in the line of duty. Police officers run toward danger while most run away. Rather than cast them aside, we have a moral and iffa dish yar responsibility. Mental health and wellness act and the supporting of officers in crisis act will help us grapple with this issue. Finally, my profession must continue to work hard to build trust and respect for the communities we protect. There must be an open dialogue and a willingness to build consensus. We cannot do it alone. I promise you we will do our part. I thank you for the opportunity to speak here today, and ill be available for questions. Thank you. Reverend sharpton. Thank you, chairman nadler and Ranking Member collins. As president of our organization, ive submitted any testimony. Id like to summarize by saying that what we really seek is this committee to begin moving toward federal law and federal standards that would define clearly where the line is in terms of Excessive Force and take this argument from a state and local level to where theres a federal standards that all must abide by. What we have seen in the last several years is that in different cities where were called in, in every case we afford, including the erik corn garner case and the other cases this morning, Michael Browns mother from ferguson, missouri. The mother of stephen clock submitted testimony. We have seen different counties react different ways. It reminds me of the early stages of the 19 60s of the movement for civil rights. Until the federal government stepped in, they would have to fight state by state, county by county against segregation. So it was the judgment of Martin Luther king junior and others to appeal for federal Government Intervention rather than fight in alabama, then in georgia, et cetera, et cetera. Unless the federal government steps in and deals with federal standards and federal laws, we will be subjected to the local politics and at the whims of local back and forward that could differ in another state. We need to have federal law that sets various unimpugned standards that would be followed. What do i mean by that . Federal government determined in several states, several counties, several cities, that they were going to place certain Police Departments in where the Justice Department would be over and supervise them because there was a pattern and practice that demonstrated Excessive Force. When this present administration came in, they immediately suspended that in several of those cities. They had not been in long enough to make an investigation, so what was the determination that made them decide that they would stop what has been determined by the Justice Department before them after an investigation . This committee needs to investigate why incoming attorney general sessions upheld now by barr withhold and removed this designation, because it really sends the signal that we will allow practice to continue even though a Justice Department, not gnash Action Network, not activists. Not black lives matter. The Justice Department said there was a pattern. I think that we also must have certain standards in terms of when we talk about body cameras, that they must be regulated where they cant cut the body camera off. We must define when we look at a carr, five years waiting on a decision for the federal government on whether charges would be brought, and we read Public Notices the Civil Rights Division wanted to charge but the locals didnt want to charge. For families to go through this, it shows how undefined the federal laws are. Just as civil rights activists had to appeal to the federal government 50 years ago to intervene and save us from states rights mentality, we need to rise above states rights mentality in Law Enforcement and set federal law. Im heartened to hear the head of fop said theyre willing to be at the table in the discussions to see where there can be consensus, because we do need consensus. When police are killed, we are standing firmly against that. Miss carr and i led a march when two policemen were killed in new york. Another was killed, the family invited me to see them. Some of the unions got angry. We gave 5,000 for a fund with that. Were not antipolice. Were antiPolice Brutality. Even when we stand up when police are killed, we have yet to see Police Unions stand up one time when one that of their officers killed someone in the community unjustifiably. Im not saying every policeman is wrong. The majority of them go out with many reasons to wonder whether they will come home, and they protect all of us, but those that step outside the law must be punished and the federal government must make that happen. This is not about antipolice. This is about upholding the law, and no one should want bad cops punished more than good cops whose names are smeared because people get to choke people on tape, hearing 11 times i cant breathe, and youve got to go through five years of torment and finally be turned down and got to beg, pray, and march to just take his job. This is not what america should be about. The president and others can excuse it. I think its on the congress to act. President says i hate cops. No. I just dislike the president. I dont hate cops. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Chairman nadler and others thank you for the opportunity to speak here. In 2015 i was standing and waiting for a car on 42st street outside of Grand Hyatt Hotel when i believe we have the video, this happened. This is an extremely vulnerable and infuriating situation. I knew i had done nothing wrong and this was an abuse of power and intimidation. Luckily for me, i made it out alive. What happened to me was unfortunate. But it could have been tragic with only minor changes. I was aware of that as a possibility as the news prior to this had been peppered with cases from others. Those are tragedies that didnt need to happen. When i realized how common these occurrences were and still are it forced me into action. I had to speak up to give voice to those who didnt have that option. It was amazing to me in new york after this occurred how many people came up with similar stories, worse stories or worse. They didnt have the benefit to raise awareness or talk about the case on Good Morning America the next day or meet with the mayor and police chief personally. I got those benefits because of my previous career as an athlete. The video made all the difference. Before anyone was aware of the video the Police Department was in damage control and stated they were investigating whether force was used and that i was only in cuffs for less than a minute. Had there been no video, it would have been my word against the police. We all know how that goes. Because there was a video and it backed my account, theres a public apology and meeting with the mayor and police chief. That gave me more responsibility to find a way to hold the city accountable. Not all are able to have the video of video evidence, and even if it, too often families are undermined and not believed. As we have seen with clear cut cases including air striing eri others. Accountability is an issue that strikes a nerve with me for this case. The state that this country is in right now is in a crisis with regard to lack of Police Accountability. Im certain there are statist s statistics. I was attacked in broad daylight without even raising a hand or making any move to run. This was done by an officer who had numerous complaints and settlements for Excessive Force. This information was leaked to the force when i wanted a database. This led me to believe the result should be termination from the nyp pd. Instead hearings were dragged out two years and he lost one week of work which i would have lost more had i still been on tour this time from the injury sustained. All the while he was collecting his paychecks from the city of new york. This gets at one of the Serious Problems ive seen. All the consequences are based on past precedent. Thats when the police were policing themselves. When i asked the civilian Complaint Review board to suggest firing they let me know they could not and would not do that. My status they feared would hinder any hope of getting that as it would look like fren preferential treatment for a celebrity. I didnt want preferential treatment. It may embolden someone to do worse and feel like they can get away with this behavior. To me, this leaves blood on the hands of those in power that can do something to stop the abuses before they escalate. Im one example of the harm caused to people. There are stories untold. Until we know the stories, its difficult to obtain police reform. The Congress Must require that states collect data on all Police Community encounters and the encounting of deaths in Police Custody is enforced by the department. They must have the end racial profiling act. And the pride act sponsored by congressman castro. These require reporting on use of force and other interactions. I think about my encounter and think how lucky i was that i had no fight or flight response. I think about those who werent so lucky. A choke hold was banned decades earlier but led to garners death. It should be a prohibtded use of force. These acts cant change what happened to me. They cant bring back walter scott or others but they can hopefully make a difference in thwarting those types of situations be before they happen. Thank you for allowing me to use my voice to bring attention and possible solutions to improve Community Relations and save lives. Thank you very much. Chief . Committee chairman nadler, Ranking Member collins and members of the u. S. House of Representatives Committee on the judiciary. I bring you greetings on behalf of the executive board and members of the black Law Enforcement executives. I am the National Treasurer of noble and the chief of police in North Carolina. It is an honor to be here for noble to provide written testimony on the topic of policing oversight. Noble has been at the forefront of promoting Police Accountability since the organizations inception in 197 6. Our mission is ensure equity in the administration of justice and the provisions of Public Service to all communities and to serve as the conscience of Law Enforcement by being committed to justice by action. Law enforcement agencies and their leaders have a responsibility to ensure that justice is at ministered fairly in all communities. Noble member chiefs and sheriffs hold ourselves and our agencies to a High Professional Standards ensuring that officers and communities we serve and protect are aligned with a priority for everyones safety. Police are not perfect, and we recognize the need to take steps to improve service, build trust in our communities, and increase operational transparency. Noble has been actively involved in National Level discussions on the key areas of Police Accountability, use of force, and reducing gun violence. There has been universal recognition expressed by noble to the United States department of justice on the importance of maintaining a level of Police Accountability in the form of the previous model of the cloud of reform initiatives or similar style federal resources. Law enforcement agencies that seek to improve their operations use the nationally adopted blue print for 12 21st Century Policing should be afforded the Technical Resources available for improvement without any punitive federal level recourse. Agency leaders should also have access to high quality policing professionals who can assist that agency with assessing areas for improvement and developing strategies to modernize their Police Operations and culture to best meet the needs of the 21st Century Policing as already outlined by the department of justice. As chief of the feyetteville Police Department, my predecessor used the Technical Assistance resources provided through the collaborative form to help the agency develop a strategy to improve engagement at all levels of the department and particularly with communities of color. Our department did not shy away from taking a close look at our training, traffic and pedestrian stop data, and our Citizen Engagement to identify areas of improvement. Today we are a better informed and engaged department because of the leadership that i and other noble leaders who vied to their agency because we recognize a need to measure up to the expectations of our communities and ensure policing is a credible profession respected in our communities for being honest, trustworthy, fair to everyone we serve and protect. The federal government can play an Important Role in influencing role local municipalities and their Police Agencies to address systemic issues that are adversely impacting their ability to protect and serve their communities. A key assumption that has been challenged by noble is that policing organizations can easily police themselves without the best practices and following the nationally adopted blueprint for 21st Century Policing. As the data shows, it is very rare for the federal government to enforce a Consent Decree. Since 1997 there have only been 21 court enforced Consent Decrees on Law Enforcement agencies compared to the over 18,000 agencies that serve our communities. Most Law Enforcement agencies are filled with committed, fair, and honest men and women who put our Police Uniforms on every day with the sole intent of keeping everyone safe. In the instance where deadly force is used, a Third Party Intervention could be beneficial in many states and even agencies have adopted policies that already implement this critical public trust component. The ultimate goal in Police Accountability is to strengthen trust on legitimacy between Law Enforcement and the community. A strong trustworthy legitimate agency can create a safer environment for Law Enforcement officers and the citizens of that community. Noble Police Chiefs and sheriffs provide Law Enforcement Agency Leadership to over half of the largest cities in the nation. We are committed to effective Community Policing and holding our agencies and officers to the highest standards in the policing profession. On behalf of the Law Enforcement leaders of noble, thank you for supporting Law Enforcement and our ability to maintain Public Safety while continuing to build strong relationships with our communities. Our members stand ready to make the needs of the diverse communities. Thank you again for this opportunity to provide testimony. Thank you, miss mcdonald. Thank you, chairman nadler. Ranking member collins and Committee Members for the opportunity to speak today. Im a fellow at the Manhattan Institute for fellowship research. Tens of thousands of lives, the majority black and hispanic have been saved closing the Life Expectancy gap between whites and blacks by 17 . This crime drop was the result of a policing revolution that began in new york city in 1994, and spread nationwide. Upon taking officer, William Bratton dared something that few Police Chiefs had ever risked. He publicly set himself a target for crime reduction. Bratton not only met his oneyear goal of 10 . He beat it. With a crime decline of 12 . The next year he upped the ante declaring that the new york Police Department would lower crime by 15 . That years crime drop locked in at 16 . The idea that the police would take measurable responsibility for Public Safety was transformative. Bratton accomplished his rime route with three strategies. Timely information, accountability, and proactive policing. Deputy commissioners starting demanding crime information in realtime so that crime patterns could be addressed as they first broke out. Top brass held precinct commanders ruthlessly accountable for crime in their jurisdictions. And officers on the beat were asked to intervene proactivity when they observed suspicious behavior. Broken windows policing was a crucial aspect of the policing revolution. It addresses low level social disorders such as loitering, unruly conduct, and public drinking and drug use. Broken windows policing is not just a crime strategy, however. It is a moral imperative. It is the hard working lawabiding residents of high crime neighborhoods who besiege the police to address street disorder. Go to any Police Community meeting in a high Risk Community and youll hear the good people there beg the police to get the drug dealers off the streets, ke de claire the corners of rowdy ruth and contact down on illegal street parties. The residents know its out of unchecked social disorder that more serious crime emerges. A 2015 poll found that 61 of black voters in new york city wanted the police to issue summons or make arrests in their neighborhood for quality of life offenses. Compared to 59 of white voters. Should the Police Ignore their voices because the activists say that broken windows policing is racist . We are also told were living through an epidemic of racially biassed Police Shootings of black men. This, too, is false. A study published this august in the proceedings of the National Academy of sciences is just the latest research undercutting the media narrative about race and Police Shootings. It is the rate of Violent Crime that determines Police Shootings, the study found. The more frequently officers encounter violent suspects from any given racial group, the greater the chance that members of that group will be shot by a Police Officer. In fact, black civilians are shot less compared the whites than their rates of Violent Crime would predict, the study found. If there is a bias in Police Shootings, it is against white civilians. The antipolice narrative deflects attention away from solving the real criminal justice problem which is high rates of black victimization. Blacks die of homicide at eight times the rate of whites. The homicide death rate for black males between the ages of 15 and 24 is 16 times higher than that of young white men. That is the civil Rights Problem that should most concern us. Those black victims are killed not by cop, not my whites but by other blacks. Blacks commit homicide nationally at 8 times the rate of whites and hispanics combined. In 20 subpoena there were nearly 8,000 black homicide victims. More than all white and homicide victims combined. Only 2. 