[Senate Hearing 113-895]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
S. Hrg. 113-895
THE STATE OF CIVIL AND HUMAN
RIGHTS IN THE UNITED STATES
=======================================================================
HEARING
before the
SUBCOMMITTEE ON THE CONSTITUTION,
CIVIL RIGHTS AND HUMAN RIGHTS
of the
COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY
UNITED STATES SENATE
ONE HUNDRED THIRTEENTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
----------
DECEMBER 9, 2014
----------
Serial No. J-113-77
----------
Printed for the use of the Committee on the Judiciary
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
S. Hrg. 113-895
THE STATE OF CIVIL AND HUMAN
RIGHTS IN THE UNITED STATES
=======================================================================
HEARING
before the
SUBCOMMITTEE ON THE CONSTITUTION,
CIVIL RIGHTS AND HUMAN RIGHTS
of the
COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY
UNITED STATES SENATE
ONE HUNDRED THIRTEENTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
__________
DECEMBER 9, 2014
__________
Serial No. J-113-77
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on the Judiciary
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
28-427 PDF WASHINGTON : 2018
COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY
PATRICK J. LEAHY, Vermont, Chairman
DIANNE FEINSTEIN, California CHUCK GRASSLEY, Iowa, Ranking
CHUCK SCHUMER, New York Member
DICK DURBIN, Illinois ORRIN G. HATCH, Utah
SHELDON WHITEHOUSE, Rhode Island JEFF SESSIONS, Alabama
AMY KLOBUCHAR, Minnesota LINDSEY GRAHAM, South Carolina
AL FRANKEN, Minnesota JOHN CORNYN, Texas
CHRISTOPHER A. COONS, Delaware MICHAEL S. LEE, Utah
RICHARD BLUMENTHAL, Connecticut TED CRUZ, Texas
MAZIE HIRONO, Hawaii JEFF FLAKE, Arizona
Kristine Lucius, Chief Counsel and Staff Director
Kolan Davis, Republican Chief Counsel and Staff Director
------
Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Human Rights
DICK DURBIN, Illinois, Chairman
AL FRANKEN, Minnesota TED CRUZ, Texas, Ranking Member
CHRISTOPHER A. COONS, Delaware LINDSEY GRAHAM, South Carolina
RICHARD BLUMENTHAL, Connecticut JOHN CORNYN, Texas
MAZIE HIRONO, Hawaii ORRIN G. HATCH, Utah
Joseph Zogby, Democratic Chief Counsel
Scott Keller, Republican Chief Counsel
C O N T E N T S
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DECEMBER 9, 2014, 2:30 P.M.
STATEMENTS OF COMMITTEE MEMBERS
Page
Cornyn, Hon. John, a U.S. Senator from the State of Texas........ 7
Cruz, Hon. Ted, a U.S. Senator from the State of Texas........... 4
Durbin, Hon. Dick, a U.S. Senator from the State of Illinois..... 1
prepared statement........................................... 86
Franken, Hon. Al, a U.S. Senator from the State of Minnesota..... 7
Klobuchar, Hon. Amy, a U.S. Senator from the State of Minnesota.. 6
Leahy, Hon. Patrick J., a U.S. Senator from the State of Vermont,
prepared statement........................................... 83
WITNESSES
Witness List..................................................... 39
Alexander, Cedric, Psy.D., President, National Organization of
Black Law Enforcement Executives, and Public Safety Director,
DeKalb County, Georgia......................................... 19
prepared statement........................................... 40
Booker, Hon. Cory A., a U.S. Senator from the State of New Jersey 8
Ellison, Hon. Keith, a Representative in Congress from the State
of Minnesota................................................... 13
Gutierrez, Hon. Luis, a Representative in Congress from the State
of Illinois.................................................... 11
Henderson, Wade, President and Chief Executive Officer, The
Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, Washington, DC 16
prepared statement........................................... 47
Murphy, Laura, Director, Washington Legislative Office, American
Civil
Liberties Union, Washington, DC................................ 21
prepared statement........................................... 64
MISCELLANEOUS SUBMISSIONS FOR THE RECORD
Abraham, Rabbi Joel N., Scotch Plains, New Jersey, et al.,
statement...................................................... 159
Allard K. Lowenstein International Human Rights Clinic at Yale
Law School, New Haven, Connecticut, statement.................. 326
American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC), Washington,
DC, statement.................................................. 363
American Association of University Women (AAUW), Washington, DC,
statement...................................................... 353
American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) Washington Legislative
Office, Washington, DC, statement.............................. 648
American Friends Service Committee (AFSC), Philadelphia,
Pennsylvania, statement........................................ 383
American Psychological Association (APA), Washington, DC,
statement...................................................... 114
Amnesty International USA, New York, New York, statement......... 475
Anti-Defamation League (ADL), New York, New York, statement...... 498
Arthur Liman Public Interest Program at Yale Law School, The, New
Haven, Connecticut, statement.................................. 180
Asian Americans Advancing Justice (AAJC), Washington, DC,
statement...................................................... 447
Barry, Rob, and Coulter Jones, ``Hundreds of Police Killings Are
Uncounted in Federal Stats: FBI Data Differs from Local Counts
on Justifiable Homicides,'' The Wall Street Journal, December
3, 2014, article............................................... 685
Bend the Arc: A Jewish Partnership for Justice, New York, New
York, statement................................................ 169
Bennett, Sean, Kalamazoo, Michigan, statement.................... 671
Brennan Center for Justice at New York University Law School, New
York, New York, and Washington, DC, statement.................. 581
Campaign for the Fair Sentencing of Youth (CFSY), Washington, DC,
statement...................................................... 604
Castaneda, Kimberly, Northeastern Illinois University
Undergraduate Student, ``Under the Threat of the Gun, Invisible
Betrayal 3: Police Sexual Misconduct,'' special project created
for Women's All Points Bulletin (WAPB) and victims of police
sexual assault, December 2, 2014, report....................... 407
Castro, Martin R., Chairman, U.S. Commission on Civil Rights,
Washington, DC, statement...................................... 345
Center for American Progress (CAP), Washington, DC, statement.... 565
Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR), New York, New York,
statement...................................................... 316
Center for HIV Law and Policy (CHLP), The, New York, New York,
statement...................................................... 274
Center for Reproductive Rights, New York, New York, statement.... 210
Chicago Anti-Eviction Campaign (CAEC) and Chicago Independent
Human Rights Council (CIHRC), Chicago, Illinois, statement..... 432
Chinyere, Sahar, Founding Spokesperson, Stop Non-Consensual
Experiments on All World Citizens (SnoEOawc), Astoria, New
York, statement................................................ 654
Chu, Hon. Judy, a Representative in Congress from the State of
California, statement.......................................... 601
Coalition for the Peoples' Agenda, Atlanta, Georgia; Southern
Christian Leadership Conference, Atlanta, Georgia; and Cold
Case Justice Initiative at Syracuse University College of Law,
Syracuse, New York; jointly submitted statement................ 136
Columbia Law School Human Rights Institute, New York, New York,
and Northeastern University School of Law Program on Human
Rights and the Global Economy, Boston, Massachusetts, statement 243
Common Cause, Washington, DC, statement.......................... 372
Constitution Project, The, (TCP), Washington, DC, statement...... 517
Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), Washington, DC,
statement...................................................... 306
Demos, New York, New York, statement............................. 190
Families Against Mandatory Minimums (FAMM), Washington, DC,
statement...................................................... 282
Ferguson Action Network, statement............................... 457
Ferguson to Geneva Delegation, Members, Ferguson, Missouri;
Organization for Black Struggle, St. Louis, Missouri; and Hands
Up United, Ferguson, Missouri; jointly submitted statement..... 387
Fleming, Richard Max, M.D., J.D., statement on the International
Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) treaty.......... 89
Hernandez, Israel, December 8, 2014, letter--redacted............ 262
Hindu American Foundation (HAF), Washington, DC, statement....... 379
Human Rights Campaign (HRC), Washington, DC, statement........... 508
Human Rights First, New York, New York, and Washington, DC,
statement...................................................... 468
Human Rights Watch, New York, New York, statement................ 173
Illinois Justice Project, Chicago, Illinois, statement........... 123
Indigenous Peoples Caucus Southwest Native Cultures, Activist
Bettina Cruz, Geneva, Switzerland, statement................... 99
Interfaith Alliance, Washington, DC, statement................... 156
Jefferson, Jon, and Jane McPherson, statement--redacted.......... 384
Juvenile Justice Initiative, Evanston, Illinois, statement....... 357
Kelly-James, Latrina, resident, Charlotte, North Carolina,
statement...................................................... 254
Kollikkathara, Khalid, statement................................. 103
Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, Washington, DC,
statement...................................................... 543
Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, The, Washington,
DC, statement.................................................. 615
Lowery, Wesley, ``How many police shootings a year? No one
knows,'' The Washington Post, September 8, 2014, article....... 679
Mary Turner Project, Valdosta, Georgia, statement................ 527
Masayesva, Vernon, Director, Black Mesa Trust, Kykotsmovi,
Arizona, statement............................................. 418
Medical Whistleblower Advocacy Network, Washington, DC, statement 126
Miami Committee on State Violence, Miami, Florida, December 8,
2014, letter................................................... 257
Muslim Advocates, Oakland, California, statement................. 673
National Association for the Advancement of Colored People
(NAACP), Washington Bureau, Washington, DC, statement.......... 487
National Association for the Advancement of Colored People
(NAACP) Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc. (LDF), New
York, New York, statement...................................... 421
National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials
