Leaders of Law Enforcement organizations, including the Police Chiefs from around the nation. Good afternoon. So, this is the order today, if its ok with everybody. I will give an Opening Statement and i have got a short video. With a few minutes to add to it. Senators feinstein, booker harris, if you would like to make Opening Statements. Is that ok . And we have some people that will do introducing to the panels. We will get to that later. So thank you for coming. We are here for a reason. Without the death of mr. Floyd we would not be here. A lot has happened in the last couple of weeks. My goal is trying to define the problem, offer solutions, and talk to each other, not past each other. And i have a short video that is tough to watch. I talked to senator booker about it, the first couple of minutes, but it ends up on a very positive note. We will see if it will go from really hard to watch to something thats a little more acceptable for the country. If you could roll the video. Is it working . Can we consider it an act of god and not air it . Could be. Well . What do we expect to see . You are expecting to see a video, but you are not. So i will just talk. The video is about mr. Floyd and his very painful death, its about the gentleman who was jogging in georgia and got shot. And it was about the recent atlanta case. It was about two episodes of a cop pulling a woman out of a burning car and a Police Officer administering cpr to a very young, monthold infant. And it winds up with the cost the cops and protesters taking a knee together and trying to work through their problems. If we could wind up there as a country, that would be a good thing. Senator scott is going to introduce the republican approach to reforming the police. To reforming the police. I dont know. I will let the Committee Members speak for themselves but i dont see a whole lot of energy here to defund the police. I think there is a lot of effort to reform the police. Senator scott will introduce that package t that President Trump introduced through executive order, some ideas, and i complement him for doing that. Rather than laundry listing what is in all of these packages, the house passed a fairly broad policing reform bill. I would like the committee to sit down and reconcile these packages and come up with something in common. So what brings us here . Have learned over the years, but particularly recently, that every black man in america apparently feels threatened when they are stopped and the cops. That it is not 99 , it is 100 . I have talked to a lot of africanamerican pastors at home. And in their churches, when a young man is able to drive are or old enough to be considered a young man, they have to talk about what to do if you are stopped by the police. You keep your hands on the wheel and you dont reach for the dash you say yes, sir, or no, sir. Entioned he has been stopped five or six times here on capitol hill. I have never been stopped. And when i see a cop behind me the first thing i think about is what can i do wrong and can i talk myself out of this ticket . There is literally no fear. And i would not like to live in a country where i am afraid to be stopped. So hopefully, we can all understand that problem and fix it. But it is a problem. Virtually every black man in america feels like getting feels like if they get stopped by the cost, it is a tremendous experience. We want Police Officers to protect themselves and protect us, but mr. Floyd died for a 20 bill. You have seen the video, he was in handcuffs and was not threatening anybody. How do you go from that to dead is just amazing. The atlanta thing is a bit more difficult. A pretty good in direction that went bad quickly. Shooting somebody should be the last resort. If you are dead, you are dead. If the guy gets away, you could catch him again, but the idea of using lethal force has to be revisited. Being a cop is no easy thing. You make a lot of snap decisions where your life is threatened, that of the community, but we have to realize that taking another human beings life while in Police Custody is something that we should be better at in 2020 than we are. Defund the police, not much for that. Reforming the police a lot. Better Community Police practicing, what areas of the country have gotten it more right than others. I want to ask our first panel when we get a chance here if the person approaching you is an africanamerican, officer, if it is different than white officer. Than a white officer. If the person approaching you is a woman, if that is a different experience if it is a man. It seems to me that one of the things we should be trying to do is have more africanamericans people of color, and women in policing to make the police force look more like the community they are policing. To make the police force look more like the community they are policing. Chokeholds. Apparently the president came out with a call to abolish chokeholds. The house did that. Seems to me there has come a time for us to move on from chokeholds. Better hiring and better firing. We will have more input from Police Officers. Hey complaint can be lodged against any of us. We have a system here where we dispose of those complaints privately. I have had like seven or eight complaints filed against me at the South CarolinaBar Association for Different Things i said during the Kavanaugh