8 of those black casualties, the vast majority armed with a gun or otherwise dangerous were killed by a cop. The best solution to urban crime is to reconstruct the family. That is a longterm project, however. In the meantime, the policing revolution that began in new york in the 1990s and spread nationwide has given lawabiding residents of high crime communities greater freedom to take their children to school or to go to the Grocery Store without fear an expectation thats the governments most fund want tall obligation to meet. Policing today is more professional and restrained than at any time in its history. And there is no Government Agency more dedicated to the proposition that black lives matter than the police. Thank you for your attention and i look forward to your questions. Thank you. Dr. Golf. Thank you, chairman nadler. Distinguished members of the Judiciary Committee. I am phil. I am a professional nerd. I am also by disposition a relatively conflict diverse person. But my love of country and my respect for this body and mostly my vocation as a scientist will not allow me to move to my prepared remarks just yet. I feel i must correct the record on some statistical elements. The fall of crime over the course of the last quarter century is just abjectly not in response to Police Behavior alone. If the members would like for the reading on this, i can highly recommend uneasy peace which identifies clearly that communitybased antiviolence work is a large and underappreciated component of reductions in crime. Not just Police Behavior. I should say that i believe that 2015 poll was just cited as evidence perhaps implying that black people actually liked broken windows policing. If memory serves that exact same poll showed that black people were concerned about racial bias within Law Enforcement, a trend that has escalated over the period of time since 2015. To suggest that black people enjoyed the treatment in new york or any place else of broken windows policing is what scholars refer to as selective hearing. Hearing only what is convenient to an ideological narrative and not the fullness of what those communities are calling for. Which is safety and justice at the same time. Surely, not too high a bar for Law Enforcement. And last in terms of clarification, a study in the proceedings of National Academy of sciences was just cited. I have to say first of all, no, that is not what it said. Most importantly, the authors of that study have recently acknowledged to the rest of the Scientific Committee or some members that their central cause claim is unsupported by the data and factually wrong. This Committee Hearing should not be a dumping ground for dr. Goff, weve heard a lot of witnesses and youre testifying for a central causal claim. Could you tell us which one youre refuting . What youre talking about. The study just cited by National Mcdonald does not show that white officers are less or more likely to be involved in deadly shootings. It does not. Its a correlation study and the authors themselves have admitted to others in the Scientific Community that the central causal claim they make which is that there is no bias in this is unsupported by the data that have been made public and have been publicly analyzed by scholars at princeton university. I do not like to be part of anything where that becomes a laundromat for junk science. I apologize for stepping out of my character to say so. I would like to thank you for the privilege of being invited to testimony. May i return to my prepared remarks. I am a professor, a nerd. A position i accepted after receiving tenure at ucla. I was a member of the National Academy of Sciences Committee that issued report on proactive poli policing. I am likely best known for my work with the center for policing equity. For the past decade i have had the pleasure of being the president of cpe, an organization forced on equity in policing. My testimony today is in that capacity. C c cpes host to a national dabt funded by the u. S. Department of u. S. Science foundation. Ive been asked to talk about what science has to say about Public Safety. What does it have to say . First, as with all science, it is important that we define the problem correctly. We speak only about the role that Law Enforcement has in keeping communities safe, our conversations will never elevate above blaming people or communities. Framing should be Public Safety, not just Law Enforcement. And i cannot echo the comments of mr. Yost strongly enough. If were talking about Public Safety, both communities and Law Enforcement understand the officers that patrol the neighborhoods need to be of sound mind. They need to have the resources to make sure that Mental Health and officer wellness are central. Now, having defined the problem, as Public Safety, what are some of the solutions . My colleagues at cpe and at the yale justice clab tory had five policies rooted in science and practice called for by the large majority of our Law Enforcement partners that we believe have the best chance to produce the biggest returns in Law Enforcement reform. They are from the front to the back end accountability, a National Model policy for use of force similar to the one articulated by the camden Police Department. It can reduce harm both by communities and officers without elevating a risk. I am out of time because of my remarks at the beginning. Those five policies are all also introduced into the record. And i would encourage the members to look at it. One last word. Within this weve heard a lot of talk about data. I think its important that we move the conversation from data to analysis. My ted talk this past september 9th, we talked about an initiative for justice. Its possible to measure crime and miss mcdonald was correct, us helps to reduce crime, but you can measure not just Racial Disparities but the portion for which Law Enforcement is responsible. Importantly, this initiative at cpe and similar initiatives elsewhere is at the request of Law Enforcement. They want to know and they want to lead on that. I would be remiss if i got out of here without saying that leaving with the impression there wasnt already legislation introduced that moves u forward. The end racial profiling sets up the infrastructure for that. Thank you for the invitation, and i absolutely look forward to your questions. Im linda garcia. I am the director of the policing campaign at the Leadership Conference Education Fund and the Leadership Conference on civil and human rights. Thank you for the opportunity to testify today, and thank you chairman for your leadership in calling this hearing to discuss policing best practices. Safety is a civil and human right. Without which society cannot thrive and democracy cannot function. Yet, in recent years tragic incidents of Police Violence have deepened distrust in Law Enforcement and made people feel less safe, especially within communities of color. Its time to rethink antiquated approaches safety that fail to address Public Health issues. When Police Practices harm communities, it sews mistrust and hinders Community Engagement. Both of which are critical for realizing Public Safety. The federal government has a role and indeed a responsibility to promote the values of fairness, equity, procedural justice, transparency, and accountability within Law Enforcement. However, the Current Administration has severely curtailed the department of justices use of Consent Decrees to address police selfrights abuses. It has abandoned under which Police Departments voluntarily sought audits and recommendations to improve trust between the public and police. This does a disservice both tovt communities suffering from systemic misconduct and Police Officers left without the tools to police safely. High profile Police Shootings of unarmed black men and other incidents of Police Misconduct coupled with the heavy including that are discriminated against on the basis of race, ethnicity, national originen, religion, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, age, disability, proficiency with the english language. Immigration status and housing status. Where people perceive the criminal legal system to be arbitrary, biassed and unfair. They are less likely to cooperate with police making us all less safe. In march of 2019 the Education Fund launched the new air of Public Safety initiative and report to help build trust between communities and Police Departments. Restore confidence, and reimagine a new paradigm of Public Safety. While much of the reform has happened at the state and local levels, success will require the Leadership Support and commitment of the federal government including you, members of congress. Every Year Congress provides millions of colldollars through federal Grant Programs to support police. This is a due toy to ensure that funds are not supporting Police Practices that harm Public Safety and erode community trust. Additionally, this responsibility empowers congress to incentivize Police Departments to adopt best practices in Community Policing. To promote transparency, accountability and Public Safety, the Leadership Conference offers the following recommendations to the committee. Reduce the use of Excessive Force by passing the Police Exercising Absolute Care with everyone act of 20 19. Prohibit discriminatory policing by passing the end racial and religious profiling act. Mandate robust Data Collection. End the militarization of agencies by passing the stop militarizing Law Enforcement act. Promote officer health and well being by directing grant money to officer support services and programs. Invest in nonpolice responses to crises by expanding communitybased Mental Health and Substance Use services and strengthen accountability systems and hold officers accountable for constitutional violations or criminal conduct. Congress has the power to bring about transformative policing that benefits communities and offers. You can provide the support and funding to jurisdictions to implement twentyfirst century policy and practices that are fair, safe, and effective. To realize this vision of Public Safety, communities and Police Departments must rebuild trust. This new era of Public Safety will require Community Driven solutions and investment in Community Services including house, employment, and health care. Our coalition is committed to ensuring policing practices that respect the dignity and humanity of all people. We look forward to working with you until the day these reforms are signed into law. Thank you. Thank you very much. The witnesses specifically commented on the testimony of another witnesses, weve been asked by the minority if she can comment. I can grant one and a half minutes to her for that purpose. I think it ironic to call a study in the proceedings in the National Academy of sciences junk science. The fact that its correlational means its not a regression analysis. Nevertheless, the findings remain accurate that they found no bias in Police Shootings. This is a finding supported by numerous other studies in a paper from 2017. Harvard economist fryer found no evidence of Racial Discrimination in shootings. From the university of washington found that officers were three times less likely to shoot unarmed black suspects than unarmed white suspects and took significantly longer to decide to shoot armed black suspects than armed white suspects. Other dont shoot studies by the university of chicago have also found no police bias against black civilians. I submit that the belief that we are living through an epidemic of racially biassed Police Shootings is a creation of selective reporting. In 2015 the same year the report data came from, the white victims of fatal Police Shootings included a 50yearold suspect in a domestic dispute who ran at the officer with a spoon. A 28 driver in des moines who exited his car and walked quickly toward an officer after a car chase. And a 21yearold suspect in a Grocery Store robbery in akron, ohio who escaped on a bike and did not remove his hand from his waistband when uttered to do so. Had any of these victims been black, the media and activists would have jumped on this. Regular order, mr. Chairman. Finish the sentence. Your time is expiring. Thank you. And added their names to the roster of victims of police racism. Instead because theyre white, they are unknown. Thank you for the opportunity. Thank you. I thank the witnesses for their testimony. And we will now proceed under the five minute rule. I will begin by recognizing myself for five minutes. Dr. Goff, my first question is dr. Goff, would you comment on what weve heard on the evidence, et cetera . I think i can say under my time, none of that is true. If youd like me to elaborate, i can. Please do. The study is a study that he has con fezzed to being embarrassed about. Its been roundly debunked. To say that i should also clarify that i believe the study youre talking about in terms of the shoot dont shoot is not from university of washington but from washington state. I believe youre talking about louise james and everybody who studies that research commented on the fact that there was no time pressure in the simulation. So with infinite amount of time when you know youre being studied for racial bias, you can correct for it. When youre under time pressure, you have a harder time. Thats why it didnt replicate the other research. Theres two forms of racial bias you can see in the studies. One is in the error rate and the other is in terms of the length of time it takes. Black suspects were shot more quickly. White armed suspects were shot more slowly, and it was only the case that there was zero error rate for officers who had been well trained and were not in specially units like the gang and swath unit. Newer officers had a rate high if not higher than regular civilians. But all of this is beside the point. The idea that there isnt bias is its just not a serious position when you look at the science. Right . Where theres bias, why theres bias and what the definition is, thats a worthy discussion. We have defined the problems of racism in terms of defective hearts and minds and when youre looking in just the hearts and minds of officers, you often do not see it. I am not saying that because there are disparities on the street that officers hold in their heart defective character. In fact, it is frequently not that but situations that produce outcomes. We need to have a way to identify what the situations are. And then keep officers out of it. The incident of tamir rice was noted by the chairman earlier. The officers were very close to an individual who might have had a weapon. But that is in the words of my chiefs that i deal with, often a situation that can be avoided. Right . The way you avoid that is you dont put your car up next to someone you think is armed. You maintain a safe distance. Now, the officers dont need to be bigoted in their hearts to have engaged in something that was detriment tall finding. If we define that narrowly as the only problem, again, we cant elevate to solving. The question of the science none of that was right. We should define the problem more precisely so were not debating if officers are good or bad people. Thats not useful from a policy perspective. Thank you very much. Reverend charlotsharpton, youv represented multiple victims of Police Misconduct. Can you give your experience for filing misconduct complaints . I think the process begins first of all, National Action Network Never gets involved unless were asked. The first part is to try and pursue if the local authorities to convene a grand jury and to deal with the possible criminality of the act. And to support the family. Gnash Action Network at the same time will provide whatever resources we can and whatever help we can because they have been traumatized, and even when there are settlements, some of them large, we dont even ask for reimbursement. Theres nothing in this for us. I think the premise of fighting, though, is one against those who may discriminate, but also against Excessive Force if it is not a person of color as i listen to the exchange between the nerds on the panel, we are willing to fight for whites that are victims of Excessive Force. There was an Orthodox Jewish young man killed in new york. We went out and supported him. Im here for white people and black people, and any other people that are victims of Excessive Force. When we talk about Consent Decrees and talk about body cameras, when we talk about the things that weve said today, mr. Chairman, were not talking about for blacks only. Police ought not violate anybodys civil rights. And i think that that is whats important. Thank you, chief davis, before my time expires in your testimony you recommend that the sessions memo be rescinded. Could you describe the sessions memo and describe the effects on policing practices and why it should be rescinded . Yes. Shortly after taking office as the attorney general, attorney general sessions put out a memo that curtailed the activities of the Civil Rights Division in conducting pattern and practice investigations. The memo also stopped the volunteer Organizational Assessments that chief hawkins talked about. The impact of not having pattern practice investigations not having Organizational Assessment means the departments cannot learn whats happening in their own organizations. There is no transparency. You cant do an internal review of assessment. In many cases the agencies ask for the review. In fact, mr. Chairman, not only was that memo signed that curtailed the activity, there were four or five reports that were completed that they failed to release with communities begging for the release. Walter scott, fayetteville, a few other places, milwaukee, and so this idea that what we heard from the department of justice that we will not author any report that is critical of Law Enforcement is a disservice to Law Enforcement. When you talk to chiefs around the country, they want to know whats inside the organization, whats working, whats not working. And to do so, my last point about the Consent Decrees. People think about the Consent Decrees as somehow a detriment to policing or an attack on the officers. Consent decrees are usually signed with the city, not the Police Department. In many cases its dysfunctional City Government that also needs oversight. To make sure officers have the training, have the equipment, are held accountable. Its not just about the police. Its about doing so. And those 20 or 27 Consent Decrees, when i was at the Justice Department have served as the foundation for thousands of agencies to voluntarily make the changes and implement the best practices. It was mentioned 16,000 agencies in the United States and the average is smaller than 100 officers. They do not have the capacity to do research and development to identify best practices and understand whats happening in the industry. This profession must become a profession and we need to have national coherence, National Best practices and accountability that comes with Consent Decrees. Thank you very much. My time has expired. The gentleman from georgia, mr. Collins. Thank you, mr. Chairman. The last conversation, i want to pick up some of this. Theres a lot of ways we can go with this question. Im one especially serving on this community having the background i do, and i think what you said but important. I think we had to put money in there year because it was getting stripped out. We put the money back in. We believe it works on a lot of levels. I think this is the part in i consider crazily enough a nerd on the panel up here, mr. Sharpton, because i believe facts matter and we deal in we can deal on emotion all day, but lets hit things. Chief, youre in North Carolina, a military