(NALEO) Educational Fund, Los Angeles, California, statement... 197
National Coalition of Blacks for Reparations In America
(N'COBRA), Washington, DC, statement........................... 534
National Coalition of Blacks for Reparations In America
(N'COBRA), Washington, DC, and Chicago Alliance Against Racial
and Political Repression (CAARPR), Chicago, Illinois, jointly
submitted statement............................................ 495
National Council of the Churches of Christ in the USA (NCC),
Washington, DC, statement...................................... 554
National Disability Rights Network (NDRN), Washington, DC,
statement...................................................... 632
National Network for Arab American Communities (NNAAC), Dearborn,
Michigan, statement............................................ 483
National Task Force to End Sexual and Domestic Violence, Seattle,
Washington, statement.......................................... 270
National Urban League, New York, New York, statement............. 334
NETWORK: A National Catholic Social Justice Lobby, Washington,
DC, statement.................................................. 473
Nolan, Thomas, Ed.D., statement.................................. 146
PEN American Center, Inc. (PEN), New York, New York, statement... 393
Perez, Julia, MSEE, Associate Director, ``The Harvest,'' and
former child laborer in the U.S., statement.................... 218
Phonesavanh, Alecia, Georgia resident, statement................. 577
Project Vote, Washington, DC, statement.......................... 292
Rabin, Norman C., December 9, 2014, email letter................. 598
Rabin, Norman C., statement...................................... 608
Reyes, Hon. Sean D., Attorney General, State of Utah, Salt Lake
City, Utah, statement.......................................... 414
Schaghticoke Indians, Kent, Connecticut, December 8, 2014, letter 532
Sentencing Project, The, Washington, DC, statement............... 296
Sharp, Fawn, President, Quinault Indian Nation, and President,
Affiliated Tribes of Northwest Indians, Olympic Peninsula,
Washington, statement.......................................... 638
Sikh Coalition, New York, New York, statement and attachments.... 224
South Asian Americans Leading Together (SAALT), Takoma Park,
Maryland, statement............................................ 463
Southeast Indigenous Peoples' Center, Eatonton, Georgia,
statement...................................................... 556
Southeast Indigenous Peoples' Center, attachment I........... 558
Southeast Indigenous Peoples' Center, attachment II.......... 563
Southwest Native Cultures, Albuquerque, New Mexico, December 8,
2014, letter................................................... 515
Statement submitted for the record............................... 253
Stewart, Sonja, Michael Stewart, and Rachel Stewart, family of
shooting victim Matthew David Stewart, Ogden, Utah, statement.. 594
Union for Reform Judaism and Central Conference of American
Rabbis, New York, New York, statement.......................... 205
US Human Rights Network (USHRN), Atlanta, Georgia, statement..... 289
Voting Rights Forward (VRF), December 8, 2014, letter............ 343
Zawodniak, Margaret, statement................................... 385
THE STATE OF CIVIL AND HUMAN
RIGHTS IN THE UNITED STATES
----------
TUESDAY, DECEMBER 9, 2014
United States Senate,
Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and
Human Rights,
Committee on the Judiciary,
Washington, DC.
The Subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 2:30 p.m., in
Room SH-216, Hart Senate Office Building, Hon. Dick Durbin,
Chairman of the Subcommittee, presiding.
Present: Senators Schumer, Durbin, Whitehouse, Klobuchar,
Franken, Coons, Blumenthal, Cornyn, and Cruz.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. DICK DURBIN,
A U.S. SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF ILLINOIS
Chairman Durbin. Today's hearing is going to deal with a
serious issue. I trust that members of the public here will
take them seriously as we all do.
I want to note at the outset that the rules of the Senate
prohibit a showing of approbation or disapprobation, as they
say--to put it in English, outbursts, clapping, and
demonstrations. This includes blocking the view of people
around you. Please be mindful of those rules as we conduct this
hearing and I am thankful that the Capitol Police are here to
ensure the safety and security of everyone present.
Our identity as Americans is based on ideas and values. Not
ethnicity nor creed. This is what makes our Nation unique. But
sense its founding, there has been a divide between the promise
and reality of America.
The man who wrote in our Declaration of Independence that
``All men are created equal'' was a slaveholder. The
Constitution, our founding charter, which those of us in
Congress swear to uphold and defend, originally treated African
Americans as property and women as second-class citizens.
The history of our country has been a long, slow, and
painful march. Brave men and women have fought and sacrificed,
sometimes even giving their lives in the struggle to create a
``more perfect union'' that our national charter promised.
Many of us think about the Greatest Generation, the men and
women who served our Nation so valiantly in World War II. I
recently read a story that is an illustration of what America
was like in World War II.
Italians and Germans who were captured in combat fighting
our soldiers were brought to the United States as prisoners of
war. They were held in places like military forts, like Fort
Benning, Georgia. At Fort Benning, Georgia, the Italian and
German prisoners of war had access to make purchases in the
base exchange. African-American soldiers did not have that
opportunity or that access.
Some 2.3 million Americans are incarcerated. That is triple
the amount of 30 years ago, 25 percent for drug offenses.
Whites engage in drug offenses at a higher rate than African
Americans, but African Americans are incarcerated at a rate 10
times greater than White Americans for these offenses.
America has changed. That same military that discriminated
against African Americans back during the World War II era is
now a Nation with an African-American Commander-in-Chief. The
election of our first Black President shows we have come a long
way as a Nation, but it is important to recognize and to say
very clearly that there is still a challenge with racism in
America and we still have more work to do.
This Subcommittee has tried to look intently not just to
our past, but to our present and to our future to examine what
more needs to be done to protect civil and human rights in
America. We tried to understand in this Subcommittee the human
impact of the issues we debate by hearing directly from those
most affected. We have given a platform to voices that are not
often heard in the halls of Congress.
I would like to show a brief video to remind us all what is
at stake.
[Whereupon, the video was played.]
Chairman Durbin. In 2001, Eugenia Jennings was sentenced to almost
22 years in prison for selling a small amount of crack cocaine. Her
brother, Cedric Parker, testified at a 2009 hearing on the sentencing
disparity between crack and powdered cocaine.
Mr. Parker. Of course, you know my name is Cedric Parker. I am from
Alton, Illinois, and I am here to tell you the things my sister,
Eugenia, would say if she was here today. The severity of the mandatory
minimums, and especially the sharp disparity between those for crack
and powdered cocaine, have touched my family directly. Eugenia cannot
be here because she is in Federal prison for selling crack cocaine.
Chairman Durbin. In 2010, after 18 years in prison including 16
years in solitary confinement, Anthony Graves became the 12th death row
inmate to be exonerated in Texas. In 2012, he testified before this
Subcommittee at the first ever congressional hearing on solitary
confinement.
Mr. Graves. I have been free for almost two years and I still cry
at night because no one out here can relate to what I have gone
through. I battle with these feelings of loneliness. I have tried
therapy, but it didn't work.
Chairman Durbin. In August 2012, a gunman killed 6 people at a Sikh
temple in Oak Creek, including Harpreet Singh Saini's mother. One month
after his mother died, Harpreet became the first Sikh ever to testify
in Congress when he appeared at a Subcommittee hearing on hate crime.
Mr. Saini. Senators, I came here today to ask the Government to
give my mother the dignity of being a statistic. The FBI does not track
hate crimes against Sikhs. My mother and those shot that day will not
even count on a Federal form. We cannot solve a problem we refuse to
recognize.
Chairman Durbin. In 2013, Sybrina Fulton testified at a
Subcommittee hearing on the impact of so-called Stand Your Ground Laws.
Her 17-year-old son, Trayvon, was shot and killed while walking through
a residential neighborhood in Sanford, Florida.
Ms. Fulton. It is unfortunate what has happened with Trayvon. That
is why I feel like it is so important for me to be here so that you all
can at least put a face with what has happened with this tragedy.
Chairman Durbin. Lucia McBath also testified at the Subcommittee's
hearing on Stand Your Ground Laws. Her 17-year-old son, Jordan Davis,
was shot and killed while listening to music with his friends in a car
outside a convenience store in Jacksonville, Florida.
Ms. McBath. But you can never really know my boy because an angry
man who owned a gun, kept it close at hand and chose to demonstrate
unbridled hatred one balmy evening for reasons I will never understand.
Chairman Durbin. Damon Thibodeaux spent 15 years in solitary
confinement at a Louisiana State penitentiary before he was exonerated
in 2012. In 2013, Damon testified about his experience at the
Subcommittee's second hearing on solitary confinement.
Mr. Thibodeaux. I do not condone what those who have killed and
committed other serious offenses have done, but I also do not condone
what we do to them when we put them in solitary for years on end and
treat them as subhuman. We are better than that. As a civilized
society, we should be better than that.
Chairman Durbin. Patti Saylor's son, Ethan, who had Down Syndrome,
was killed when he was forcibly removed from a movie theater in
Frederick, Maryland, by three off-duty Sheriff's deputies. Patti told
Ethan's story at the Subcommittee's 2014 hearing on law enforcement
responses to disabled Americans.
Ms. Saylor. They placed him on the ground, prone restraint, put
handcuffs on, and my son died of asphyxiation on that floor of that
movie theater for that $10 movie ticket. Ethan was not escalated. He
was not threatening. He was not in crisis.
[Whereupon, the video ended.]
Chairman Durbin. I have often said this Committee needs to
focus on legislation, not lamentation. We have taken the words
of our witnesses and translated them into action.