Hearing and others. I think they are a bunch of bs. Bottom line, that is a private endeavor. The question about filing complaints against Police Officers, it would be so easy to ruin somebys life as a cop and try to intimidate the police force, there has got to be away to understand that when the complaints are legitimate, to take action. We have to be honest with ourselves and ask the question is it too hard fire a cup . Cop . And when you have documented instances of acting outside of the law with too much force without the right attitude to be a cup, how does that stay in your file to make sure the town next door knows about it . Qualified immunity. Has it become time to revisit that . Most cops dont want to go into the business thinking they could lose their house if they make a mistake, but there is something we can do with td immunity that would put more accountability into the agencies that run Police Departments. One thing i can tell you, if you are subject to being sued, you act differently than if you were not. Weont want to deter people from going into Law Enforcement but we also want a sense of accountability. And if extending the qualified immunity fosters a sense of it not being your problem. Lets take a look at it. More accountability, more information, a National Registry about how many actually die in Police Custody. A National Registry about the instances abusing lethal force while in custody. The time has come to create a system to combat the broken system. His leasing is policing in america systematically a racist enterprise . I would like to think not because i do believe more cops more good than bad, but when every black man in america leaves that getting stopped by the cops is a traumatic experience, something happened somehow, somewhere, and i would like a systematic approach to problems that continue to happen over and over again. So there are a lot of ideas coming from different corners of the political spectrum. The question for the committee is it possible to find Common Ground . The answer is obviously yes, if we want to. As chairman. I would like to. Senator feinstein. Thank you, mr. Chairman, and thank you for holding disappointment. On may 25 to may minneapolis Police Officer knelt on the neck of george floyd for almost nine minutes. Mr. Floyd repeatedly said i cannot breathe. Bystanders back to the officer to stop but he continued to choke mr. Floyd until his body went limp, his life extinguished. Now, what was the unforgivable crime that led an0 officer to kill this unarmed, 46yearold man . He was suspected of using a counterfeit 20 bill to buy groceries during a global pandemic. Personally, this is beyond anything i can imagine and i hope it is beyond anything you can imagine. George floyd is not the first unarmed black man or woman to be killed by police. The names are etched into this countrys consciousness. Rhianna taylor, and emergency medical worker shot eight times i Louisville Police while asleep in her home. Eric garner, choked to death by an nypd officer for selling cigarettes. , killed after being taken into custody by Baltimore Police for possessing a knife. Walter scott, shot in the back by North Charleston police after being stopped for a bad break late. 8stephan clark, killed by Sacramento Police in his grandmothers backyard for breaking windows. And Michael Brown shot six times by Ferguson Police while his hands were raised in the air. And just last weekend, Atlanta Police were called to respond to reports of a young man asleep in his car and blocking a Fast Food Restaurant drivethrough. Even though the young man moved his car to a nearby space when asked by the p entered ended when brooks was shot in the back twice as he ran away. I dont know how anyone can read these stories or see the videos and not conclude that something is radically wrong in this country and we have got to move to stop this epidemic of deadly force against black americans. I remember well the call to action in 2014 after Michael Brown was shot in ferguson missouri. President obama convened a task force on 21st Century Policing. That task force provided a roadmap to reform Law Enforcement. Unfortunately the Task Force Recommendations have not been followed, and instead, we have been largely abandoned under President Trumps watch. For example on august, 2017, the Trump Administration lifted president obamas ban on the transfer of certain military equipment to Police Departments. That ban was put in place by president obama, consistent with the Task Force Findings that the use of military style injury and right here escalated tensions between police and the communities they served. The Trump Administration has similarly abandoned the use of pattern or practice investigations to identify or remedy systemic problems within Police Departments. Congress gave the department of Justice Authority to conduct patterns or practice investigation following the horrific Police Beating of rodney king and my home state of california. Since then, most administrations have use that tool effectively. The obama administration, for example, opened 25 investigations into possible illegal patterns and practices within Law Enforcement agencies. Several of these resulted in consent decrees that set out specific reforms zide shift police culture. By contrast, according to public reporting, the Trump Administration