community. Its an interesting place that is a nice place. Ive been there from the air force perspective. The one thing im seeing a lot of us, and we hear this from smaller forces and you represent in the National Organization. How do question come to grips without a national heres how you do it and again, leaving it to states, how do we come up with a system where were better reporting as i said in my opening statement, the bad actors. Im sure you as chief want the bad ones out now. Put them in jail. How do we do that to give the smaller forces, the four and fiveman forces the big ones always get there, we talk about it. But theres an underlying current that we dont talk about because they dont have the news coverage. How can we do this through the National Organizations and others to help chiefs and commissioners and others just get a better quality. It cant be all money. Were all dealing with budgets, but how do we do that . Id love to hear your comments on that . As i mentioned in the testimony, all agencies and all departments need to have the ability to ask for assistance in examples like the collaborative reform or any other type of method. To be able to ask that question or to be able to ask another professional who has figured out some things and provided the resources. Thats nobles stance. In regard to how we can make the requests to do best practices. A smaller ac may not have the resources but they may have the ability to make a phone call to a National Organization. Say can you send someone thats near your area . Anyone can call me and my agency and we do it all the time. We share information consistency. What did you do . What else are we doing . We dont have to reinvent the wheel, but we could have guidelines. Patrick, i want to engage in this. This is a rubber hits the road. Youre dealing with it. Im concerned that not only they can call and ask questions but how much are we seeing this i need a new officer, i want to get rid of this one. How did he do . Good guy. Click. Is there any way we can look at that a little bit farther . Ill share a little bit because im from georgia. What georgia did and what North Carolina does as well is the certification. Whenever someone leaves the organization, both certifications outline why they left and what is going on so the next organization is well aware and then of what any issues going on and why theyve been released. In georgia weve seen its been amazing. Its the hip top from one job to the next. Its called gypsy. The ones in trouble. Its a consistent pattern. Its less and less. Its getting there, yes. I agree. Patrick, your thoughts on this . I agree with the comments. I can tell you my experiences in Law Enforcement. When officers leave from agency to agency, every agency does an extensive background. Thats to determine their liability and Everything Else associated with it. There are standards in given states that determine that follow that officer and that certification within their states. Everyone for the most part, even though every state has its own standards, theyre all based on the same criteria. And let me stop you. I agree. I want to lets peel this onion back a little bit. Thats the way its supposed to happen. We also know if youre down two officers, you got a fiveperson force, and this person leaves, its harder sometimes. Youre tempted to hire that person in who is already certified. I dont have to send them to school or pay for their schooling. He told me there was a problem with the police chief. I agree with the certification in georgia. Weve seen this. I know what the national the story is. The question is, though, how does that seep down to the departments that frankly dont have the resources to do that and are under pressure to keep up their force . I can only speak as a leader. As a leader of noble, as a police chief that there is no standard that im going to thats going to weigh out the need to have someone qualified and someone who will represent me, because basically when i hire someone, in all the background investigations done, thats what i expect. You and mr. You all have standards. You are the gold standards. But i think in the Bigger Picture, i think it helps as we dont look at the Bigger Picture and just discuss the problems. Theyre there, but these are the real nuts and bolts issues as i think mr. Goff said, youve got to find the mentality. Theres a temperament to a Police Officer. I call it the state patrol face. They never smile. Theres a temperament. Youve got to take it into account. Youve got to eat everything and go for it and still divert it fairly. A lot more stuff we can discuss. Im glad were here. One quick question. Does your department use body cameras . Yes, sir. Have you had a cost issue with storage and other things . Of course, sir. Standard practices, we could put out best practices but if you have a small community, thats a tough issue. I yield back my time. The gentle lady from texas. I thank the chairman and Ranking Member for this hearing, and let me say to all of the witnesses, every aspect of your testimony is vital to a construct that we not a Judiciary Committee now feel is long overdue which is a policing agenda that acknowledges the basic facts that every human being deserves to go home to their family. And i hope that that is the most striking point that comes, and to our friends in Law Enforcement, you know more diminishes than a ta mere rice. Youre no more dmiiminishes tha erik garner who was a son, but a father of six, and a grandfather. And maybe there is a grandchild now that he has missed who has been added to this wonderful family. And i hope that we dont have to take a litmus test to tell you all of our friends in Law Enforcement, all of our neighbors, all of the prayers, the time i flew to dallas, when the officers fell in their duty, or the many funerals that ive gone to to the men and women in blue. But we wont get together if we fall into the divide of the emerging White Nationalism and White Supremacy and pretend to be separated from each other. I want to just ask these questions that would hopefully get us to the point that we can resolve this. Your predecessor committed to working with the congress to ensure Data Collection and reporting on Police Community encountered. Can you make the same commitment by ensuring states and Police Departments will comply with the death and custody reporting law and will you work with us in congress to advance legislation . Really a Law Enforcement agenda, that would require Data Collection and reporting on other police and Community Encounters and also to end racial profiling . We are very much committed in Data Collection. Data collection is valuable information for us to know how to move forward. How to police properly. And there are a number of agencies that have the ability to collect the data. Its available now. Its usable. Its something that we can readily put our hands on, and help us move in the right direction. The one concern we have is the smaller agencies in their capacity to collect the data. Our concern is agencies that are small having to collect the data may in essence, affect their ability to be able to police. Were going to so to respond to that, i think the important thing is as a collection of data needs to not be tied to grand funding or anything like that. Agencies, thats counterproductive. Do you believe that Law Enforcement, however, should not engage in racial profiling. Its unconstitutional. I agree. Any legislation that would make that simple point, you could take back and support . I think the constitution is clear that it is illegal, and its already on its there. It exists. Then it would not be offensive to have legislation that provides grants and opportunities to ensure that does not happen . Its unconstitutional. The law has already spoken. I take that as a yes, and i thank you for that. Let me ask the question to mr. Blake. Do you were speechless. But were also speechless for the lives lost whose names i will call. Clearly usual racially profiled. Did you have an encounter, a language, a comment, ask your name or anything of the sort . No. I didnt have any sort of fight or flight response. If you watch the video closely, which we dont need to do again, i was smiling. It was due to my previous life as a tennis player. I was under the misguided opinion this may have been someone coming to give me a hug or a fan in some regard, and i find myself extremely lucky. I thought of what could have happened had i thought this was someone coming to do me harm. After speaking to many officers since then, i thought about i asked them what would have happened if i put my arms up or made an effort to fight or if my brother or one of my best friends was with me or my wife and had acted in any way accordingly. You were clearly a man of color standing in front of a prominent hotel in manhattan . Right outside Grand Central station, and had Something Else happened we need topaz the end racial profiling among other important initiatives . Yes. Thank you. Can i ask dr. Goff because of my time, let me respect all the websites and also thank miss garcia for indicating black and brown. Its women and other individuals that may be profiled in different ways. When we have statistings and i want the reverend to answer this as well that clearly indicates the higher number of African Americans that are killed by Law Enforcement, i think the point i wanted to distinguish is this whole question that comes back to us about black on black crime. What i hope is that well pass hr40. The commission to study reparations so we can address the systemic issue and the impact of slavery. As it relates to this bias about black people kill themselves, make the distinction of color of law. Because what were talking about is democracy. Were talking about the response. So if both of you answer the difference when Law Enforcement engaged in the lights of tamir rice and walter scott and Michael Brown and eric garner, the color of law. The witness may answer the question. And reverend sharpton, please. Go ahead, sir. Thank you for the question. It is different because it feels different for the community. Theres a difference between a neighbor who is violent which is obviously scary. When the state says its okay, its terror. And we see that both in the responses from communities and in the responses frankly from Law Enforcement. But i think one of the things you mentioned that was important. I want to put a fine put on the statistic element. The idea of black on black crime is a trope raised in response to the idea that thats the reason why Law Enforcement is using force in black communities. As distasteful as that may seem, its a reasonable question. It may be that crime or poverty are driving this and theres no bias within Law Enforcement. But its an answerable question as well. Theres not a question that takes into account poverty rates, school achievement, housing unequality that yields anything other than those elements, crime and poverty are not sufficient to show Racial Disparities. We should be able to distinguish between the two. I concur with dr. Goffs answer. I would also say for the record that when we had campaigned against stop and frisk in new york, saying it was discriminatory, and the administration came in and reduced it down to nothing, crime it did. Crime is at an alltime low. Im not a nerd, but i can read and write. Crime went down with stop and frisk gone and i think that we need to be very, very clear about that. And as far as blackonblack crime, i think in any community, most people are the victim of people of their same race. The problem in the black community is that we have fear of cops and robbers. Right. The gentleladys time has exp e expired. The gentleman from ohio. Thank you, mr. Chairman. I want to thank the witnesses for appearing here today. We really do appreciate it. Earlier this year, we held a hearing on universal background checks and this Committee Held a hearing on red flag legislation. As i understand it, next week the committee will hold hearing on assault weapons and gun violence in urban areas. And while i appreciate the majoritys focus on gun control legislation and think its important that this Committee Act in a responsible manner, i think that their efforts are misdirected. Im a Firm Believer in the Second Amendment rights and laws like the ones that are proposed by the majority this year, unfortunately, im afraid would do little more than restrict the rights of hardworking, lawabiding gun owners. The majority tends to focus on remedies which may sound good but would have done little to stop the attacks that weve seen occur in this nation, and unfortunately, im afraid would do little to do anything about future attacks that might occur. But we do need to Work Together to find a way that we can make americans safer. Mr. Yost, let me ask you, first of all, you are the National President of the f. O. P. , fraternal order of police, is that correct . Yes, sir. Thank you. I want to thank you for being here today and representing the men and women all across america who keep us all safe. And so thank you for that. In my home state, ohio, its a priority that those who shouldnt have firearms cant get access to those firearms and thats what we ought to be working on, making sure that those people who arent eligible cant get them. They shouldnt guns should not be in the wrong hands. One way that this could be accomplished is to ensure that the nix system, the National Instant criminal background check system, is accurate, that its up to date, that its checked before obtaining a fire rm yarl, that it really works. Would you agree with that . Sir, i think everyone in Law Enforcement would share the same opinion that we would like to take guns out of the hands of people who mean harm. Wed rather fix that rather than respond and explain why it happened. And certainly, we are in favor of any process thats going to allow us greater ability to be able to do that. Our concern is and should be that it should have a strong due process for to work through the issues. Thank you. And im sure youre familiar with the gunfire Detection Technology thats out there today and that some cities including my city in cincinnati is currently using and at the federal level, i would say that we should try to help cities and counties invest in that technology to help reduce gun violence and in effect, its a technology where you have microphones or you have sound wave equipment who can identify very quickly where this shooting has taken place, and you can f oftentimes get there quickly, stop something thats happened, capture a criminal, pick up casings from the gun thats been fired. Could you do you have an opinion about that type my opinion is this, Law Enforcement officers have a very difficult job. Any tools we can give them to more effectively and efficiently do their job should absolutely be a priority. Our effectiveness to be able to respond accurately in times of very stressful, very tense situations, could mean a matter of life and death. Any tools we have available to Law Enforcement absolutely should be explored and made available. Thank you. Let me follow up, also, some of our most highly trained individuals about how to handle an active shooter situation, whether its in a school or in a place of worship or anywhere, are Law Enforcement people. Theyre trained, most highly trained people in our society. And they tend to retire after 25 years or whatever, they may be in their 50s, and oftentimes are seeking other employment. It would seem that you have a source of trained people, perhaps, as School Resource officers in the schools. Could do you have an opinion, have you thought about that . Actually, i served as resource officer for several years. Best job i ever had working in the schools, interacting with youth. Changing attitudes toward Law Enforcement. I absolutely agree that a presence in school plays a pivotal role. In my agency, we started it long before it became a trend across the company country, recognizing that it was important to be able to protect the safety of children in schools. And if you have a safe working school environment, youre going to have learning occur. So i absolutely totally agree that there are definitely positive element to resource officers and thats the reason why it has crossed the country. The ability to include other people into protecting schools, any efforts we do to protect schools and protect the security within schools is well worth it. Thank you very much, mr. Chairman. My times expired but i want to thank the committee and hope we can Work Together to keep the American People as safe as possible. Thank you. Well essenticertainly do ou to do that. I thank the gentleman. Gentleman from tennessee. Thank you, mr. Chairman. I am deeply concerned about the crisis of trust between Law Enforcement and the communities they serve and this is true in my home city of memphis, unfortunately, because we are not a stranger to the issue. From my perspective, there are several things we can do here in congress to help. Ive introduced bills to address many of these issues. One would be a way we can use technology and data to improve Police Civilian interactions. The Police Camera act, hr120, would provide grants for state and local jurisdictions to purchase cameras for their officers. And we also need to collect data, technology, to be useful about policing practice to make Law Enforcement more responsive and responsible and thats why i introduced the National Statistics on deadly force Transparency Act of 2019. Which is hr119. And communities need to feel safe that Law Enforcement agencies are accountable for their actions, that nobody is above the law. Its a shame dethe apartment p justice stepped back from providing review and accountability for police practice. Along with congressman lacey clave, we introduced hr125. At this point, mr. Chairman, id like to introduce a letter of support for that act from the naacp in june of 2019. Without objection. Thank you, sir. Id like to ask chief hawkins, what our bill would do besides have sensitivity training for policemen about minorities and different areas that might not be of their history, it would say that Law Enforcement agency that would determine if there should be a grand jury and determine whether or not there should be a prosecution and also prosecute the case should come from a jurisdiction other than that from which the Law Enforcement came. In my experience, i started my professional life after law school as attorney for the police in memphis. Theres no question theres home cooking. Many people from Law Enforcement go and work as investigators for the d. A. , and its almost like a farm team. And so from my perspective, you cant have absolute independence if the d. A. Has to go to the grand jury and if the d. A. Indicts a policeman, gets a policeman indicted, then the police, as we saw in new york, and i think it might have been i dont know if it was the garner case