I worked with the first Ranking Subcommittee Member here,
Tom Coburn of Oklahoma, who is retiring this year. Together we
passed four laws that give the Government more power to
prosecute human rights abusers. In 2012, the Obama
administration, under this authority, deported Liberian Warlord
George Boley for using child soldiers.
After we learned of the powerful testimony of Cedric
Parker, I worked with Senator Jeff Sessions of Alabama and
other Members of the Committee to pass the Fair Sentencing Act
which significantly reduced the sentencing disparity between
crack and powder cocaine and repealed a mandatory minimum
sentence for the first time since the days of the Nixon
administration.
After the Subcommittee held the first ever Congressional
hearings on solitary confinement where we heard from Anthony
Parker Graves and Damon Thibodeaux, the Federal Bureau of
Prisons agreed to my request to submit to the first independent
assessment of its solitary confinement policies and practices.
After we heard the brave testimony of Harpreet Singh Saini,
I successfully pushed the Justice Department to begin tracking
hate crimes against Sikh Americans, Arab Americans, and Hindu
Americans. But we have been reminded in recent days that there
is still much work to do.
When our Government still believes it is acceptable, in the
name of security, to profile people based on race, national
origin or religion, there is still more work to do. When Muslim
Americans are the targets of violent crime simply because of
their religion, there is still more work to do.
When States around the country draw up laws that make it
harder for minority communities to vote, there is still more
work to do. When unarmed African Americans, men and boys, are
killed--names like Trayvon Martin, Jordan Davis, Michael Brown,
Eric Garner--bring tears to our eyes, there is still more work
to do.
When protestors take to the streets to shout out ``Hands
up. Don't shoot. I can't breathe. Black lives matter.'' There
is still more work to do.
When a significant part of the American family is
disenfranchised and does not trust politics or criminal
justice, there is still more work to do. Congress must accept
its responsibility. We need to start with bipartisan efforts to
protect civil and human rights.
We should pass the Smarter Sentencing Act which I
introduced with Senator Mike Lee; cosponsored by Senator Leahy,
the Chairman of our full Committee; Senator Ted Cruz, my
Ranking Member on this Subcommittee; and Senator Rand Paul of
Kentucky. That is quite a broad spectrum of political belief
and we all support this bill.
We should restore Federal voting rights for ex-offenders, a
cause which has been championed by Senators Ben Cardin and Rand
Paul. There are some 5.8 million Americans who after paying
their debt to society, still are denied a right to vote. And
this type of disenfranchisement has a disproportionate impact
on people of color. We need to pass the Voting Rights Amendment
Act which was authored by Chairman Leahy and Republican
Congressman Jim Sensenbrenner. This bipartisan legislation is a
response to the Supreme Court's 2013 Shelby County decision.
This will be my last hearing as Chairman of the
Subcommittee before I turn over the gavel to Senator Cruz, the
incoming Chairman. Clearly there is much work to do and I look
forward to working with Senator Cruz in the 114th Congress as
we continue to struggle to create a more perfect union.
Senator Cruz.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. TED CRUZ,
A U.S. SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF TEXAS
Senator Cruz. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I thank the Member
witnesses who are here today. There is no more important role
for the United States Senate than to carefully guard and
protect the civil rights of every American. We take an oath to
uphold the Constitution and that is a promise every American
rightly should hold us accountable to honor.
The Chairman and I agree on a number of matters concerning
civil rights. We, as he mentioned, both cosponsored the Smarter
Sentencing Act which would reduce mandatory minimums for
nonviolent drug offenders and help restore the proper balance
of federalism, deterrence, and proportionality to these laws.
We are also both cosponsors of the USA Freedom Act which I
believe strikes a better balance between the need to combat
terrorism through effective intelligence and at the same time
protecting the privacy rights of every day Americans. I would
note additionally, that the hearing this Committee held on
solitary confinement policy earlier this year was, I think, a
positive and productive hearing that shed light on a practice
of law enforcement at the Federal level and State level that
needs to change.
All of those are positive. Yet, at the same time, civil
rights remains a challenging topic in this country, a topic
that is perceived differently by people of different racial
backgrounds, ethnic backgrounds, socioeconomic backgrounds. We
see the unfortunate reality in the last 6 years. Income and
equality has increased, that in the last 6 years the rich have
gotten richer. The top 1 percent today earn a higher share of
our income than any year since 1928 and yet people who are
struggling--young people, Hispanics, African Americans, single
moms--are finding their lives harder and harder and harder.
When it comes to civil rights, I think there is no civil
right more important than the right of every child to access a
quality education and in my view the most compelling civil
rights issue of the 21st century is the need to expand school
choice and educational options so that every child, regardless
of race, regardless of ethnicity, regardless of zip code,
regardless of wealth, has a fair opportunity to receive an
excellent education.
Unfortunately, that has not been a focus of this Committee
for the past 2 years. I am hopeful it will become a focus of
the Committee in the coming years.
I would note, as well, that a disturbing pattern has been
demonstrated over the last several years of the Federal
Government violating the constitutional rights of the
citizenry, whether it is the IRS disregarding the First
Amendment rights of citizens, asking individual citizens, tell
us what books you are reading, tell us the content of your
prayers. Whether it is a consistent disregard for the Second
Amendment, whether it is a disregard for religious freedom
including, unfortunately, the Federal Government right now
litigating against the Little Sisters of the Poor, a Catholic
convent of nuns who have taken vows of poverty, who devote
their lives to caring for the poor and elderly and yet they are
in court, with the Federal Government trying to impose millions
of dollars of fines on them in order to force the nuns to pay
for abortion-inducing drugs, contrary to the religious faith.
Beyond that, we have seen a pattern of lawlessness from the
Federal Government that should trouble anyone concerned about
civil liberties, concerned about the Bill of Rights. In my
capacity as the Ranking Member on this Committee, we have
issued a series of five reports cataloging the disregard of the
Federal Constitution, the disregard of the Bill of Rights, from
the administration. Indeed, we cataloged 22 cases where the
Federal Government has gone before the U.S. Supreme Court
defending expanded Federal power and has been rejected
unanimously 9-to-nothing.
In one of those cases, the Department of Justice went
before the U.S. Supreme Court and said the Bill of Rights says
nothing about whether the Federal Government can put a GPS
locator on any citizen's car. The position of the Department of
Justice was that that does not require probable cause, it does
not require articulable suspicion. Indeed under DOJ's position,
every witness who attended this hearing today, every individual
citizen who came, the Federal Government could go and place a
GPS on your automobile outside without raising any Fourth
Amendment concerns whatsoever.
That was an extraordinary position. Thankfully, the U.S.
Supreme Court rejected the Department of Justice's views 9-to-
nothing.
We need to be vigilant defending the civil rights of every
American and I look forward to this Committee, the larger
Judiciary Committee, and to the Senate continuing to do so and
we need to have a particular responsibility to safeguard the
Bill of Rights.
I would note the saddest moment during my time in the
Senate was when 54 Senate Democrats cast a vote for a
Constitutional Amendment to repeal free speech protections of
the First Amendment. That was not consistent with our
obligations to protect civil liberties and I am hopeful going
forward we will be vigilant protecting the civil liberties of
every American.
Thank you.
Chairman Durbin. Thank you, Senator Cruz.
We are going to turn to our first witness panel. I want to
welcome our colleague, Senator Cory Booker, Congressman Luis
Gutierrez, and Congressman Keith Ellison.
We are going to give Senator Klobuchar an opportunity to
introduce Congressman Ellison. I want to note that Congressman
Judy Chu, Chair of the Congressional Asian Pacific American
Caucus, had a schedule conflict and could not join us.
Each of our witnesses are going to have 5 minutes to make a
statement and answer questions that may come up afterwards. I
will acknowledge two Members and then turn to Senator Klobuchar
to acknowledge the presence of Congressman Ellison.
First to testify today will be Senator Cory Booker of New
Jersey. Last month he was re-elected to serve in the Senate, 1
year after winning a special election.
Senator Booker serves on the Committees of Commerce,
Science and Transportation; Small Business; and Environment. He
is currently the only Senate Member of the Congressional Black
Caucus.
Following him will be Congressman Luis Gutierrez from my
State of Illinois, last month re-elected to serve his 12th term
representing the 4th District. He is a Member of the
Congressional Hispanic Caucus, and serves on the House
Judiciary Committee and the House Permanent Select Committee on
Intelligence. He previously testified before this Subcommittee
at our hearing on racial profiling in 2012 and our hearing on
Stand Your Ground Laws in 2013. Congressman Gutierrez will
follow Senator Booker.
Senator Klobuchar.
INTRODUCTION OF HON. KEITH ELLISON, A REPRESENTATIVE IN
CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF MINNESOTA, BY
HON. AMY KLOBUCHAR, A U.S. SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF MINNESOTA
Senator Klobuchar. Thank you very much. It is great to be
here with Senator Booker and Congressman Gutierrez. Thank you
so much for being here.
I am really here to recognize my friend, Keith Ellison.
Keith and I go way back to when I was a prosecutor, the chief
prosecutor in Hennepin County and he was a criminal defense
lawyer, but somehow we have remained friends through it all. I
think it is a testament to everything that he has stood for.
Before he came to Congress, again, he also did a lot of
civil rights work and so it prepared him for the work that he
has done in Congress. He was the first Muslim in Congress and
we are very proud of that in Minnesota. He is a strong voice
for justice and civil rights.
We have worked on several bills together, environmental
bills and other things, but I think the thing that is most
appropriate for this discussion today is the Same Day
Registration Act, a bill that I am carrying and working with
Senator Tester on in the Senate and he has it in the House and
it would reduce barriers to voting.