has opened narrow pattern and practice investigation that focuses on a single unit of the Springfield Police department in massachusetts. Remarkably, in the wake of George Floyds death, attorney general barr has refused tottern and practice investigation into the Minneapolis Police department. How can that be . Anyone who has seen the video of George Floyds last nine minutes of life has seen that none of the officers at the seed objected or intervened seen scene objected or intervened as the man pleaded for his life. Enough is enough. Last week, senator booker and harris introduced the justice in police act. That is the bill that would permit many of the recommendations of the task force on 21st Century Policing and it would require real accountability for police use of force. The committee will take that bill seriously and we can hold hearings, process them, and perhaps make some progress. This is not a simple bill. It is quite controversial. It bans the use of choke holds and chokeholds by Law Enforcement officers. It prohibits the use of racial profiling. Its ending Police Targeting criminalization on the race on the basis of race or National Origin it is the determination history of officers so that potential employers would be aware of an officers past misconduct. It gives subpoena authority over the Justice Department to conduct these pattern investigations which would ensure investigators could obtain all the information they need to conduct thorough investigations of secure misconduct and eliminates qualified immunity so that Police Officers are held accountable for their conduct. These are difficult issues, but they must be addressed and i really want to congratulate both of my colleagues for putting this bill together. Its long overdue, mr. Chairman, and i look forwardover the coming weeks. So thank you senator booker and harris, as well as representatives bass and nadler for your leadership on the issue. Chairman, you and i spoke in the days after George Floyds killing. I remember your say that this death was horrific. That said both of us were appalled at what we saw. You also said this reason hearing and more to follow will expose policing and discrimination. I was so delighted what i heard you say that and i am delighted you are beginning to carry that out, which is what interpret this hearing to be. I trust this wil word. I hope we will be able to have attorney general barr before us. He has not agreed to come before us thus far. But among other things the attorney general needs to explain why the Justice Department appears to have abandonedice or practice pattern or practice cases and specifically, why the department has declined a broader investigation into Police Misconduct within the Police Department following George Floyds killing. Mr. Chairman, we have much to do. I dont think we can leave these happenings without taking action and i trust we will do just that. Thank you. It is my goal to reconcile these proposals to the extent possible and come up with solutions. Mr. Booker. Thank you mr. Chairman, for the courtesy of allowing me an Opening Statement and thank you for your thoughtful comments. I would also like to thank the Ranking Member for thoughtful comments as well. In departing for micro paired remarks, i just want to say what does it say about a nation when two senators from the same state have had wildly different experiences with Law Enforcement right here . In the last few weeks, i have had conversations with black folks who work for the senate, people on both sides of the aisle, who all have their shares of stories of traumatizing experiences, a feeling like they were one sudden move one moment from experiencing violence. The challenge is that this has been nothing new. I think if we took the time to listen to each other, you would see that we have a culture where so many parents have to teach their children to be afraid in order to be secure. I heard comments on the floor today about one of my colleagues who listens to their staffers with the kids were told by their parents to keep their seats because they will be accused of having stolen things. I know from my own experience. The challenge is this is often unfair, it is unacceptable, it is wrong. But when it explodes like we see it, people capture on videotape the kind of violence that you were traumatized by, the violence he would show. I am grateful for senator harris , who has been my partner over the last few weeks. She and i have worked together with Congressional Black Caucus leaders and ultimately chairman nadler to put together a deal called the justice in policing act. We put it together in the wake of george floyd. In the wake of not just black men, but black women sleeping in their home. The deaths that have brought to attention much of this and indeed in all 50 states literally thousands of republicans and democrats have been calling for an end, a meaningful reform aired and yet even in the days since kemal and i put together our work with other members of the Senate Continue to see things caught on videotape. As was said before rishaad brooks shot in the back. So this is very clear. We we are talking about is a nation with two different justice systems, two different experiences. If you stop and top with black people who work here. There are very personal stories, including senator tim scott. The unmitigated