or another one, but the police all went out against the d. A. They protested. Are you saying changed jurisdictions . Yes, maam. Yes, sir. You think thats a good idea . I think so, sir. That gives an unbias ability to gauge the facts of the situation, the facts of the case and a good review of it. And, mr. Davis, do you have any thought about that type of concept . Yes, sir, i do. Actually two recommendations in the president s task force on 21st Century Policing. The first was start with the investigation. That it should be an investigation by the department not overseeing the officer involved in the shooting. Separate total different Law Enforcement agency. Yes. I as a detective dont have to interview, investigate somebody i worked with for 20 years. The second part, prosecutors and police Work Together on a daily basis and just the things necessary to make communities safe that you didnt go outside that jurisdiction as well so you can have a separate jurisdiction look at the prosecution, convene a grand jury. I agree with you, this level of independence is important to build trust and a process that people think is so insular and so designed to benefit the officer that we need nose were two recommendations from the president s task force. Now im going to take a long shot, not supposed to ask a question when you dont have an idea what the answer is going to be. Do you not see the benefit that might give to Law Enforcement, everybody else, seen as a fair shake . Sir, i can detell you that i think a collaborativest esffor a local level, which law agencies are based on local jurisdiction, that that should be the very first part of reviewing any systemic problems there are within agencies. There are processes within each state of how they handle them. And we support those positions that are taken within those states to investigate crimes. Or incidents. Thank you, sir. Later this week, im going to introduce the deadly force independent review act which would provide independent review, instances when a federal Law Enforcement officer used deadly force. I think that will help, too. Reverend sharpton, what do you think, youve been active for many years on all these issues. What do you think are the most important reforms we can take up to try to cure these problems . What works best . I think that what we need is clear legislation on where the police are to be dealing with federal charges in Excessive Force. What raises to the bar of a federal crime. It is too nebulous now that secondly that we would have some preventative measures in like cameras on police that cannot be turned off and that when Consent Decrees are ordered by the Justice Department, they remain even if administrations change that they remain. And that we have constant reviews by the Justice Department with the department there on policing around the country, particularly looking for pattern in practices. I think if we start with legislation, not just with feelgood programs but legislation so police know theyre accountable legislatively, not just on a local and state level which is what had to happen with voting and other things in the civil rights era. Thank you, gentleman. The gentleman yields back. The gentleman from texas. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Appreciate all the witnesses being here. Yeah, i appreciate the comments. It does help if you have someone who is not bigoted or prejudice against the person that theyre either pursuing or investigating and hopefully at some point our attorney general will have somebody independent review the investigation and the determinations made by peter strzok and lisa page. They obviously hate president trump. But i was concerned about the exchange by dr. Goff, ms. Mcdonald. I would offer for the record this from b. A. N. S. , from david johnson, trevor tress, carly taylor, joseph ciserio, officer characteristics and Racial Disparities in fatal officerinvolved shootings. I didnt know what ask that that be made part of the record. Without objection. And also, ms. Mcdonald, i had a couple articles from here, one about vow of truth from city journal, sum pmer 1999, one fr august 31st, 2000, Manhattan Institute. Offer those for the record. Without objection. Thank you. But in looking at this that my staff just brought me from this study ms. Mcdonald references, i dont know the statistics underlying this. Im just reading from their results. Said we find no evidence of any disparities across shootings and white officers are not more likely to shoot minority civilians than nonwhite officers, instead, racespecific crimes strongly predicts civilian race. This suggests that increasing diversity among officers by itself is unlikely to reduce Racial Disparity in Police Shootings. I dont know the underlying statistics, but thats what it says on its face. But during my days as a well, as a prosecutor, id ride along with Law Enforcement and ill never forget, we had a threat in my home county against some Law Enforcement folks and i went with them and he was supposed to be there and have an arsenal, but there is nothing like standing outside the door, and i was four years in the army, we were never in combat, but lots of training, but standing outside the door of somebody thats threatened to kill the people that youre with and knowing that person has an arsenal and youre about to go in his home, yeah, its officers all over the country do that each day and put their life at risk so that others hopefully dont end up killed, and as a judge, you know, i can acknowledge not all officers are paragons of virtue, but it seemed to me from what ive dealt with there is a lower percentage of bad apples in Law Enforcement than there is in the general population, but one of the things that was said earlier about the family, ill never forget the testimony of a gang leader, hed been convicted of murder, his attorney had wisely advised him not to testify, but he refused the advice of his attorney on sentencing, took the stand for one reason, he made it very clear, im not following my lawyers instruction, i cant sit there anymore, i sat through this whole trial and listened to people talk badly about my gang. He was a gang leader. And he had killed a guy. And he said, im sick of it, thats my family, i dont know my father, my mothers never around, that is my family and i couldnt sit still and not Say Something about people bad mouthing my family. And, boy, that comes home. He never knew his father. He never had a mother that was around. I just cant help but think if he had had one or both of those, he wouldnt have ended up in my courtroom having a jury sentence him to life in prison. So, there are a lot of things we need to look at and i appreciate the effort of everybody trying to get back to more civility. But i hope that we dont overlook the importance of the family and what it used to be in america, but i appreciate all your time. Ive read your statements, and thank you for going to the trouble to be here. Thank you. I yield back. Gentleman yields back. The gentleman from georgia. Thank you, mr. Chairman, for holding this very important hearing, and i want to thank each of the witnesses for their testimony today. Let me begin by saying that the men and women who serve in Law Enforcement in this country are for the most part brave, dutiful, honorable, and they keep us safe. That is not a question for debate. However, its undeniable that there is an epidemic of Police Shootings of unarmed civilians in our country and by failing to recognize that, were contributing to the problem. I want to point out the fact that i believe police should be accountable just as the citizens who they seek to hold accountable, so that means that just as citizens have to be questioned by police after an incident happens, why should it be that police are protected from having to answer questions from Law Enforcement agencies when they have been involved in a Police Shooting . When theyve killed somebody . Or when they have choked someone to death. Why should they have a week of respite without with a legal right to not be questioned about what happened because they have it in their employment agreement, their collective bargaining agreement. So these kinds of rules that insulate police from accountability need to be removed from our practice and thats why im going to be filing what will be called the cooloff period elimination act so that we can make sure that Police Officers are treated the same way citizen suspects are treated. And with respect to investigating Police Misconduct, what happens is the same agency that employs them is the one that does the investigation. The same Prosecution Authority that would prosecute the case is the one that presents the case to a grand jury if it ever gets to that point. But it usually takes in in many cases, years before it gets to that point and its kind of lulling the people to sleep, the public to sleep, then you announce with regularity that there will be no prosecution. And so to alleviate that, for the last couple terms of congress, i have filed the grand jury reform act which would cause Police Shootings to be investigated by a states highest Law Enforcement authority such as in the case of georgia, the gbi, Georgia Bureau of investigation, that would assume Investigatory Authority and also an independent prosecutor would be appointed by the governor to preside over these investigations and then the results would have to be submitted to a judge in open court, not a grand jury, but a judge, in open court, for a preliminary hearing and that would be the way that these cases are disposed of. And so, and in the event that a jurisdiction declined to prosecute an officer for what might be an obvious offense, like the eric garner situation, live and on camera, choked a man to death, why shouldnt the federal government be able to prosecute for murder . In that way, you bring about some accountability. When Police Officers are held accountable, it sends a strong message to others that they need to conform their conduct to societys norms and so i look forward to, for your support on the grand jury reform act and also the Police Accountability act and the cooloff period act. Let me last say that a lot of our Law Enforcement officers are straight from the military and when they went to the military as young men, they were trained in terms of what kind of instinct that they should have. General mad dog mattis got his nickname because he said that it was during a Training Session he told his marines to be polite, be professional, but have a plan to kill everybody you meet. And he said that a good soldier follows orders, but a true warrior wears his enemys skin like a poncho. That is the military ethos of going into battle and when you have a Police Officer thats been trained in that way, its hard when that Police Officer gets trained to become a Police Officer to put aside that instinct that has been bred into them and put into operation suddenly a protect and serve mentality. So weve got a lot of Law Enforcement who are military veterans and theyre also reservists and National Guardsmen who are trained to kill, to occupy and destroy, and theyre roaming our streets and the more Police Officers die every year of suicide than they do from being killed in the line of duty. So when plifsholice officers ar under a lot of stress out there, it plays out in terms of their reactions to situations, their overreaction to situation, and then people of color are predominantly the victims of that, and so i think we need to take a comprehensive view in terms of Mental Health as it is applied to our Law Enforcement officers, and with that, ive run out of time and i dont have a chance to ask anybody for any feedback, but i want everyone to think about that carefully and lets work on that issue. Thank you, and i yield back. Gentleman yields back. I would like to briefly address the members of the audience in the hearing room today. We welcome you and respect your right to be here. We also ask in turn for your respect as we proceed with the business of the committee today. Its the intention of the committee to proceed with this hearing, but it is against the rules to permit any applause or, for that matter, negative applause, or disruption of any kind. So please refrain. The gentleman from florida. Thank you, mr. Chairman. And reverend sharpton, your current msnbc coworker Joe Scarborough is my former congressman, and when Joe Scarborough served in the congress, he had quite a bit to say about your contribution to the national discussion. It was in the 106th congress that Joe Scarborough filed a house concurrent resolution 270 entitled, condemning the racist and antisemitic views of the reverend al sharpton. Mr. Scarboroughs resolution began by saying whereas the reverend al sharpton referred to members of the jewish faith as bloodsucking jews and jew bastards. Does mr. Scarboroughs assertion that you said those things true are did you not say these things . They are patently untrue. I never said that. Okay. Can i finish my answer . No, its actually my time. I thought you raised a question. The next question can i answer the question . Mr. Scarboroughs second witness, since dispersions were cast on the witness, the witness will be no, im sorry, mr. Chairman you asked was it true that i said that . I cant reclaim my time . You asked me is that true, and my answer was, no, that is not true. As you know, mr. Scarborough and i work very closely together. He b cocomes to National Action network conventions. I think hes a great guy and we do each others shows often. Mr. Scarborough excuse me. The gentleman the timekeeper will add 30 seconds to your time. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, parliamentary inquiry. Gentleman will say its parliamentary inquiry. Is it appropriate for a member of the body to personally attack a witness before the body . Or shall i say, can a or shall i say, should can a can a congressmans words be taken down in the event that he cast dispersions on a witness . We ask everyone to adhere to rules of decorum. The gentleman will proceed. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Joe scarborough then wrote, whereas the reverend al sharpton referred to members of the jewish faith as white interlopers and diamond merchants, have you ever referred to this . No, sir. I referred to one in harlem, an individual, who i didnt even know was jewish, as an interlope and said i should never refer to his race. I said i was against those that were using apartheid diamonds and when i did a funeral in Crown Heights in 91 because we were boycotting oppenheimer and those that were selling diamonds from apartheid south africa thank you in the same sermon may i finish my answer, sir . Am i lowed to finish im allowed you asked a question and im answering. I cant wait. Apparently you do questions. I also asked about people im not filibustering anything. Im answering your question. Everyone will suspend, please. Mr. Charmirman, a parliamenty inquiry. Everyone will suspend. Parliamentary inquiry. Gentlelady will state a parliamentary inquiry. It will be in the form of an inquiry statement, is it appropriate for a member to do a constant tirade of attacking the witness and then not allowing the witness to answer . My personal opinion is thats not proper but its not a proper parliamentary inquiry. Gentleman controls the time. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Mr. Scarborough continued whereas the reverend al sharpton led a protest in the Crown Heights neighborhood and marched next to a protester with a sign that read, the white man is the devil. Did you march next to a sign that i have no recollection of that. Ive marched in many things where there were signs that i did or did not agree with. Scarborough continued and i i would say that if i was aware of that, i would have said that i would not want to have that sign. And not just have him you shouldnt ask me a can e if you dont want an answer. I want to know if you said them. I cant answer, yes or no, whether the the witness is obviously disrupting the committee. The witness, first of all, this has nothing to do with policing. Since he wants to make the subject Joe Scarborough and i, let me answer it. Had nothing gentleman last i know, Joe Scarborough, nor i, are members of the Police Department or have anything to do with Excessive Force but im loving to engage this if he lets me finish. But its outrageous as a matter of opinion. Gentleman controls the time. Mr. Chairman gentleman controls the time. So youre not going to restore my time . No. Joe scarborough continues the reverend al sharptons fierce demagoguery incited violence, riots and murder in the Crown Heights section of brooklyn, you agree or disagree with that statement . As a matter of fact, the new york state did an extensive study on the Crown Heights riots, said i was not even there until after there was death. I was not even called by the family until the day after. Thank you. We had nothing to do when i came to Crown Heights, i led the first nonviolent march there. Are you really fine, mr. Sharpton, have you ever referred to africanamericans who disagree with you as cocktail sip negroes . I have. Have you ever referred to africanamericans mr. Charmirman, i have a parliamentary inquiry. Gentleman will state his parliamentary inquiry. If a congressperson is persistently questioning a witness about a nongermane matter, is it proper . I think the gentleman makes a fair point, but the rules provide members with very wide latitude. Parliamentary inquiry. Gentleman will state his parliamentary inquiry. Does it violate any rules of decorum for a member to read specifically verbatim from a document filed in the congressional records as a resolution . Gentleman from florida may proceed. Have you referred to africanamericans who disagree with you as yellow then n word . I dont know that i i referred to people as names, i dont know it its because they disagree with me. I have said things about blacks and whites. Im glad you made it clear i dont only attack whites. Thank you for that. Have you ever said that have you ever referred to africanamericans who disagree with you as negro militants . I didnt know that was a derogatory statement. I didnt say it was. Just asked if you used it. I dont know. I dont recall. Have you ever said if the jews want to get it on, tell them to pin their yamakas back and come over to my house . No, there was a man who had been charged with some terrorist acts who threatened to march on me and several activists in new jersey and he said he was going to come deal with my hairstyle and im referring to his hair style. I said for him to pin it and come on. I was not talking about all jews. No. You said those words. No, i said about mortaci levy. Have you said im in hell already, im in israel . Yeah, because id be threatened if i came over to deal one more question. No, first of all i believe that you can deal with the decorum of the congress but you cannot