When we think about the grand jury issues and who serves on
grand juries, this is actually relevant, Chairman Durbin. It is
relevant because the list for the grand jury comes from voter
roles. They also come from other places, especially in Hennepin
County, where we work to make sure other lists were included
for who serves on grand juries.
So when you limit who can vote, you actually also limit who
can serve on grand juries because that is where you get your
source for people that serve on grand juries if you want to
have grand juries that reflect our community as well as law
enforcement that reflect our community.
We have done a lot of great work in Hennepin County with
DNA and with other things, videotaping interrogations that we
are proud of, but I think that this is important to think about
with the voter issues. There is a connection.
Thank you very much and we are glad to have you here,
Congressman Ellison.
Senator Cornyn. Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Durbin. Just one second, please. Twin Cities, twin
introductions. Senator Franken would like to say a word.
INTRODUCTION OF HON. KEITH ELLISON, A REPRESENTATIVE IN
CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF MINNESOTA, BY
HON. AL FRANKEN, A U.S. SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF MINNESOTA
Senator Franken. Well first, I just want to associate
myself with Senator Klobuchar's remarks, mainly about Keith,
less about the grand jury, but that is important too.
Keith has been someone who has been talking about this,
these encounters between members of the minority community and
law enforcement long before we have gotten to the recent
challenges that we are talking about today and that people have
been talking about. I am very proud of Congressman Ellison.
Chairman Durbin. Senator Cornyn.
Senator Cornyn. Mr. Chairman, I just wanted to know if it
would be in order to make a brief statement.
Chairman Durbin. Without objection, please.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. JOHN CORNYN,
A U.S. SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF TEXAS
Senator Cornyn. I appreciate that. I just want to add a
couple of words by way of thanks to you for convening this
hearing to talk about a very important issue to all Americans
and that is the state of civil and human rights in this country
of ours.
I know your focus is primarily going to be on the criminal
justice system and I would say that I hope that this hearing
will take a long view and not just a short-term view. Obviously
on our minds, the recent tragedies of what have occurred are
fresh, but I think caution would tell us that we ought to wait
until there has been a thorough investigation and all of the
facts revealed before we draw any conclusions.
But I also worry that just the recent tragedies will
somehow distract us in some ways from the great successes that
law enforcement has had since the crime waves of the 1980s and
1990s. Since 1993, violent crime rates are down 48 percent in
this country. Law enforcement officer death rates are down 37
percent. Homicide rates are down 50 percent. Robbery rates are
down 56 percent and property crime rates are down 40 percent.
So while we know that there are incidents that deserve and must
be investigated and follow the facts where ever they must lead,
I hope we keep that success in mind as well as part of the
overall context.
I would just finally say that we have tried to get Senator
Reid to take up some bipartisan legislation, part of what you
mentioned earlier, the Sentencing Act that you and Senator Cruz
and others are working on, but also I want to mention the
Recidivism Reduction and Public Safety Act that Senator
Whitehouse and I cosponsored here in the Committee that got--if
I am not mistaken--unanimous support in the Committee, but we
have just been unable--well, we have got two people that did
not agree with us yet. We hope to convince them.
We were not able to get time on the floor to be able to
take that up. My hope is after the new year, that we will be
able to get both of these bills up on the floor and thoroughly
debate these issues because I think we have seen that this is
not an area where partisanship has any role to play, that
working together we can come up with some better solutions on
our criminal justice system even as we insist that tragedies
like the ones that are fresh in our minds are thoroughly
investigated and that we leave no stone unturned.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Durbin. Thank you, Senator Cornyn. Let us get
together, all of us interested in those two bills, and make
sure it is a priority in our new Congress.
Now let me recognize our colleague, Senator Cory Booker.
STATEMENT OF HON. CORY A. BOOKER,
A U.S. SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF NEW JERSEY
Senator Booker. I want to thank the Chairman and the
Ranking Member for having this hearing and I want to thank all
of my colleagues who are before me, each and every one of you I
have had discussions with, very encouraging discussions, around
these issues.
You said very specifically, and I want to honor that, that
the time for lamentations has passed. The time for legislation
is upon us. I want to apologize if it seems that I am going off
of that directive, but I will end up right there.
This is a very, very personal issue for me, this evolution
of the United States toward its ideals. Children from Newark,
New Jersey, to Oakland, California, stand up every day and say
the pledge of allegiance that we are a Nation with liberty and
justice for all.
But these last few weeks, we have seen tens of thousands of
Americans taking to the streets in anguish and rage and
frustration. I agree with Senator Cornyn that it is too early
in many ways to draw conclusions when there are Federal
investigations still going on on many of those issues.
I appreciate the sensibility of his remarks, but please
understand that the anguish that folks are feeling on the
streets, the anguish that has penetrated this body and has had
me pulled aside by Senate pages, and many people we walk by, in
this body who do the dignified important work, yet menial work,
who have asked me, please do something about this.
What is that ``this'' they are talking about? I, as many of
you know, was raised in a community which my family, in 1969,
the year of my birth, was the first Black family to integrate
this area. My classmates and teammates were all White, growing
up. My dearest and closest friends now, I feel blessed and
privileged that I have people who are like blood to me of all
different backgrounds.
But I know growing up our experiences as our parents talked
to us about police officers, talked to us about behavior, there
was dramatic differences between the exhortations of Black
parents, Latino parents, and White parents. I remember,
distinctly, my parents lecturing me with anger in their voice
that I did not have the margin of error when it comes to
experimenting with drugs or other behaviors that others have.
What I want to do right now is put this in context of what
you called us to talk about, which is legislation. And put it
to a context to a horrible history in our country, that history
of bias that we are desperately trying to work our way out of.
In my lifetime, we have seen something happen that is
remarkable on the planet Earth, which is the explosion of the
American prison system to the point now where America has 5
percent of the globe's population, but 25 percent of the
world's--of humanity's imprisoned people. And by God, we do not
have a country that has more criminals, more criminality, more
crime intent people than China or Russia or India.
That explosion of criminality has made us see in the last
30 years an 800 percent increase in the Federal prison
population. Half of those prisoners at the Federal level and
the overwhelming majority on the national level are nonviolent
offenders--nonviolent, not picking up guns, not beating people
in the streets, not assault.
We as Americans, unlike any other country, bear the burden
of spending a quarter of a trillion dollars carrying this
system. The point that is felt in the anguish of staff I talk
to here in the Senate and people protesting is not the
specifics, necessarily of cases, but of the knowledge that we
all have, that none of my colleagues, Republican or Democrats,
have denied to me that this system is woefully biased against
minorities in our country.
The data screams that we all have access to and that we all
know--that there is no difference--no difference, for example,
in marijuana usage between Blacks and Whites in this country,
none whatsoever. The last three Presidents of the United States
admitted to using marijuana--and I say for the record, one said
he did not inhale.
[Laughter.]
Senator Booker. But yet, an African American is about 3.7
times more likely to be arrested for marijuana usage than
someone that is White. That is a fact.
We know we have a criminal justice system that has
uncontainable outcomes that do not reflect the highest values
that children of every ilk pledge allegiance to, values that we
swear oaths to, that we should have what that building across
the way says, powerfully written in stone ``equal justice under
the law.''
And what do I mean by some of these things that jump up and
call to the conscience of this country? We have a Nation where
African Americans make up 13 percent of the U.S. population,
but 40 percent of the imprisoned population. In my State, it is
13 percent and 60-plus percent of the prison population.
Nonviolent offenses--that according to the 2012 report for
the U.S. Sentencing Commission, between 2007 and 2009, drug
sentences for African-American men were 13.1 percent longer. We
know that Latino youth today--by the age of 23, 44 percent of
Latino youth will be arrested--44 percent, most of them for
nonviolent offenses.
We know the sad reality for African-American men, one in
three African-American males born today can expect to be
incarcerated at some point unless we make a change. When you
hear about police violence, trust me, I was a mayor of a great
American city. It was challenging and complicated in the
constant battle against crime to keep my community safe. These
are nuanced issues. We struggle with them in Newark.
But we know that right now there are 6.5 million Whites
arrested against about 2.6 million African Americans arrested
in a year. But ProPublica--and that means Blacks and Whites,
violent crime, nonviolent crime, 6.5 versus 2.6, White to
Black. But now someone who is African-American, according to
data quoted by my Republican colleague, Rand Paul, in Time
Magazine, are 21 times more likely to be shot dead by a police
officer--African Americans, 21 times more likely to be shot
dead by a police officer than someone White.
So I anguish over this fact that my country has been
evolving through the dedicated determinate acts of Black and
White through slavery, through Jim Crow, but I find myself a
Senator at a time that we have this ironic reality, there are
more African Americans now in prison under criminal
supervision, prison, jail, probation, parole than all the
slaves in 1850. So this is what sears into me as a painful
reality because we, as a body, Congress has the power to change
this.
And the elected leadership is showing this most clearly is
not coming from the Federal level, it is actually coming from
the States. Remarkably, refreshingly, it is coming from red
States. Red State Governors with their legislatures are passing
legislation that this body should be passing that is showing
clearly that you can deal with this over-incarceration problem
through commonsense bipartisan legislation.
The one example I will give as I lead to my close is
Georgia. Governor Nathan Deal, he has cut spending on prisons,
reduced penalties for nonviolent offenses. The result of his
commonsense reforms has been a dramatic reduction in prison
population and guess what--a 20-percent reduction over 5 years
in the number of incarcerated African-American men in their
State, a 20-percent reduction.
So we can say what we want about the details of Staten
Island or Ferguson, but there is a larger issue going on that
is anguishing their heart, from young people working in this
institution to cities and neighborhoods and towns all over our
country. The question is, enough of the lamentation, when will
there be legislation?
So I conclude with that call. It is a call that has rang
through the ages of our Nation, that we have something so
precious. This week Jews all across our country will be reading
a portion of the Torah that has a section with these words that
are written and inscribed from the Torah on the very site that
Martin Luther King was killed.
I had the privilege recently of watching the movie,
``Selma,'' and seeing Blacks and Whites joining hand-in-hand,
Latinos and other Americans in this ideal of America that these
issues are not Black or White. They are about justice. They are
about America, that people of good conscience when there is
clear and patent treatment being given to one body of Americans
and not to another, that there is a call to act.
It is this idea and this dream and written on that place in
Memphis, Tennessee, of the site that one of our great
Americans--not great Black American--one of our great Americans
died, it is the words from the Torah that call upon us now.
Simply these, ``Here cometh the dreamer. Let us slay him and
see what becomes of his dreams.''
There has been enough death in this country. There has been
enough over-incarceration. It is time now that we make the
dream real. We, through our legislative efforts, as illustrated
by State after State, can now follow suit, reduce our prison
populations, lower crime, save taxpayers money, and more
effectively herald the highest ideals of our country.
Thank you.
Chairman Durbin. Thank you, Senator Booker.
Congressman Luis Gutierrez of Chicago.
STATEMENT OF HON. LUIS GUTIERREZ, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS
FROM THE STATE OF ILLINOIS
Representative Gutierrez. Thank you, Chairman Durbin and
Ranking Member Cruz for inviting me to testify at this hearing
regarding the current state of civil and human rights in the
United States. Thank you, Senator Durbin for advocating for
justice and equality.
I have always valued your advice and counsel. Your
leadership on the Judiciary Committee and as Chairman of the
Subcommittee has contributed greatly to our Nation and to
protecting the civil rights of all of us. I came here to say
thank you.
Before I begin, I want to extend my heartfelt condolences
to the families and friends of Michael Brown and Eric Garner. I
think we can all agree that the loss of life is a great
tragedy. As a parent, I especially want to say to the parents
that I am so sorry for your loss.
In the wake of the grand jury decisions to not indict the
officers involved in the deaths of Michael Brown and Eric
Garner, communities throughout the country have taken to the
streets to protest. Many are deeply dissatisfied with decisions
not to prosecute the police officers in Ferguson and Staten
Island and transparently examine their actions and the
circumstances that led to the deaths of two unarmed Black men.
The protests also expose an equally disturbing issue, that
the killings of Brown and Garner are not isolated issues. I
believe the visceral reaction around the country is because
these cases represent the countless young men who are treated
unjustly by the police and many question their ability to
receive justice through the current court system.
These deaths expose gaps in our criminal justice system. In
particular, the grand jury process and the inherent conflict
and bringing charges against law enforcement. Clearly we have
more work to do to build trust between communities and law
enforcement in our system of justice.
African Americans and Latinos are disproportionately
impacted by the criminal justice system over all. Racial
profiling condoned officially or unofficially by some in law
enforcement forces Blacks and Latinos to contend with the
criminal justice system more frequently in a completely
different way than many others in our society. Minority
communities have a higher prosecution rate and at the post-
conviction stage, sentencing orders tend to be harsher among
minority defendants.
All too often, Latinos and Blacks are victims of excessive
use of force at the hands of rogue police officers. The issue
is only exacerbated when local and State police departments are
equipped with military equipment, as was the case in Ferguson,
Missouri, this past summer.
The cycle continues as we saw just last week when grand
juries guided by prosecutors who work on a daily basis with the
police failed to even call for a trial in open court. It is not
surprising that the system breeds mistrust. This vicious cycle
not only affects individuals, but also affects our African-
American and Latino communities as a whole.
When we see children like Michael Brown and Eric Garner and
Trayvon Martin, we see our own families in our own loved ones.
Ask any Latino or African-American parent whether they live in
a suburb or in a housing project and they will tell you they
fear for their children's safety every time they leave the
house.
Rather than thinking of the police as a public servant who
will protect the safety of their children, too often they think
of local police as one of the harshest their children have to
face. I think only of my daughter, Jessica, who was stopped
because she was driving in too nice of a car. She was with her
friends in her own neighborhood. Her mom and dad apparently
made the mistake of living in a neighborhood they could afford
to live in, not one the police officer thought she should be
living in.
Or when I was stopped and refused admission to this very
Capitol complex early in my year because as the Capitol Hill
police officer said, I did not look like a Congressman. Too
many have face profiling, subtle and explicit, annoying and
yes, potentially dangerous when the profiler has a badge or has
a gun.
I respect and appreciate the hard work that law enforcement
officers do to keep our communities safe. We have worked to get
more cops on the street to invest in violence reduction
programs to reduce the number of guns in our communities that
often target police officers, and to make sure we honor and pay
police officers for the dangerous and often thankless work
police officers do.
I am also proud to be an original cosponsor of the End
Racial Profiling Act which I think is clearly and sorely
needed.
With regard to the revised profiling guidelines issued
yesterday by the Department of Justice, I am deeply
disappointed that they did not close significant loopholes,
especially as they pertain to the Department of Homeland
Security which will allow whole sections of America's largest
law enforcement entities, including Customs, Border Patrol, and
Transportation Security Administration, to continue to profile
many innocent Americans. I am also perplexed and disheartened
that the new guidance applies only to Federal agents, but
exempts local, county, and State law enforcement.
Civil and human rights today in America continues to be a
work in process thanks to the leadership of Chairman Durbin and
many of my colleagues including those seated with me today. We
are able to celebrate the strides we have made to create a more
equal and just Nation for all and chart the course of continued
progress in the future, but it is tempered by knowing that we
cannot rest in the pursuit of justice and fairness, especially
in the face of tragic and needless cost of life.
We have come a long way. Senator Booker is a testament to
that. My buddy, Keith, is a testament to that. I hope to be a
testament to that. Let us continue to do the good work. I thank
you for your wonderful leadership, Senator Durbin.
Chairman Durbin. Thanks, Congressman Gutierrez.
Congressman Ellison of Minnesota.
STATEMENT OF HON. KEITH ELLISON, A REPRESENTATIVE
IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF MINNESOTA
Representative Ellison. Mr. Chairman, thank you very much
and also thank you to the Ranking Member, also a special thanks
to my fellow Minnesotans, Senator Klobuchar and Senator
Franken, and the entire panel.
Of course, I was very moved by the words of my fellow
panelists. They were amazing and I want to say ``ditto'' on
everything they said.
Last week, 15-year-old Abdisamad Sheikh-Hussein was run
over by a man in an SUV and the bumper sticker on his car said,
``Islam is worse than Ebola.'' But today I am not here to talk
and focus on private hate crimes and discrimination, although
that deserves all of the attention that we can muster.
Today I would like to talk about the discrimination that
happens at the hands of state actors. I think we should shine a
light on all forms of discrimination, but I think that the
events that we have seen over the last few weeks demonstrate
how very important it is for the state, and people who act on
behalf of the state, to get it right.
People have a legitimate higher expectation of people who
operate on behalf of the state. Our Government is a democratic
government and it is undergirded by a Constitution and the
people have every right to believe that the Government is there
to protect the general welfare.
And that makes it all the more disappointing when people
who operate on behalf of the state fail to live up to that
expectation. People have a right to believe that they will be
dealt with justly and fairly by the state, but when the state
violates people's rights, it is fair for people to wonder who
is going to protect my rights if the state will not? And that
is why people are particularly incensed by encounters between
citizens and law enforcement.
People are grateful for law enforcement. We believe in law
enforcement. I am grateful for law enforcement and I know
people who are in law enforcement. Most of them go into it
because they want to help people, but when they fail and when
excessive force is employed, it is incredibly disappointing and
it shakes people's confidence in what the state is supposed to
do for them, which is to protect them and promote their
welfare.
You know, the injustices we have seen over the past week is
not new. It is not the first time the police have been
videotaped using excessive force. None of us can ever forget
Rodney King. It is not the first time people have died in
police custody and it is not the first time that a grand jury
has vetoed justice.
Why are people walking around with their hands up saying,
``I cannot breathe''? Why are people saying, ``Don't shoot''?
Why are they proclaiming these things all over cities in
America? It is because of a long train of abuses, not one
particular case. People who want to argue over the nuance of
one recent case in the news or another are free to do so, but
no one can deny the unmistakable pattern between police and
community, particularly Black community, and men in the
community.
We could talk about Eric Garner and Michael Brown, but what
about Tamir Rice, 12 years old? What about Darren Hunt who had
a toy? What about Rodney King?
And by the way, not only is this a long train of abuses, it
goes back further even than the Kerner Commission Report which
said our Nation is moving toward two societies, one Black, one
White, separate and unequal. Fifty years ago we were dealing
with this same issue and it is on us today and we must make a
call to action to reverse this trend so that every American,
all Americans, can feel that the Government really is liberty
and justice for all.
So instead of a system of justice that works for some and
does not work for all, this injustice takes place within a
social and economic context. I have to say, that when Officer
Wilson confronted Michael Brown on Canfield Drive in Ferguson,
the interaction did not take place in a vacuum.