disrespect a witness. You cannot ask a question and tell the witness he cant answer the question. Permitted to answer the question. Youre welcome to answer. How about let me answer, sir. Let me answer. Im enjoying this. I think i think that you have youre in a committee about policing. Dont get upset. Calm down. Calm down. Youre yelling. Youre yelling. Calm down. I think that im trying to answer your last question. Permitted the time of the gentleman has expired. The witness may answer the question. The one about offing the pigs. Answer that one. Witness may answer the question. The time of the gentleman has expired. The witness may answer the question. The question that he raised, what i was saying is clearly i have disagreed with blacks and whites. Ive used language, graphically sometimes, to do so. Some of which ive grown beyond. But none of which shows anything other than i am an equal opportunity attacker. And im glad that Joe Scarborough and i both are equalopportunity attackers and now Work Together. Mr. Chairman, i ask to be recognized for unanimous consent request. Gentleman they state his unanimous consent request. I seek unanimous consent to introduce the scarborough resolution as part of the committees record. I object. The the gentleman from georgias recognized. Mr. Chairman, i have a motion. Now that over. Just checking. Its over . Okay. So the auditions over . Okay. Just checking. Mr. Chairman, now that we just wasted five minutes that had nothing to do with the subject of how we make our Community Safe for both black and white, how we make our officers safer, i want to start with with mr. Yost whos in my district and represents fraternal order of police. We met with fraternal order of police last year. I brought in noble and fraternal order police. I thought we had a good meeting. But what i want to ask on the record is that we come together, those recommendations from the 21st Century Policing model, those that the f. O. P. Are behind, can you all submit to us the recommendations youre for, the ones youre against, and the ones youre neutral on so we will know where theres Common Ground . And i think that noble has adopted the entire report. If you all could give us that, then at least we know where the two Law Enforcement groups stand on the 21st Century Policing recommendations. Yes, sir. I absolutely can forward that information to you. It is documented. It is prepared. I can send it, we can make it part of the record. Okay. Second, dr. Goff lists some recommendations in his testimony. I dont know if you have them. If you could, there are five recommendations. If you could look at those recommendations and get us your position on those five, it would be very helpful. Second, part of your testimony, you talk about making it a federal offense to target Law Enforcement officers, which i agree with. You use as an example dallas and baton rouge, and baton rouge was very personal to us, and but i want to point out that thats not necessarily apples to apples when you talk about community Police Relations. Baton rouge was sovereign citizens. Theyre a domestic terrorist organization. And they target Police Officers. So that has very a lot less to do with Community Relationships with the police. I didnt want it to seem that way. But since you did mention baton rouge, which was sovereign citizens, then ill point you next door to st. John parish where we lost two officers and two were ambushed. The thing that both of those incidents have in common besides the loss of multiple Police Officers, is they were outgunned by the perpetrator. Both of them had ar15s. So when we mention assault weapons ban, let me just ask you very specifically, in those cases, were the police outgunned by the perpetrator . Well, sir, thank you for bringing up brand nielsen and jeremy trish. Both were friends of mine. That incident occurred probably 10, 15, minutes from my house, so im very much familiar with it. Yes, i would say, absolutely, they were armed with weapons and the officers were not prepared for what happened. And the baton rouge incident was also ar15s, so when we talk about assault weapons, were really talking about weapons of mass destruction and the question of whether they have a place on the streets in a civilized community. I wont put you on record as whether youre for or against assault weapons ban, but i would like to ask you, are you troubled by the fact that ordinary citizens are more equipped and more weaponized than the Police Officers in many incidents . Well, as a Law Enforcement officer, im very much concerned about our ability, the safety of officers. The other thing i would point to, and dr. Goff, ill ask this y question to you, maybe even chief hawkins, the mentality that we have in terms of police, so we have warrior mentality. We can have a guardian mentality. In the warrior mentality, you are rewarded in terms of how many stops you make, how many tickets you issue, how many summons you give out, which encourages that mindset. Then the guardian mentality, its how often you engage with citizens. So, in that setting, and my time is going to run out. I hope youll comment on it, but lets take the alton sterling case as an example. He sold dvds outside the same store for years so when theres a call to a Police Officer to come check on what altons doing, whether he may or may not have a weapon, where is the breakdown in Community Policing that the police that responds to that does not know who he is . I mean, if youre the same person in front of the same store, does the Police Officers never go get a sandwich or a drink from those Community Stores . Wheres the breakdown im trying to understand why did the police not already have a relationship with a guy who has a business set up in front of another business for years . So, if you can answer that in terms of Community Policing, guardian relationship versus warrior. With that, ill yield back the rest of my time. Ill start real quick. In regards to the guardian and warrior mentality, the way that you described it, sir, im going to have i believe in both. I dont believe them in that perspective. I believe it as the citizen that i am of my community, of im a mother. Im going to be a warrior if someone comes for my family. In that aspect, Law Enforcement are warriors in protecting the community. Thats what we train for. Thats what we prepare for so that if youre outgunned, fe with have better tactics but the mindset, dual relationship of the guardian, were there because were protective and having Community Policing is more than just a notion. It is the actual engagement of knowing everyone that is selling anything in that community. Whether it be ice cream or a tshirt so that comes with a lot of work. That comes with effort and action and proactive action, proactive discussion, in addressing all the biases, all the theories that you may have in your mind personally and training it and even acknowledging the fact that you might personally have some type of belief, but when we address it and we have talks and discussions with our Community Members and actually bring out hardcore discussions, then we can get past this. So i believe personally that there is the ability to have a warrior and guardian mindset Work Together. Gentlemans time gentlemans time is expired. Upon consideration, i will withdraw my previous objection. Document will be entered into the record. The gentleman from ohio is recognized. Thank you, mr. Chairman. I yield to the gentleman from florida, mr. Gaetz. Thank the gentleman for reviewing. I was reviewing your prior answer, reverend sharpton. Youre cited in a Washington Examiner piece as having said, if the jews want to get it on, tell them to pin their yamakas back and come over to my house. In response to my question, you said you were just referring to one question. Heres my very limited question for you, reverend, were you misquoted in this story when you say, the jews and them referring to a plural group of people rather than one person you seem to have a grievance with . Am i allowed to answer . My name is sharpton, not lewandowski. I will answer the question if im allowed. Please. We know your name, sir. Go ahead and answer. And you then know that im going to answer. I was referring to an incident and a threat to come to my home by mortacai levy and to the homes of i believe reverend daughtry and others. How the examiner i think you said or someone else wrote, im not looking at it so i do not know whether they misquoted me or not. I do know what i said and who i was referring to. Did you same them . I just said that im not looking at the statement. I do not i just want youre talking about a situation that happened in 1991. If i said them, the or those, i dont know. I know the incident and i know what i was referring to and a man threatened to come to our home who had that kind of criminal record and i had two young children, i think under 5 years old i thank you, i appreciate the answer. Again, im not lewandowski. Ill talk. Ill testify before this committee. So is it your belief if i said them or not would that help or hurt Excessive Force of policing . Well, i think its pretty significant when someone wants to come and preach to us mr. Chairman, point of parliamentary inquiry. The parliamentary inquiry. Someone else the gentleman will state his point. I dont believe you talk about the people that come before you. The gentleman will suspend. The gentleman will state his point of parliamentary incarry. Mr. Chairman, when a witness is asked a question in front of the hearing in a Judiciary Committee, do our rules provide a witness is permitted to answer the question . Witness is permitted to answer the question. I have a parliamentary the member controls the time. Parliamentary inquiry. Hold on. Member controls the time. If the member judges that the question is answered to his satisfaction, he may go on to another question. Gentlelady will state her point of parliamentary inquiry. When a witness is attempting to answer the question, is it the rules of this committee that the witness be allowed to answer the question, and is it also in the decorum of this committee to not badger the witness if the witness is attempting to answer the question . The member well, there are two answers. The member controls the time. If the member thinks that the question has been answered to his satisfaction, he may cut off the answer, go to a further question. However, it is not permitted to badger a witness. We do afford members considerable latitude, but witnesses, badgering witnesses, is inappropriate. Our committee should not conduct itself in that manner. Its expected that all parties of these proceedings comport themselves with decorum and professionalism and that all times, in the manner that reflects credibility. Maintain order and decorum. And i will do so. Gentleman controls the time. Thank you, mr. Chairman. I aint having no march, i believe in fighting. Well, fight then. Aint nobody holding you. Ill off the man. Well off him. Plenty of crackers Walking Around here tonight. Did you say those words . I do not recall saying i will not march. I think for the last 40 years ive marched. I think that youre referring to, and im not sure, but i think youre referring to when i was dealing with some people that said that they dont want to march. And that theyre going to off people and i told them there are plenty of people Walking Around that they called the name, theyre not offing anybody because i felt they were just trying to disrupt our asking thank you, mr. Chairman. People to march. So in the context of i was quoting, as i said, i was quoting, as i said, the reference made about i dont want to march. Astrology, mathematics, for cocrates and the greek i talked about african history, i talked about how we dealt with astrology as well as mathematics and philosophy and religion in africa. But you referred to people as greek homos, didnt you . I do not recall how i referred to anyone. Thats quite youd have to cite you think your bigoted statements in 1991 are excusable just because they were in 1991 . I think any statement that ive made that was wrong i have clearly said that we should not make bigoted statements including me. I also think that to have you made bigoted statements . I think also to have you . Have you made you can ask will the gentleman yield . You can ask all the questions you want. Im going to answer the will the gentleman yield . When you call greek homos, talk about white crackers, those are bigoted statements. I think i made it clear that i was quoting what somebody said. Yelling and getting upset is beneath your office. You should calm down. Suspend. The gentleman will state his point of order. Once again, mr. Chairman, after a sustained attack on the character of a witness that has been called by people on this panel, and that panel then attacks that witness in a sustained, deliberate, manner, which is nongermane to the subject at hand, is it appropriate for a member to ask that an offending members words be taken down . It is not under the rules appropriate. The time is the time is the gentlemans. Thank you, mr. Chairman. I would note these are highly relevant to the issues that were facing. Reverend sharpton has come before the house Judiciary Committee the clock should be running. As a purported expert on policing and yet his bigoted statements undermine the bipartisan work we should be doing to ensure that all citizens are able to come together and have safe communities. Point of order, mr. Chairman. How is this gentleman will state his point of order. How is this line of inquiry germane, and if its not germ e germane, is it appropriate . To the point, may i speak to the point . Settingspecific rule that says this is not allowed, that we well, is there such a rule i dont think we should allow our mr. Chairman, we have had a series weve had a witness who came before us two days ago, mr. Lewandowski, who totally contemptuously dealt with this panel and now we have a reverse of that, we have one of our members doing the same thing to a witness who we have called. I dont think it is within our best practices to allow our process to get down to the level that we have now sunk. And im asking the chairman to in the wise use of discretion to rule that the gentleman from floridas line of inquiry with this specific witness who hes trying to attack his character, no question about that, but im reading his own words back. Doing it in a sustained way gentleman has the time, not you. He does . I have the time, mr. Chairman. You do not. Is this a point of order . Point of order, mr. Gaetz, you dont have the floor. The gentleman is being heard on the point of order. May i be heard on the point of order . Gentleman is being heard on the point of order. Not having uttered a single word of relevance to the issue at hand, is it appropriate for this committee to allow the misuse of this platform to attack the character of a witness . I mean, this is taking our process down to a level that we should never allow it to descend to. And im objecting to im objecting to us wallowing in the mud down here with with these comments. I mean, its not whether or not its true or false, its the fact that its nongermane. To the point. The chair will rule on the point. The chair will rule on the point of order. Although the gentlemans comments may be obnoxious, although they may i object to that. Point of order. That is an improper characterization while the gentlemans comments may be characterized at whatever you want to characterize them as i have a point of order that your words be taken down woe, woe is me. Gentleman, i picked a fight, now i need help. Under the rules the gentleman wide latitude on the question of germanists and on the language he uses and unfortunately under the rules i cannot overrule him. The gentleman will proceed. Thank you, mr. Chairman. You sold your life story, mr. Charlott sharpton, to your own charity. How much money did your charity pay you for the rights to tell your story . Parliamentary inquiry. Mr. Chairman, this is an outrage and the question is whether you can impugn the motives and or insult or badger the witness or characterize his presence at this table. Objection. The gentlelady was not recognized. I have a parliamentary inquiry, mr. Chairman. The gentlelady is not recognized. All right. Stop the clock. Just stop. All right. Youll state the parliamentary inquiry. I thank you, mr. Chairman. I think the gentleman from georgia made a point about a witness that we had just two days ago which the impugning of the motive, the character destruction was not in the course of our questioning. What i say to our good friend from florida that you are now not only not being germane, but you are pointedlying the character and in addition bringing up information that is not let me just finish. Bringing up information, its and inquiry, bringing up information that is a character destroying, and the question is in the questioning of a witness, can you use items that refer to the witness character and demeaning the witness character, is that an appropriate line of questioning . Whether it is an appropriate line of questioning is not is not relevant. The but with respect to the parliamentary inquiry, questioning a witness character and motives, which may go to ascertaining the credibility to give to the testimony, we have always given very wide latitude, and the answer has to be that i cannot object to that. The gentleman will proceed. How much money did your charity pay you, you personally, for the right to tell your life story . My charity owed a certain amount of money to me and asked could they use that money to have the right to sell any rights to my life, be it documentary, oneman play, or other items that they have already began reaping dividends. They would have paid had to pay me the same sum, anyway, because it was owed to any. Was that over half a Million Dollars . So the answer can i finish . Was it over half a Million Dollars . Can i finish . Whatever the sum your charity gave you to tell your life story because i think most people would see that as fraud. The charity, again estate fraud. Charity, again, owed me a certain amount of money. Over 500,000 . They would have had to pay i want an answer. Will you strubt hinstruct him ts whether or not it was more than 500,000 or less than 500,000 his charity paid him i allowed them to use those funds. Mr. Chairman more than half a million bucks . Gentleman will suspend. His time is expired. Gentleman from new york is recognized. Thank you, mr. Chair. Before i begin, let me just take a moment to thank mrs. Carr for her presence here today. Of course, for sharing her thoughts with this committee. What mrs. Carr experienced, no parent should ever have to experience, no parent should ever have to bury their child. Particularly when that child has been killed by those who were sworn to protect and serve. So i want to thank you for turning your pain into progress, for your willingness to share