Ferguson, Missouri's unemployment rate is 13 percent, over
double the national average. The number of poor people in
Ferguson doubled over the last 10 years. In 2012, almost all of
Ferguson's neighborhoods had a poverty rate of over 20 percent.
The fact is if we respond by ordering body cameras, ordering
police cameras, these will be good steps. If we have grand jury
reform, if we require that there are preliminary hearings in
these officer-involved shootings so we can have more
transparency, these will all be good things, but they will not
stop the pattern unless we deal with the structural economic
abandonment of cities like Ferguson.
We cannot continue to solve our economic and social
problems with criminal justice solutions. The fact that our
low-income and minority communities are over-policed and under-
protected is the spark, but poverty and economic deprivation is
the kindling and that is what lights the flame.
I say ``yes,'' again, to body cameras and all types of
reforms, but please let us not forget that investing in
infrastructure, education, public job programs, and providing
for social supports which help people stay away from the
hardest aspects of an unfair economy, are essential. You do not
sell ``loosies'' on the streets of Staten Island if you are
making a livable wage.
We know that we have an inequality problem when the CEO of
Walmart makes over $12,000 an hour and the average Walmart
worker makes $8.48. The CEO of McDonald's makes $9,200 an hour
and the cashier makes $8.25. So please do not forget that
dealing with the economic deprivation that kindles these
situations is incredibly important. It is important in the
recent cases. It will be important in the future.
I would now like to turn my attention, just for a moment,
to talk about the problems that affect the Muslim community in
particular. Societal discrimination is real. I have been the
direct victim of it myself. In my own State only a few days
ago, a county party chairman called Muslims parasites and said
they should be fragged. That means to kill them violently.
A State Senator in Oklahoma said that American Muslims are
a cancer in our Nation that needs cutting out. So when we
arrive at how the state deals with this Muslim population, we
know that we are already dealing with the situation in which so
many in the law enforcement community see the Muslim community
as a security problem, not fully fleshed members of our
community here to make a contribution.
So I, too, was disappointed in the guidance that was
recently issued by the Department of Justice and believed that
at no time can we have a system of justice in which someone's
race or religion or what they are wearing can justify
engagement by law enforcement. Law enforcement should engage
citizens when there is some articulable suspicion that that
person might commit a specific crime. And that should be the
basis of the engagement.
Until we say that racial profiling, religious profiling, is
actually bad law enforcement, we will continue to bother people
and engage people who had nothing to do with any wrongdoing and
we will miss people who are up to no good and will harm us.
Again, thank you, all of the Committee Members and my
fellow panelists for this excellent presentation. Thank you,
Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Durbin. Congressman Ellison, thank you.
Congressman Gutierrez it is great to see you over here again.
Representative Gutierrez. Thank you.
Chairman Durbin. Senator Booker, thanks. We appreciate it
as your colleagues. I dismiss, with gratitude, our first panel
and thank them for adding to this.
I want to acknowledge--in the audience today is Martin
Castro, Chair of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights. It is
good to see you Marty.
Now I would like to call the second witness panel to come
to the table. As they are coming to the table, I will give you
an introduction on them.
One longtime friend, Wade Henderson, president and chief
executive officer of the Leadership Conference on Civil and
Human Rights. The Leadership Conference is the Nation's
preeminent civil and human rights coalition with more than 200
national organizations in its membership.
Mr. Henderson, professor at the University of District of
Columbia David Clarke School of Law--prior to joining the
Leadership Conference he was the Washington bureau director of
the NAACP, graduate of Howard University and Rutgers University
School of Law. I thank you for being here today.
Dr. Cedric Alexander currently serves as president of
NOBLE, the National Organization of Black Law Enforcement
Executives on whose behalf he is appearing. He is the deputy
chief operating officer in charge of the Office of Public
Safety for DeKalb County, Georgia.
Dr. Alexander previously served as Transportation Security
Administration Federal Security Director for Dallas Fort Worth
International Airport, deputy commissioner of the Office of
Public Safety at the New York State Division of Criminal
Justice and chief of police in Rochester, New York, law
enforcement officer for 15 years in Florida, a doctoral degree
in clinical psychology from Wright State University. Dr.
Alexander, thank you.
Our next witness is a familiar friend, Laura Murphy,
director of the Washington Legislative Office of the American
Civil Liberties Union, a position she has held on several
occasions. She is the first woman, first African American,
longest serving head of the Federal Affairs Operation in ACLU's
94-year history. She received her Bachelor's from Wellesley
College.
It is the custom of this Committee to swear in our
witnesses. If you would all please rise.
Do you affirm that the testimony you are about to give
before the Subcommittee be the truth, the whole truth, and
nothing but the truth, so help you God?
Mr. Alexander. I do.
Mr. Henderson. I do.
Ms. Murphy. I do.
Chairman Durbin. Thank you. Let the record reflect that all
three witnesses answered in the affirmative.
Let me first call as the first witness, Wade Henderson.
STATEMENT OF WADE HENDERSON, PRESIDENT AND CHIEF EXECUTIVE
OFFICER, THE LEADERSHIP CONFERENCE ON CIVIL AND HUMAN RIGHTS,
WASHINGTON, DC
Mr. Henderson. Thank you, Mr. Chairman--Chairman Durbin,
Ranking Member Cruz, and Members of the Subcommittee. I am Wade
Henderson, president and CEO of the Leadership Conference on
Civil and Human Rights, a coalition of more than 200 national
organizations representing persons of color, women, children,
organized labor, persons with disabilities, seniors, the
lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community, and the
faith-based community.
Let me start by thanking you, Senator Durbin, for your
remarkable leadership of the Subcommittee. From the passage of
bipartisan legislation like the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd,
Jr., Hate Crimes Prevention Act and the Fair Sentencing Act, to
chairing hearings, examining voter rights, Stand Your Ground
Laws, and the civil rights of American Muslims. You have been a
champion on issues of vital importance to the civil and human
rights community for years.
Let me also acknowledge you, Ranking Member Cruz, in your
role as the new Chair of the Subcommittee in the 114th
Congress. Senator, we are hopeful that as the new Chair, you
will build on the Subcommittee's legacy and continue to work in
a bipartisan fashion to make progress for our Nation. We look
forward to collaborating with you to achieve our common goal of
protecting and advancing civil and human rights for all
Americans.
This hearing is taking place at a pivotal time for the
Nation. The recent killings of unarmed Black boys and men by
police officers across the country have fueled a growing
diverse passionate and increasingly organized movement for
justice across racial lines that cannot be ignored.
In particular, the recent non-indictments of the police
officers who killed Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, and
Eric Garner in Staten Island, New York, and the new information
about the suitability of Officer Timothy Loehmann who killed
12-year-old Tamir Rice in Cleveland, Ohio, remind us that we
live in a country founded on principles of equality and
opportunity, African Americans and other communities of color
still find that the promise of equality and opportunity has yet
to be fully realized.
On nearly every indicator that we use in the United States
to measure progress, people of color are falling further
behind. And in some important ways, doing worse than they were
in 1960. Our schools have re-segregated. Our levels of
unemployment are at an all-time high. We face continued
discrimination in voting and our incarceration rates have
increased exponentially.
So as we mark a number of anniversaries this year and next,
including the Civil Rights Act, Freedom Summer, the Voting
Rights Act, and Bloody Sunday, we must acknowledge and
celebrate how far we have come. But we must also be aware of
just how far we have to go in the quest for equality. Systemic
obstacles to full inclusion and opportunity remain for our
communities and we have failed to establish the justice and
equality that we all seek.
Now without question, our criminal justice system is in
crisis. Racial and ethnic bias and discrimination persists at
every stage from policing to trial to sentencing and finally to
reentry. We should use our resources to more adequately address
public safety and invest in alternatives to incarceration where
appropriate.
And we must put in place commonsense reforms that prohibit
discriminatory profiling, demilitarize local law enforcement,
redefine the standards for use of force by police, and
establish accountability. We must eliminate harsh sentencing
policies that disproportionately impact communities of color
and pass the bipartisan Smarter Sentencing Act as well as
assist with successful re-entry. Finally, we need vigorous
enforcement of hate crime protections and expanded coordinated
police community efforts to track and respond to hate violence
and improve hate crime data collection.
More than a decade after President Bush announced that
racial profiling is ``wrong and we will end it in America,''
communities across the country, particularly African Americans,
Latinos, Asian Americans, Arab and Muslim Americans, and those
perceived to be Arab and Muslim, including South Asians, Middle
Easterners, and Sikhs, are still subjected to profiling in a
variety of contexts, including street-level enforcement,
immigration enforcement, and counterterrorism efforts.
Profiling is an ineffective law enforcement practice. It is
detrimental to public safety and is antithetical to the
constitutional right to equal protection under law.
Now yesterday the Department of Justice issued long-awaited
revisions to its 2003 profiling guidance for Federal law
enforcement. This represents an important step forward by
expanding protected categories and limiting some of the
existing loopholes.
Where it falls short in the areas of national security,
border integrity, and the failure to apply State and local
enforcement, we will work with this administration to end
profiling by all law enforcement. Further, the shortfalls in
the guidance reinforce the need for Congress to act and we will
redouble our efforts to ensure passage of the End Racial
Profiling Act in the 114th Congress.
I would like to turn next to voting rights. While the days
of poll taxes, literacy tests, and brutal physical intimidation
are behind us, voting discrimination is still a problem for
many Americans. Last month's midterm elections were the first
to be held without the protection of Section 5 of the Voting
Rights Act because of the Supreme Court's 2013 Shelby County
versus Holder decision and we saw increased efforts to
implement the new restrictions on voting, including mandatory
voter identification laws, limits on early voting, last-minute
changes in polling places, changes to methods of elections, and
racially biased gerrymandering that disproportionately impact
communities of color.
As a result, we witnessed the most unfair, confusing, and
discriminatory election landscape in almost 50 years. It is a
disgrace to our citizens, to our Nation, and to our standing in
the world as a beacon of democracy. The 114th Congress must fix
the Shelby decision by enacting the bipartisan Voting Rights
Amendment Act to ensure that no voter faces discrimination.
These are big challenges, Mr. Chairman. The Leadership
Conference's goal is to create an America as good as its
ideals. It is not just rhetoric. This is the critical and
necessary work in which all Americans of good conscience should
be engaged, particularly our elected officials who are charged
with addressing problems of national importance.
We look forward to working with you and the Subcommittee on
these important issues. Thank you, sir.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Henderson appears as a
submission for the record.]
Chairman Durbin. Dr. Alexander.
STATEMENT OF CEDRIC ALEXANDER, Psy.D., PRESIDENT,
NATIONAL ORGANIZATION OF BLACK LAW ENFORCEMENT EXECUTIVES, AND
PUBLIC SAFETY DIRECTOR, DEKALB
COUNTY, GEORGIA
Mr. Alexander. Thank you, sir, and good afternoon Chairman
Durbin and Ranking Member Cruz and Members of the Subcommittee.
I bring you greetings on behalf of the executive board and
members of the National Organization of Black Law Enforcement
Executives, commonly referred to as NOBLE.
My name is Dr. Cedric Alexander, national president of
NOBLE and deputy chief operating for public safety, DeKalb
County, Georgia.
It is an honor to be here today to participate as a witness
in the Senate's hearing on The State of Civil and Human Rights
in the United States. I want to acknowledge and thank you,
Chairman Durbin, for holding this hearing and inviting me to
participate.
I speak to you from a perspective of a person who has over
37 years of law enforcement experience and who has held a
number of high-level positions in Federal, county, and city
local levels. In addition, I hold a Ph.D. in clinical
psychology. And quite frankly, Senator, some days I do not know
whether that is an asset or liability.
I represent an organization, NOBLE, whose mission is to
ensure equity in administration of justice and a provision of
public service to all communities and to serve as the
conscience of law enforcement by being committed to justice by
action. It is my position that this country has the unique
opportunity today to address the lack of trust and
understanding of law enforcement by communities of color. It is
imperative to every citizen that we collectively deploy
solutions to the areas of training, community policing, and
technology to ensure that America is secure both domestically
and internationally.
Second, through the solutions we were able to further the
hopes and dreams of many of our forefathers and realizing true
civil rights and human rights as stated in the Declaration of
Independence: ``We hold these truths to be self-evident, that
all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their
Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are
Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.''
The recent events in Ferguson, Missouri, and in Staten
Island, New York, when combined with real and/or perceived
attacks on civil rights legislation, have created an
environment where many people of color feel disenfranchised by
their national and local government. More importantly, there is
a pervasive belief, right or wrong, that the lives of
minorities are of less value than that of their counterparts.
So with that, let us talk about solutions to building
bridges of understanding and partnership between enforcement
and communities they are to serve and protect. Training, sir,
being at the forefront of all of this. Cultural competency is a
critical component to bridging the gap amongst law enforcement
and communities of color. It is the foundation for people of
different cultures and social economic backgrounds to interact
effectively.
When developed and implemented as a framework, cultural
competency enables systems, agencies, and groups of
professionals to function effectively to understand the needs
of culturally diverse groups. It is critical that law
enforcement reevaluates its training methodologies to ensure
that they reflect the 21st century needs and incorporate
cultural competency training for police officers--that is part
of the recruiting and in-service training.
Militarization of police has become a growing concern and
interest throughout our country in recent years through to the
use of tactical equipment and gear to combat everyday crime.
The 1033 Program was created by the National Defense
Authorization Act of 1997 as part of the U.S. Government's
Defense Logistics Agency disposition services to transfer
excess military equipment to local law enforcement agencies.
Every year, hundreds of millions of dollars worth of military
equipment flows from the Federal Government to State and local
police departments.
As a result, departments have implemented the use of
military equipment, as seen most recently in Ferguson,
Missouri, which to many Americans was unfairly targeted toward
other American citizens. There must be justification,
accountability, and training to support the continued use of
such tactical measures and equipment. NOBLE feels that training
is a key component of ensuring the correct application of this
type of resource.
Community-oriented policing, which we all have heard a lot
about over the years--it is our recommendation that the law
enforcement community adopt community policing as a philosophy
of policing in this country. Here are some of the key
components of community policing: Community policing allows
officers to demonstrate their support for the community;
residents and officers are allies; officers respect and protect
the civil rights of residents; racial profiling and other forms
of discrimination are strictly prohibited.
Community policing demands that officers interact with
people who live or work in neighborhoods that they patrol.
Officers are trained to communicate with people, solve
community problems, and develop an appreciation of cultural and
ethnic differences. And the other side of that, sir, is very
important as well, too, that communities work closely with
police, align themselves with their local police, and become
partners.
This is not a one-way street. This is a two-way street when
we talk about public safety. It takes everyone, police and
community together, in order to provide the type of public
safety I think that we all want to embrace in our respective
communities.
Community policing emphasizes the importance and the value
of human life. The use of excessive force is absolutely
prohibited and deadly force is reserved strictly for when an
officer's life or the life of a citizen is at risk.
NOBLE has launched a pilot program entitled, ``The Law and
Your Community.'' Through funding from the Department of
Justice COPS Office, this program's aim is to develop trust and
understanding between law enforcement and the community.
The Law and Your Community is an interactive training
program for young people between the ages of 13 and 18 years of
age. It is designed to improve their communication with law
enforcement officers and their understanding of Federal, State,
and local laws.
Components of the program include, but are not limited to,
citizenship. What does it mean to be a citizen? What are the
laws governing everyday life, including traffic laws? And what
are your rights as a citizen?
Basic laws--understanding the basic laws of issues such as
gun ownership, staying safe within your community, and
maintaining positive affiliations with others including peer
relationships, maintaining good grades, adult relationships,
and the benefits of having mentors.
Law enforcement engagement--educating young people and
adults on how to engage and navigate communication with local
law enforcement officers. What is community policing? Have a
better understanding of realities of working in law enforcement
and working with those who do that job.
And last, technology--we feel that technology can be
leveraged to support the effective implementation of community
policing and ensure maximum transparency to the public. Through
technology, partnerships with communities can be strengthened
in the area of problem-solving and partnership initiatives.
Likewise, there is an important role in applying technology
and improving the effectiveness of law enforcement training.
Listed are some of those technology recommendations:
requirements of body cameras for every law enforcement officer
in this country--every law enforcement officer in this country;
deployment of various social media platforms to allow law
enforcement departments to better communicate and interact with
local residents; and, of course, use of force and firearm
training systems which will help them to develop and sharpen
their skills of ``shoot'' and ``don't shoot.''
By implementing these recommendations on training,
community policing, and technology, we believe that real
progress can be made in improving the relationship between law
enforcement and the communities they serve. This would greatly
improve the state of civil rights and human rights in America.
I thank the Subcommittee for the opportunity to testify and
would be happy to answer any questions that you may have. Thank
you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Alexander appears as a
submission for the record.]
Chairman Durbin. Thank you, Dr. Alexander.
Laura Murphy.
STATEMENT OF LAURA MURPHY, DIRECTOR, WASHINGTON LEGISLATIVE
OFFICE, AMERICAN CIVIL LIBERTIES UNION, WASHINGTON, DC
Ms. Murphy. Thank you, Senator Durbin and Ranking Member
Cruz for inviting the ACLU to testify at today's hearing.
For nearly 100 years, the ACLU has worked to defend and
preserve the rights that the Constitution and the laws of the
United States guarantee. I would especially like to thank you,
Senator Durbin, for your tireless leadership as Chairman. You
have held hearings on a variety of critical issues from
solitary confinement to racial profiling and addressing
barriers to voting and for that we are so very thankful.
My written testimony provides an extensive and broader view
of the state of civil and human rights, but today I will focus
my remarks on three areas of unfinished business: (1) the
militarization of police; (2) sentencing reform; and (3)
criminal disenfranchisement in voting.
We are standing at a crossroads in America right now. One
must only look to the current crisis in Ferguson, in New York
City, and in Cleveland, to see that extreme problems in
policing continue. With recent police paramilitary tactics
splashed across our TV screens, we must ask ourselves, Do we
want an America where the exercise of First Amendment rights is
met by assault weapons and teargas, where armored vehicles are
used in our day-to-day policing, where policing resembles our
military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, where communities
of color are disproportionately under siege? If the answer to
these questions is ``no,'' Congress must act immediately.
Militarized policing goes far beyond Ferguson. Although
SWAT teams were originally created to deal with life or death
emergencies like hostage crises, they are now overwhelmingly
used to serve search warrants in drug investigations. A recent
ACLU report found that SWAT teams were used 79 percent of the
time for raiding a person's home, most often for drugs.
Such tactics are unnecessary and excessive. What message
are we sending by using weapons of war to police American
communities?
Congress must ensure accountability. Federal funding and
providing military equipment should be conditioned on data
collection, use of body-worn cameras, anti-racial profiling
training, and insistence on community policing, as my good
friend has pointed out.