the story in such an authentic and compelling way. Today, i will be reintroducing the antichoke hold legislation that you made reference to in your testimony and we will be renaming it the eric garner excessive use of force prevention act in tribute to your son. Thank you, again, for all that you have done. I want to enter into the record and ask unanimous consent a tweet from Joe Scarborough from july 29th of 2019. The entire line of inappropriate questioning from matt gaetz was based purportedly on a resolution that had been introduced over 20 years ago by thencongressman Joe Scarborough. The tweet reads, thanks to those reminding me of how stridently al sharpton and i opposed each other 20 years ago. We take pride in our friendship today because of that history recognizing jesus words that all have fallen short of gods glory and we should forgive each other 70 times 7 times. Unanimous without objection. Without objection, that will be entered into the record. Let me also thank reverend sharpton for continuing to be a voice for the voiceless, a defender of the disenfranchised, for all that youve done flout. T throughout. The country in the context of this issue, Police Violence and the manner you stood with individuals in new york throughout the years. Whether that was one who was feld by 42 shots at his doorstep unarmed, african man, whether that was patrick, a Security Guard who socalled mayor Rudolph Giuliani maligned by releasing his juvenile records, turned out that he was actually an altarboy who went to the same Catholic School as the socalled mayor, giuliani. Whether it was sean bell who was shot dead, 50 shots, on the eve of his wedding. Whether it was omar edwards who was an off duty black Police Officer who was killed in harlem. Of course, whether that was eric garner who was killed for all the world to see, unarmed, and given a death sentence for selling loose cigarettes. So, thank you, reverend sharpton. In all of those instances, unfortunately, there was no measure of justice to the officer who had engaged in the act resulting in the death of those individuals. What can be done to create a greater degree of accountability . Recognizing that in my view, the majority of Police Officers are there to protect and serve with the best of intentions, but like any avenue of human endeavor in life, there are bad apples, and when a bad apple engages in action that results in the death of an individual, what can be done to make sure that theres a greater eer degree of accountability . Youre asking me . Reverend sharpton. I think that we need to have and thank you for your comments on my work, and i thank the gentleman from florida for allowing me to straighten out the distortion and lies on the record that ive been misquoted. Hes done a Great Service to my reputation. I want to say i think that the federal government has obligation and the congress can initiate that. To really set certain laws in place that become federal law that overrides state laws and that in many ways stops state prosecutors and others from mishandling police matters. One, by having independent review. A department in the Justice Department, a group in the Justice Department that can handle that and determine whether to go criminal or Consent Decrees if its Police Forces. Things like training must reach a certain bar, otherwise they violate federal law. And you have to have things, again, like cameras on police that can that has to be mandated on how theyre handled. There must be federal standards on policing subject to criminal or civil law that cannot change by administrations. And i think we have not answered with all of that has happened in the last decade or many, weve not answered that with any new federal legislation. I think its important we do and im glad youre beginning again with this eric garner choke hold law. Thank you, reverend sharpton. Time is expired. Gentlemans time has expired. The gentleman from california, mr. Mc mcclintock. Thank you. I would first observe every Police Officer i have spoken with strongly supports body cameras because they provide an accurate record of encounters. That protects every honest officer just as it protects ever honest citizen. I saw the video of the killing of eric gardener. It is appalling especially when you consider the fact that the only crime alleged was the selling of loose cigarettes. Who would make in a a crime to begin with, let alone one to be enforced byly that will force. And the attack on you, unprovoked, what was the justification used for the attack on you. Credit card fraud, ordering bags and credit cards to that holg on fraudulent credit cards . He thought you were someone else. Apparently. Did he ask for id . No, i only knew later when i saw badges on the other officers on the scene. Whatever the statistics are, and i tend to trust the accuracy of ms. Mcdonalds study. But clearly that is not the public perception, at least among a significant portion of the population. I used to work for the former chief of the l. A. P. D. , edward davis. And he was chief from 69 to 77 or 78, i think. During the time that he was chief, crime nationally exploded. It was it went up 50 . In los angeles under chief davis it actually went down. And he had a he was not adverse to the use of force. But he had a very unique philosophy of Law Enforcement. He once told me, you know it is not the job of the Police Department to enforce the law. He said thats the job of every citizen the Police Department is there to help. Hes the chief who pioneered Neighborhood Watch in los angeles. He introduced communitybased policing. He introduced the l. A. Basic car plan. Because he viewed Law Enforcement as a partnership between citizens and police. Of course the basic carr plan says we are going to become a partnership with the local neighborhoods. We are going to have the same officers in the same neighborhoods who know the people who are involved. Seems to me that philosophy works. Its the essence of Law Enforcement in a free society, in a selfgoverning society. In fact he was very much opposed to gun control laws that would disarm lawabiding citizens because he believed the lawabiding citizens were the first line of defense and a important part of that partnership to enforce the laws that are enacted an behalf of all of us. But ultimately, that philosophy requires a Mutual Respect between the Police Officers and the neighborhoods and between the neighborhoods and the Police Officers. Clearly, we have lost that. And maybe its too much to ask for in this day and age when we cant seem to summon a degree of Mutual Respect among ourselves on this committee. But ask obviously you have different perspectives but together a great deal of experience with Law Enforcement. How do we go about restoring the Mutual Respect thats essential for law enforce innent in a free society . I thank you for that he request. I really think thats the root of everything we should be talking about here today. The end of the day it doesnt matter what we are or who we are. It is about the relationships. When you apply this to Law Enforcement it he goes back to our community. We are allowed to do certain thing as Police Officers. We have given trust by the people in order to do that. We have lost that way, because of changes in technology, changes in way we interact, interpersonal skills, social media all of these things changed our world. You would think that technology would help, dna, and gps and surveillance cameras. It could make the job easier. I dont disagree with that. The point i am making is that at the ends of the day it comes down to the relationships. It is easy to point out there is us and there is them. The reality is there are people on both sides of this issue and those relationships that we foster are what is going to actually make the difference at the end of the day. Doesnt matter what we are doing. In this case, Law Enforcement. He would need to get back to the basics, to have an understanding on whats important to law enforce and why, whats important to your communities. When we have that dialogue and that understanding we can find Real Solutions to problems and tear down some of the walls across this country. I assume that is not involving the federalization and nationalization of Police Policy and getting back to the neighborhood local. I would argue that all politics are local. In this case if we are going to be policing our communities what gives us the people power to earn the trust of those people in the community, how we do it and how we interact with the public will determine will they accept the services we provide. Congressman thank you for the question. I am going to start with the end first. I dont think it is a question of federalizing or nationalizing. I dont agree with that. Like any profession, an attorney or a doctor, the idea that the profession would not have National Standards i expect that no matter what hospital i go to in this country that the best evidence says you are going to take out an appendix this way thats what you are going to do and failure to do that and cause me harm would be malpractice. We have agencies acting under the definition of malpractice. Your question how do we get back to local policing i have got to push back and say that for many this is not a question get whack to the trust. It has never been there. It is just now visible. It is visible because of videos, because of marches and demonstrations, for many communities the trust level has always been strained based on historic abuses and current practices. I think it goes to the question congressman richmond asked about how do you not know . I think they did know. But when we have policies and practices that tell the officers, you shall enforce the law so that these statistical crime rates that ms. Mcdonald is talking about goes down and come stat and you are sitting there crime and numbers went up 10 and 2 and ignoring the people that are involved is counterproductive. The idea that police themselves can reduce crime is false. It is completely false. We have had a lot of discussion here today congressman about the issues of firearms. And not to get into the gun debate but as a black male, i ask one simple thing. Doesnt my body have more privilege than a gun . Why are we so willing to fight and push back on anything that recertificates the seconds amendment but when it comes to the Fourth Amendment and the 14th amendment and my black body we so reticence to do . The gentlemans time expired. Thank you mrs. Carr for your grace and powerful words. Thank you for being with us. Mr. Blake thank you for sharing your story i am sorry you had that experience. I was a civil rights lawyer before i became mayor of providence. I then became the Public Safety commissioner. And the prove denz Police Department today is one of the best Police Departments in america. We went from a department that had two federal investigations including a practices and standards investigation to a fully accredited department and lowest crime rate in 40 years. What i learned in that experience is that and my chief used to always say this, the most powerful weapon we have to reduce crime in the city is not any of our guns or any equipment. It is the trust of the community. We built a Community Policing model that divided the city into substations where Police Officers walked beats in the neighborhood and built relationships with community leaders. One of the challenge was we didnt have a Police Department that reflected the diversity of the city it served. I found that to be one of the mousse powerful ways to build that trust. People saw people from their community that were in that department. Chief, do you have any idea what congress can do to incentivize the diversity of departments, the recruitment, the retention, the challenges that face, particularly for communities that may not historically have been part of the Police Department that are interested. What can we do as members of congress to help departments work aggressively to reflect the rye diversity of the communities they serve. You know thats thank you for the he request. Thats the very great question because trust me not only am i thinking of different ways to recruit to make it more diverse or to make it more open for the field of Law Enforcement alone, we are being affected drastically with not being able to recruit individuals. So in regards to what congress can do, maybe incentivizing opportunities for funding support. I know we had it in the past in regards to being able to recruit with better salary. Of course the equipment that is coming, thats being offered, that assists. But even if there is a think tank with other opportunities of incentives that can be offered, trust me i will be the first one to raise my hand and say i want to be a part of it and figure out what else we can do to recruit within our community. Thank you. My other experience, i think there is a recent study that confirmed this. I think everyone recognizes the vast majority of Law Enforcement officers are doing their job, doing it well and never get enough credit for the good work that they do. In fact, the number of incidents come from a very small number of members of each of these departments. There was a recent article published called Good Cop Bad Cop using civilian allegations to predict Police Misconducted advances a theory that a small minority of repeat offenders are responsible for the vast majority of misconduct within Police Departments. If you consider in the case of mr. Rn gaer and mr. Blake, the offending officers had previous misconduct complaints sustained against them. So one of the things that we did in providence was we created an Early Detection system. What we learned is that sometimes these things started off as small things which were evidence of Something Else going on in the officers life, something at home, a Substance Abuse issues, Mental Health. But it was an early system to detect that someone needed to intervene and finned out what was going on to prevent a more serious situation. I am wondering anyone on the panel whether or not we might incentivize some of the Early Detection systems so we can prevent some of the thing that are the subject of todays hearings and whether or not it is your experience that it is in fact a small subset in most departments where most of the problems exist. I would concur. It is called the earlying warning system. Most leading agencies have that. Being able to offer more awareness, more training not just for the system that if we have repeated complaints that come into your internal affairs unit or for the community but other aspects giving the supervisor the oversight to be able to offer wellness issues, be able to ask questions, whats going on. But you are correct, it is Early Warning systems that assist departments identifying things that are outliers for individual officers and extra training as well. I agree, i think there clearly needs to be inside the departments really under the supervisors to monitor and really guide a lot of the behavior of the officers that they keep getting repeat complaints with because those Human Factors outside of the job does bear a lot of what happens in the job and the public could become could i am not saying in all cases but could become the ones that bear the brunt of whatever situation they may be facing. I will end where i began. That is that this issue about the trust developed between the communities is the key. I knew we had been successful in the city of providence when i drove down the street in one neighborhood and saw these two very big officers playing hopscotch with a little girl in the neighborhood because they had become so much a part of that community and so respected. I think thats one of the things that we can work on to provide resources so departments can build those trusting relationships with the communities they are policing. I thank you. Gentleman yields back. The gentleman from louisiana. Thank you mr. Chairman. And thanks to everybody for being here. Commander, he had a couple questions for you. First i want to thank you for your long service in Law Enforcement. And congratulations on your welldeserved election as the National President of the Fraternal Organization of police. You do a Great Service. Thank you for that. You shared statistics earlier today that i think are alarming. I wanted to reiterate two of those. 66 reduction in the recruitment of new Police Officers nationwide. Is that what you said . Thats what i understand, yes. And First Responders have about a five times the rate of ptsd occurrence than the general population. I mean these are things that are alarming. I think this is the elephant in the room. We dont like talking about it because it is uncomfortable. If you think about the demands placed on a person in Law Enforcement professional. The shift work they work, the level of the calls that they respond to, the things that they see and the things that they deal with and trying to compartmentalize within their own lives all of that takes a toll on an individual. For far too long we refused to talk about it. We wanted them to be strong. We expect our officers to be strong. It wasnt until we realized we are doing a disservice by not recognizing the impact that it is having. I often will see officers that we think they are acting out. Think they are bad officers. In a lot of cases we need to acknowledge the fact that there is a reason there are some of these actions being taken. It is signs. Signs of something greater than that. I will argue i feel strongly about the fact that when someone subjects their life, their family, and everything to the professional of Law Enforcement to do goodwin their community we need to recognize these things and we need to not push them aside. We need to find programs to help them and save those officers. We have a fiduciary and a moral responsibility to save that which has been broken in the service of our communities. I think thats very important to recognize it to focus on the fact that it does exist. And we need to we need to tackle it and we need to get some serious consideration and thoughts to a holistic i proech of saving officers who are damaged because of the type of work they are doing. I appreciate you doing it. I grew up in the household of a first responder. My dad was an assistant chief for shreveport fire department. He was permanently disabled in a fire in 1984. I i have a appreciation of the dangers. I heard a metaphor one time. It is wellknown now, basically society is divided into three groups of people. Sheep, all peace loving folks who wouldnt do harm to anybody else. The second category is the wolves. The people, evil men and sociopaths that prey upon the innocent without mercy. And the thirdgoer is called the sheepdogs, called to protect the sheep and proteconfront the wol. Law enforcement, First Responders. Thank you, thank all of you that serve. It is a thankless job. Couple comments in the short time i have left. Commander have you yourself or have you witnessed reduced reaction times by Police Officers confronted with violence because in their thought process they are afraid of being fired or sued or prosecuted . If so, does that affect their safety . And by extension the safety of innocent bystanders and the community at large. I will speak in general terms if i can. Sure. I know of having discussions with officer who is where their decision to take action was delayed with the thought process how it would affect their family. So the good news is we were able to have that conversation because it turned out with the piece of resolution. But i can also tell you i know of a number of officers who found themselves where a noncompliance is escalating. And there is an uncertain outcome. It affects the officers, the person thats having the encounter and also affects the bystanders. What we need to do is we need to focus. We need to focus a tremendous amount of our energy on deescalation techniques in training. Because that really, when it comes if we look at all of these situations they have elevated to a point because it is escalating. And we definitely need to improve on our skills in order to deescalate these because of the uncertain outcomes at times can be irreversible. I see heads nodding all across the table. I think thats a universally understood. Last question in the short time left. Do you see policing ultimately as being the responsibility of police and government or maybe also an obligation of the public as well . I would it is clearly an obligation of the public and police. I think it is a partnership. Anything less would not be effective. Thank you. I am out of time. I yield back. The gentleman yield back. The gentle lady from washington. Thank you mr. Chairman. And thank you for holding this important hearing. Thank you all very much for being here. Ms. Carr i want to thank you in particular for channelling your anger and your grief around the brutal killing of your son eric garner and giving inspiration with a mothers love, giving inspiration to the movement for justice and an end to this kind of violence. I deeply deeply appreciate it. Thank you mr. Blake, also, for sharing your story. I wanted to start by saying that i think and i think chief davis you mentioned this in your opening remarks, when we refuse to acknowledge the structural biases that are within our institutions, when we refuse to acknowledge the institutionalized racism that exists within all systems, here in of the go, in Law Enforcement, every system when we unfortunately have colleagues who mock and try to malign witnesses and discredit the idea that we are all working together to try to get to a solution here. But we have to acknowledge the biases that exist. If we dont acknowledge the White Supremacy, the history of institutionalized racism in this country we cannot move forward. I believe that all of us, Law Enforcement in, community, we do want for the vast majority of people we do want to find a way forward. I come to this i represent seattle. The seattle area. But before being a member of congress i was a civil and immigrant rights leader and we wrote to i was a signatory to the letter that went to the department of justice asking for a patterns and practice investigation into use of force and Police Brutality, Police Violence in our community. We got that. I am deeply grateful for those pattern and practice investigations that the department of justice used to conduct. And i am sorry because we are still not through we are not through the process. It is not an easy process. We are not through it. I wish we could go to the department of justice for support. We cant do that right now. We also recently passed as a state a deescalate washington initiative. Ms. Carr you will be happy to know it came from the families of those who were killed who came together and said, we have to take on what is one of the most restrictive laws in the country that essentially made it impossible to have any accountability in Police Shooting incidents because we needed to prove according to our constitution a standard of malice that was essentially impossible. And you know what happened is those families got together with Law Enforcement and put together an initiative that also has had bumpy fits and starts but was passed. Was passed. And part of that included deescalation. And i have heard mr. Yost, i know you just spoke this. I saw mr. Goff nodding. Part of what it did, in addition to changing the standard and i go maing it very clear that we needed a different standard to hold Police Officers accounta e accountable, it also provides resources to the front line officers because i do think that our Law Enforcement is being forced to address issues on the front lines that are frankly the negligence of underfunding that the federal government has been doing, austerity spending that we have been doing that creates people who are homeless or creates hunger or creates all kinds of issues in our communities. So i wanted to ask and maybe i will direct this at both chief davis and mr. Yost. Do you support an approach to policing that encourages deescalation and makes it clear that use of force is a last resort . Let me start with you chief davis. Thank you congresswoman, yes, i do. I think a good policy to take a look at is in camden, new jersey. And also the Police Executive Research Forum Guiding Principles where that force should be a necessity. Although it is a last resort doesnt mean that sometimes it is the first option. That it should be proportionate. And it should basically be, with strong tactics sticking to time, distance, and cover. Yes, i do. Mr. Yost, do you want to add anything to that. I agree that deescalation is going to be a very big key of stopping or preventing things from hurling in a very unpredictable way. And we clearly need to focus as much energy as we can to increase that. I think that there is no doubt that in instances force is going to be required. And because of that, there needs to be a balance. Thank you. I should have mentioned that the initiative had the support of Law Enforcement. The black Law Enforcement association of washington, and our local sheriff both endorsed that initiative. My last question in my remaining time. Ms. Garcia as a former d. O. J. Official you conduct these investigations into Law Enforcement agencies to determine whether Law Enforcement actions were pattern and practice and you helped consend decrees. Why is that so essential in addressing the use of force in police. Thank you. First of all, when d. O. J. Initiates a pattern of practice investigation it is because there has been such a severe breakdown of the state and local level to keep those departments accountable that they need an outside federal agency to come and correct them. Once d. O. J. Finds a systemic constitutional violation the Consent Decrees that result are actually Court Enforceable and overseen by independent monitors. So that is what is crucial to correcting all the problems that come with the constitution violations. Everything from the training to the resources to the policies and to officer wellness programs. And most importantly, the Community Engagement because Community Engagement in that matter is really whats going to take hold and help see that through once d. O. J. Is gone. Thank you our federal monitor is playing a big role in that still. Thank you mr. Chairman i yield back. The gentle lady from arizona. Thank you mr. Chairman. And thank you all of you for being here today. I think both republicans and democrats would agree that we need to penalize bad actors and bad actions. But i am concerned about today and also in the media that the sole focus has been on the relatively small number of bad actors and bad actions. We heard it from our chairman nadler. At his beginning statement he listed a whole bunch of instances that were not a good outcome. And then we see on the screens all day today as we are talking just that. But how about all of the good things that Law Enforcement has done . I really think we need to focus on that, too. And because of that, i want to give you some examples of good things that have happened just recently that Law Enforcement has done in arizona. On august 26th, First Responders in arizona including the Arizona Department of Public Safety rescued an 8yearold girl who had fallen about 75 feet into Oak Creek Canyon in arizona. On august 23rd, arizona Police Officers rescued a baby left in a car in 100degree heat for nearly an hour and she survived. An august 6th, tucson Police Officers spotted a kitten locked inside a car in mid town parking lot on saturday and rescued it. On july 11th, there was a fire at mesa, arizona apartment complex where officers bravely placed themselves in harms way to rescue a family. In phoenix, just the other day, there was a severe traffic collision where one of the motorists unfortunately lost his leg. Due to the quick thinking of the Police Officers who were first to arrive prior to medical units, his life was preserved by the makeshift tourniquet that was applied. And one of the things that the Phoenix Police is doing now is they have their newest unit on the force is an ice cream truck. And they are using it in lower socioeconomic neighborhoods where they are concerned that there is a bad feeling about Police Officers. So they are trying to mitigate it. Yesterday afternoon, a suspect entered a store full of customers and robbed the store at knifepoint. Then he fled the store. He carjacked another victim at knifepoint. And was arrested. You know, these i am just saying we need to take care of bad actors, but lets not forget that our Law Enforcement are doing so many great things each and every day. So many heroic thing. And i want to thank them for what they do. And i have a question for mr. Yost. Previously, in previous testimony, one of the witnesses suggested that we support a bill that would prohibit choke holds. And i just want your professional advice on that. If we prohibited choke holds, would it then lead to not having an option on the table and you would actually have to usely that will force more . Use lethal force more . It is a complicated and fluid question asking for an outcome thats very much unpredictable. There is an escalation. Escalation causes actions and it progresses up. At some point it becomes an issue whether or not what is necessary in order to maintain our not to lose control of the situation. So it is a very, very fluid concern. Its not an easy answer. I am not too sure i can answer that. I can just tell you that everyone, every time that we find ourselves in a situation where it escalates to a point where it becomes some physical altercation then i think the outcomes are always going to be different. And mr. Yost, this has been touched on a little bit. But do you think all of this publicity and focus on negative actors actually hurts the morale of the Law Enforcement and causes problems with retention and hiring Law Enforcement officers . No maam, i dont think so. I know so. I think we are at a point now where it is easy to demonize Law Enforcement. Often it is done without knowing all the facts. We are a nation of laws, the laws have due process. We are quick the rush to judgment or making assertions on what is happening. I think it is creating an atmosphere in this country thats making it very difficult for Law Enforcement officers to do this their job. We were once very respected now as you mentioned there are incidents that certainly should be row viewed and handled but it doesnt reflect on every Law Enforcement officer but every officer is taking the burden for it. Thank you, mr. Chair i would like to yield any time i had left to mr. Gates. Chairman on unanimous consent request. The gentlemans time is expired. The gentle woman gentle woman from florida. Thank you so much mr. Chairman. And thank you to all of our witnesses who are here today. As i have listened to your testimony, i feel very hopeful about the subject that we are discussing today. This is a serious topic. And some of the statements today have been helpful. And some have been down right disgraceful and shameful. I think through all of the yelling and carrying on that we have seen, the theatrics, some of my colleagues forgot that ms. Carr was in the room. They forgot there were other families in the room who lost their loved ones. And so on their behalf, because i know they forgot, i want to say, we are sorry for your loss. We are talking with a profession that i love, the profession that i worked in for 27 years. My first floor speech as a member of congress, i thought it would be about health care or some other topics. It ended up being about a female sergeant, an africanamerican sergeant who i promoted as the chief of police who was shot and killed trying to arrest a murder suspect who had shot and killed his pregnant girlfriend. I worked with some of the finest men and women who wear the badge. Good Police Officers are like my family. But we have had some problems. And we have an obligation, republican, democrats and every person in this room, to work to make sure that Police Officers are celebrated but bad cops are held accountable. The Ranking Member said it correctly, that there is no one who wants to get rid of bad cops more than good cops do. And i can tell you as a former chief of police i spent every dog gone day trying to get rid of the bad cops. We wear the badge. Law enforcement wears the badge over your hearts. And we wear the badge over our hearts as a constant reminder that you have to have the heart for the job, right . That we are dealing with people, and families. Mr. Yost, captain yost, you talked about what the men and women go through. It is a tough job. I know its tough, from having done it. But if we are going to save this profession and get it back to the level which it deserves to be, we have got to Work Together to do that. I dont have a question for you today. But when i hear the discussion about federal what role can the federal government play, when we talk about leaving of the up to individual states, that scares me. We tried that with Voting Rights act. And look whats happening. I do believe the federal government can play a direct role in helping to create standards. Doesnt matter whether you are a one officer department, four officer, 1,000 or 30,000. When you put on that badge and the gun, the standards in which you police with, there should be standards. And i believe you said it, chief davis, that if you were going for any other profession, there are some minimum standards that you should have. Do we want anybody doing the job of a Law Enforcement officer one where he or she will be out there on the streets by themselves making life and death decisions . We want the brightest and the best. And every agency should spend their time trying to hire the best and the brightest men and women to do the job. We know it is going to cost, ms. Carr, to do that. But we need to Work Together to see how we can get it done. Training standards. We not only want the brightest and the best, captain. We want the best training so that when our men and women if we want them to survive not just physically but to survive their jobs and not be in front of a courtroom, then we have to give them the tools to survive. And training is one of those tools. Use of force train, standardized training that involves use of force. Across the nation. And then community partnerships. I can tell you in orlando where i served as the chief we would not have survived. I went to the Community Every time we had a good day and every time we had a bad day and asked the community to help me create a Police Department that knew how to police their community in which they served. I feel i dont have a question mr. Chairman. I feel extremely hopeful today if we continue to Work Together. And i believe the people in this room who have endured and are still here want to get this done. So i thank you. God bless you all. Thank you very much. Gentle ladys time is expired. The gentleman from floridaed a for a document to be admitted. It will be admitted. They just called votes on the floor. I hope we can finish so we dont have to come back. The gentle lady from pennsylvania is recognized. Thank you. I do want to thank ms. Carr and mr. Blake for being here and all the families who are here to represent their experiences. I also want to thank the Law Enforcement officers who do lay their lirves on the line every day, including former chi demin their commitment to excel epsz. I think thats what we are talking about here. Mr. Demings talks about the tools the Law Enforcement need. From philadelphia i am familiar with the work of chief ramsey, from philly, dc and of course was one of the cochairs of the 2015 president ial task force i guess it was on 21st Century Policing. That report, which i think is an excellent document to guide us forward. I wish we had been able to work more row besidely with that already. It sets forth six Core Principles starting with a broad challenge to change the culture of policing but also including attention to officer wellness and safety and cutting edge technology. So in the limited time and with votes coming i wanted to focus on some of the tools that the department of justice has used in the past which arent currently available. And there were sort of a carrot and a stick. Ms. Garcia, can you comment on the impact of the department of justices reversal of policy regarding Consent Decrees and how that make it more difficult for the d. O. J. To obtain Court Enforcement agreements to stop civil rights abuses . And this would be the carrot that could be held over a police force that perhaps was not meeting its obligations to the public. So Jeff Sessions memo that he issued on the last day that he was overseeing d. O. J. Severely undercut the efficacy of Consent Decrees by doing things such as placing time limitations on them of a couple of years and really stripping the discretion of the career attorneys from crafting the remedies that are necessary for systemic reform. They are the folks that are doing the factfinding inquiry and talking to the communities and really handling the investigations. They are not political appointees. So they are really in the best position to actually, you know, deliver justice to the communities that need it because of all the systemic violations that have occurred. I understand the u. S. Commission on civil rights has also been critical of that decision . That is correct. Okay. Mr. Davis, i also wanted to focus on the carrot which was the opportunity for Police Forces to request assistance. Because the two major cities in my district, philadelphia and chester, both reached out and participated in the cops cirti program. Yes . In chester there was a Police Shooting after a suspect was chased. The man was killed after 100 bullets were pumped into his car. There was community outrage. There had been a series of Police Involved series but that Police Department reached out and requested help. My understanding is that the department of justice has ended that program which was designed to provide advice and recommendations on how Police Departments could do a better job of engaging their community. Can you talk about that . Yes. What the deputy has done is they remains that there is a critical collaborative Reform Program but it no longer does the type of Organizational Assessments. Philadelphia is a perfect example. We spent close to a year in philadelphia at the commissioners request looking from top to bottom at use of force training policies and found serious deficiencies in training found deficiencies on what we call threat perception and failures on disparities where people were thought to have a gun, didnt but were shot anyway. We did the same thing with chester Technical Assistance. For a lot of departments the chief would call us saying look i really want to find out whats going on in the department i need to find out what i need to fix and could you help . That is no longer there. Which means they are going to keep operating making the same mistakes and depending on the size of the organization there could be systemic challenges or failures that may take years to get to the point where they are going to fix them. And that usually means a lot of victims. I would strongly engurge that program be brought back. It is a good carrot to what linda is talking about for the agencies that cant reform wont reform and the leadership is not committed to reform you need a Consent Decree. If the leader wants to reform and the community is interested in working with them you can help them in the most efficient way. I am a proponent of having all the most efficient tools. Gentle lady from i had to step out a lot during this hearing. We have a markup next door in Financial Services where my vote was needed. Mr. Chairman, the relationship between Law Enforcement and the community is a very important one. Which is supposed to promote the safety and wellbeing of all people. Public safety on honors if humanity of all people. Throughout my career i spent time with local leaders and Police Officers i was a ircha of the inpolice Oversight Board appointed by former merry lease parker in houston. So i am familiar with theish auto us that involve the relationship between Law Enforcement and the communities they are supposed to protect. Houston chief of police testified in this Committee Earlier this year. He shared that the Hispanic Community has suffered a Chilling Effect in reporting Violent Crimes since 2017 when our antiimmigrant racial profiling bill sb4 became law. Unfortunately for many of us in houston and some other parts of the country the ole driving while black has now turned into driving while brown. We have seen that even that more again some of our immigrant communities. This texas law allows local governments and Law Enforcement agencies to agent as federal immigration officers. It diverts limited resources away from the communities. Corrodes public trust and Law Enforcement and drive witnesses and victims of crime into the shadows. According to the chief, undocumented immigrants, even lawful immigrants are now even afraid to report crime. In houston, women advocates, Domestic Violence shelter workers, and immigrants shared stories of women who are now afraid of contacting Law Enforcement because of deportation threats and threats of abuse. Across the usa authorities documented declines in crime reported by immigrants. The main and frustrations are real. We aris if aing challenges and eroding trusts between the police and communities. We must do more. I thank the witnesses who have come here today and i hope that working together we can work on National Standards and guidelines and policies to ensure that when it comes to Public Safety all will be protected. I want to start with you ms. Garcia, and i dont start with you because you are a cousin because i have not met you before. I want to start with you. I read with some interest just you handed out this book. And i wanted to refer to you on the use of police Oversight Boards. Like i said, i started the one in houston under the guidance of leer parker. Others call them Police Civilian review boards. You did list it in your book as one of tools that would help, among i guess 14 or 15 others. How many cities are doing that . Are they working . We have got less that two minutes. Hi. In terms of whether they are working. They are actually one of the biggest tools for community engagen in and transparency for the community to be involved in that oversight process. And so they are extremely important. Actually in your home state, dallas, just recently the chief there worked with local coalition to institute a Community Oversight review board. So there are really an important step and we would encourage that they actually have the ability to also recommend discipline. Some of them dont. In terms of the numbers i would have to get back to you on the total number across the country. Okay. And i would ask the chief over there, sir, in your experience and in your discussions with others of your colleagues are we seeing an increase only in the impact of the influence of the new White Supremacy rhetoric and things that are going not only that are antijewish, antiblah, antipeople of color, antiimmigrant in terms of what is going on even in policing . Yes, i think we are seeing an increase in hate crime and violence external in the community. We are seeing, frankly, an infiltration of White Supremacists into Law Enforcement. Which is also a challenge. And so we are seeing that. How can we get at that, though . You have made may point. I mean, how can we what do we do other than the cultural training and the thing that. So of the grants can do so we can make sure that we get that element out of policing . So one of the things i found when i was in the administration, there is still significant underreporting of hate crimes of you look at the numbers. You have got a whole state that say they have five hate crimes. Making sure it is clear what is and is not a hate crime. Making sure officers are treating hate kprims for the severity of what they represent, and stopping agencies from being superficial. They need to do character references so they can find out some of the views and today usesome and make sure that the person you are hiring for the job is prepared to make the life and death sfar yoes. Thank you mr. Chairman, i yield back. We are at 3 50 left for votes on the floor. 321 people havent voted yet. I think we can have one more witness now one more question questioner. The gentle lady from florida. From georgia. I dont have any questions today so i will be brief but i do have a statement i would like to make. Thank you each and every one of you for being here today. It is voittlely important. I know that i was running back and forth between other hearings as well but i definitely wanted to make sure that i was here today and i wanted to give an exceptional thank you and welcome to mama gwynn as i call her, ms. Begin carr. She and i have worked together as one of the mothers of the movement travel around the country on this very vitally important issue. And your testimony was powerful and just so invaluable. And i will say more about that in just a minute. First i want to say how much i appreciate the Law Enforcement officers who do put their lives on the line every day. For the communities that they serve. And those officers who serve their communities with the dignity and respect that they deserve. Our officers could face difficult situations and we must empower them to respond appropriately. It is imperative we give them evidencebased training a in imt bias. We must also invest in Community Based policing. Most importantly, we must hold individuals accountable when they abuse the power that we the people have given them. No doubt, we have more work to do to build bridges that connect Law Enforcement and your communities. Our communities must respect Law Enforcement as our protectors, not the enemy. But our police must continually earn that respect. Police cannot see their communities as the enemy either. Raerks they must respect the human rather, they must respect the Human Dignity of every person that they encounter, even, and especially when it is challenging for them to do so. It is much easier when our Law Enforcement officers look like the communities that they serve and see that community as their brothers, their sisters, and their neighbors. When that fails to happen, the costs are great. We know this from the personal stories that we have heard today. And we also know it from the data. In 2017 study of over 1,100 law students against Law Enforcement, the largest study of its kind to date found that our Legal Framework for these cases, the doctrine of qualified immunity, is not even achieving its stated goals. It is often raised as a defense at a trial, not in the early stages of litigation as it was intended. Of course, the human toll is the most significant reason for the need for reform. But the financial costs are also significant. Contrary to what you might here, a study found that taxpayers ultimately pay for 99. 98 of the amount paid to victims and families when an officer abuses his or her power. Those who abuse their power often serve no time and dont pay families a single cent for the irmeasurable harms they have caused. But not enough can ever be said about the lives that we have lost when officers dehumanize and devalue the life of another person. And i want to say to my mothers sister, i want to say to her as i call her mama gwen, thank you for sharing your story, a story of injustice you and your family and your son eric garner should never ever have had to bear. We will keep fighting for eric. We will honor his memory and all of those taken from us by abuses of power. We will not forget eric and we will not forget the stories of those who are speaking out. Mama gwen, your voice is truly a catalyst for change. And i thank you for that. I speak to you mother to mother, and i hope that we can make sure that not another person ever bears the pain of losing a child such as you have, or such as i have. Until you suffer the death of your child, you can never truly understand the depth of inequity and inequality that we still face in this country. And i vow that we will take action. We will hold people accountable when they have the power to do right and choose instead to devalue life. And when our systems are failing to those who abuse power excuse me, and when our systems are failing to hold those who abuse power accountable, we must see to it that these systems change. It is imperative our Law Enforcement and our citizens Work Together to build the trust, the respect, and the community that every american in this country deserves. And i yield back the balance of my time. Gentle lady yields back. Gentle lady from florida. Thank you mr. Chairman. Thank you so much to the witnesses for coming here and to all of you in the audience. I know that you have come here today to this hearing seeking justice, seeking equal treatment. It is okay to have these conversations despite what you hear from some of the Minority Party on the other side. It is not just okay to have this conversation. I think it is incredibly important for us to have this conversation today and all over america because the facts are that people of color are affected by acts of Police Brutality two to four times more than others. I represent a district. It is a minority majority district. And we have had those issues. But i also want to point out that i have met many members in Law Enforcement whom i respect greatly who understand the intricacies of our communities and who have been working so hard to build the trust which i think is so important. We know that there is tension between communities and Law Enforcement. And we have seen through now phones and social media which has light on the lack of trust between the police and the populations that they serve. I think that most importantly we need to Start Building trust but we cant do that without acknowledging that there is inherent racism in this country. We cant do that if we cant have an honest conversation, which is why i think its such an important moment for us to discuss this here today. So Police Involvement is more than just enforcing the law. Its more than just making arests. I think that it is important to Start Building trust in these communities. Bringing Police Officers together to shape, to build an understanding of one another. And we have started those programs. I am very proud to share with you that in my district in gould and in the hammocks which are communities in my district, Police District reg lorely paunts puts on events designed to get cops acquainted with the i . s residents. The police major and deputies hold coffee with cops and they host bike rides. Events like these foster a real and open relationship in vastly different communities. At a federal level i think it is our duty to make sure that Community Policing initiatives are fully funded and continue to suck he had into. Sadly many of the essential federal programs have been cut or pushed out of existence under the Current Administration. My first question is to chief details of. Given the cuts to federal Community Cops program over the past couple of years, especially the Technical Assistance program, what recommendations do you have for local communities and Police Departments to continue to build these relationships even with as we see more decreased federal funding . Thank you for the he q. I will say in many questions, congresswoman, states have been stepping up. In. Ka, illinois, where the department of justice walked away either from a Consent Decree or from a colab reform the state attorneys have stepped in. I think you go to the state level. I would still talk to agency as chief hawkins mentioned the agencies that have experience and have the best practices and get engaged with the National Associations and organizations that are working to establish these National Best practices. There are definitely are significant gaps but they can be filled in. The real challenge for many communities is that all of the Technical Assistance provided was at new charge to the jurisdiction owe small or large could have access to it. Now they have to pay for it. Consultants pay for their Technical Assistance. It becomes a challenge they can probably turn to the state, to the associations and turn to them within their own group to understand what are the best practices. Thank you for that. Mr. Goff, as members of congress who do you think we can do or bring back the our communities to optimize the relationship between Law Enforcement and and the communities that they serve . It is a great question. Thank you for it. I would say that the department of justice have put forward an initiative that just concluded. The goal of the initiative was to take the science that ealready knew worked in the laboratory and then one off and do it in six cities across the United States from focused deterrents to reconciliation to train asking culturins the reduce racially disparate elements. Given the time i will say it is in the proposal and in the record. Thank you. Yield back my time. Mr. Dauf i am impressed by the remarkable work you are doing to advance Community Safety. The question thats been running through my mind is how americas vast and quite unique problem of gun violence complicates the problem of Police Civilian relations. We have lost more than a million and a half of our citizens since 1968 to gun violence. The rates of gun violence in america are 25 times higher than 22 other wealthy countries on average. So this must be a very serious problem in terms of communities civil relations and i am wondering if you would opine on that. Sadly there is not as much Good Research on exactly that question as there should be. But i can tell you what we know both from the science and both mine and cpes exposure to Law Enforcement which is of course it has a huge impact on it. Every time there is a shooting. Chief acevedo in houston understands his officers are going out where you cant escalate simply by putting hands on somebody is because they might be armed. Just as much gun violence shooting other people homicides makes the job of Law Enforcement infinitely more dangerous it is suicides that is more responsible for loss of officers lives. Going out on dangerous jobs and having to life with it at home. The availability of guns and gun violence are available not just on the streets but in the private homes of officers as well. Can i ask one gentlemen or no request he . Okay. I think this is for chief davis. You mentioned the problem of White Supremacists entering Police Forces. We have certainly heard reports of that. Do you have any Research Suggesting this is actual low a conscious strategy by white supremacist groups to send people in to local Police Forces . No, sir, just an he can dates at the time. [ inaudible question ] deny an he c doets at t anecdotes at this time. The hearing is adjourned. There is zero time left for votes on the floor. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversatio ns] [ inaudible conversations ] tonight on the communicators, one of the nations top telecomanalysts Craig Moffitt on the future of television, radio and media threes. Youll see the live tv model only survive for sports and news, and that almost Everything Else will move toward ondemand models. And the purveyors of content, Live Entertainment content or streamed real Time Entertainment is to jung people its an oxymoron to begin with. The idea that there is a time of day for a particular show is sort of an odd concept for anything other than a sporting event. Tonight at 8 00 p. M. On cspan 2. The Student Experience is really, really valuable to me. Student cam had a huge effect on our life and its really helped us learn and grow as people going into our college years. For past winners of cspans student cam video documentary competition, the experience sparked their interests in documentary production. Yes, i currently attend drake university, and thats in des moines, iowa, and the fun part about that is i get to be right in the middle of the caucus season. Ive gotten to meet so many different candidates. Because of cspan ive had the experience in the equipment and the knowledge to be able to actually film some of them. 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Cspan, your unfiltered view of government. Next, remarks from virginia senator mark warner and former Homeland Security secretary Michael Chertoff on the dangerous to democracy regarding digital disinformation campaigns. Held at the federal Election Commission in washington. This is two hours. Eintrau a few more people are still e milling up and downstairs, but , we have a very important guest t with a limitedh timeframe so w were going to get