The war on drugs has created an incarceration nation with
too many people in prison for too long, serving no useful
benefit to society. One of the major reasons for expanded jail
and prison populations over the past 30 years is the use of
stiff mandatory minimum sentencing for nonviolent offenses.
Prison costs now absorb nearly a third of DOJ's
discretionary budget, 30 percent. The cost, though, goes far
beyond simply the money it takes to incarcerate over 2.3
million people. The true cost are human lives, mainly of
generations of young Black and Latino men and women who serve
long prison sentences and are lost to their families and
communities.
Organizations across the political spectrum support truly
bipartisan sentencing reform such as the Smarter Sentencing Act
and we thank you for that. That act would address the ongoing
crisis in our Federal prisons by reducing the prison
population. The SSA is sponsored by Senators Durbin, Lee,
Leahy, Cruz, and Representatives Bobby Scott and Raul Labrador.
The bill also has considerable conservative support. The
time is now to pass the Smarter Sentencing Act. It is only a
first step in reducing over-incarceration.
There is another tragic outcome of our Nation's
incarceration binge. Almost 6 million of our citizens have lost
the right to vote because of a past criminal conviction, and
many instances, very low-level crimes. Upon release from
prison, these citizens work, they pay taxes, they live in our
communities, and they raise families, but millions cannot vote.
One out of every 13 African Americans of voting age has
lost the right to vote. That is four times the national
average, but millions have no input on our political process.
That is unacceptable.
We commend Senators Ben Cardin and Rand Paul for their
leadership in this area and we urge the passage of the
Democracy Restoration Act, a bill that would restore voting
rights in Federal elections to millions of citizens.
Ending discrimination should be and historically has been a
bipartisan issue. Just consider the multiple Voting Rights Act
extensions that we have had. Consider the laudatory Fair
Sentencing Act of 2010. These would not have happened without
bipartisan support. Only with bipartisan support can we make
much-needed changes to our criminal justice policies.
I am sorry Senator Cruz had to leave because we would like
to work with him as well on changing our criminal justice
policies. We look forward to working with him as the new Chair
and all Members of the Subcommittee in the 114th Congress on
these critical issues.
I want to thank you so much for this opportunity to testify
and before I end, I would ask special consideration before the
hearing record is closed, I would like to ask if the ACLU may
submit a document outlining some of the gender-related problems
in our criminal justice system.
Chairman Durbin. Without objection.
[The information appears as a submission for the record.]
Ms. Murphy. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Murphy appears as a
submission for the record.]
Chairman Durbin. Thank you, Ms. Murphy.
Mr. Henderson, there was a time when witnesses came before
this Subcommittee and told us about what had happened when we
had the 100-to-1 disparity between crack and powdered cocaine.
Over a span of 20 years or more, there was a massive
incarceration of African Americans, unjustly, unfairly, for
undue long periods of time, but there was another reaction, the
African-American community understood it and as a consequence,
when many of the same people were called to serve on juries to
try people for drug crimes, they remembered and it became
increasingly difficult for prosecutors in some areas to win a
prosecution before a jury that was integrated.
They told us that story and it was understandable. Let me
take that to what I think we currently face, at least in some
communities that I am aware of. We have seen a decline in
violent crime in the city of Chicago, but still too many
violent crimes.
The overwhelming majority are Black-on-Black crimes. When
you visit the communities that are the most dangerous, where
the children are in the most danger going back and forth to
school, even playing, sitting on a porch, you find a reaction
from people in the community that they do not reach out to the
police, they do not cooperate with the police, they fear the
drug gangs and those who own the guns, but they fear reaching
out to the police is going to be just as dangerous or
unproductive.
Two areas of nullification, but one that has a direct
negative impact on the people living there. Tell me how you
react to that.
Mr. Henderson. Well, Mr. Chairman, it is a terrific
question and I think you have correctly pointed out some of the
challenges that law enforcement and the communities that they
are paid to protect often encounter in their relationship with
one another. The relationship between law enforcement and the
African-American community, as Senator Booker helped lay out in
his presentation, has a long history based on fundamental
injustices that our country has yet to fully overcome.
And you correctly point out that, obviously, communities
experiencing crime regardless of the makeup in color of that
community needs the protection that law enforcement provides.
On the other hand, when law enforcement is applied
inconsistently, unfairly, without equal protection and often
without respect for the lives of the individuals that law
enforcement is charged to protect, you develop a level of
ambivalence, indeed a level of fear, that may affect how you
respond to the legitimate needs of law enforcement in the
engagement with the communities they serve.
Now, let me say at the outset, this is not a generalized
indictment of law enforcement. We know many police officers. We
work with police officers and many police officers are fully
committed to protecting their charges regardless of the race of
the communities they prosecute. Having said that, there are
identifiable problems, some of which have surfaced in the last
several weeks, in the cases that we have cited which clearly
point out the need for further training and responsibility to
ensure that these individuals are protected.
One of the concerns that we expressed with the guidance
issued by the Department of Justice is that it did not go far
enough to require State and local police officers not engaged
in direct Federal law enforcement activity, which is covered by
the guidance, but law enforcement that relies on Federal
support, Federal dollars, Federal equipment, that these
departments should be required to attest to under Title VI of
the Civil Rights Act of 1964 which prohibits racial and ethnic
and national origin discrimination. These departments should
attest to the fact that they have training programs designed to
ensure that racial profiling or profiling of the kind that we
have discussed that should be prohibited does not take effect.
The problems of unconscious bias which often affect police
departments can be overcome with training, that attestations of
the fact that these departments have taken affirmative steps
are needed.
Now to get back to your specific question about the
communities that, in turn, are experiencing crime and are
fearful about reporting those crimes to the police,
representing another form of nullification, I guess I would
say, Senator, the truth is, most crime occurs in this country
in communities in which inhabitants reside. So yes, there is
Black-on-Black crime just as there is White-on-White crime. The
communities and the makeup of the community often determines
that.
Having said that, there is a legitimate concern on the part
of many communities that reporting crime, as much as they would
like to have the protection of the police officers, often
invites a level of systemic abuse which they had seen in the
implementation of our criminal laws and the unfairness of it
all.
So when we talk about incarcerating individuals for years
at a time for nonviolent, drug-related criminal activity and
yet we turn to look at legal use of the same product in States
like Colorado that had individuals incarcerated for long
periods of time, whether it is in Illinois or Minnesota or
other locations, there is obviously some sense of unfairness
and injustice. We need to try to reconcile that.
One last point, your effort on the Fair Sentencing Act, we
have talked about it here, but the truth is, had you not shown
the kind of leadership that you demonstrated, your willingness
to reach out to Senator Sessions, your willingness to cut a
deal and we talked with you at that time, we obviously were
pleased that the 100-to-1 disparity was being changed. We had
hoped that the disparity would have been eliminated entirely,
that there would have been a 1-to-1 ratio of incarceration
based on crack or powder cocaine.
Nonetheless, the change that the two of you helped usher in
and was approved by the Senate, has led to a substantial
reduction in prison time for individuals who would have been
adversely affected on an average of about 3 years.
The cost factors involved in the incarceration of these
individuals and the impact that returning to their communities
at an earlier point in time has had on the overall nature of
the community is beyond price. You should be very proud of what
you have been able to accomplish.
Chairman Durbin. Thank you very much, Mr. Henderson.
Senator Franken.
Senator Franken. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Boy, there is so
much here. This is a moment, I think, in this country that our
first witnesses and all of you have talked about how Ferguson,
Staten Island, Cleveland are not anomalies, but there is a
focus now in this country. And this is a moment and it is a
moment that I think we really need to, at least, at the very
least, try to grapple with this, try to focus on it and try to
legislate.
I heard from a friend whom I had not heard from in 20 years
after Senator Booker spoke--and you heard how powerfully he
spoke today. He spoke at our caucus lunch and that same evening
I got an email from a friend I had not seen in 20 years who
said you have to do something about this. I have conversations
with my 15-year-old son that are very uncomfortable, just like
Senator Booker talked about, what it is like for a young
African-American male, that there is no margin for error in
dealing with law enforcement.
I want to ask you, Dr. Alexander, you talked about
community policing and it sounds to me that, like what you were
saying, Mr. Henderson, I believe, was that when there is not
Federal crime involved there is still Federal funding involved.
Can we require some kind of protocol in community policing?
Let me ask you something because this is the difference
between Ferguson and Staten Island, I think. At Ferguson, the
police department really did not represent the community in its
makeup. I think in New York it does more. And this is for
anyone on the panel, but maybe Dr. Alexander first, what does
that say about training versus, or in league with, having the
police department represent the community?
Mr. Alexander. Well, it is important, Senator. As we all
know, diversity is a very important concept I think we all tend
to pay very close attention to and one, in this Nation, that I
would hope whether it is Government or private industry, we all
make an attempt to rectify, particularly when we see agencies
as such that may be lacking in that area.
Diversity is hugely important. There are many departments
across this country who are doing it very well every day and
there are some communities in this country, Senator, that
struggle with the whole concept of diversity. Some of it may be
deliberate, where they do not take it that seriously. In some
cases, you will have a community such as Ferguson where I had
the opportunity to spend some time with the chief there on a
number of occasions and we talked about diversification in his
department and will use Ferguson as an example.
That is a community where the demographics in that city
changed from White to Black over about a 20-year span. I mean,
changed hugely. In that transition, the department, the police
department itself, did not transition to look more like their
community. Now, in all fairness to Chief Jackson, he made
attempts as he stated to me, to diversify that department.
One of the biggest challenges that he had inasmuch as he
wanted to make that department more representative of that
community, he struggled with the fact that the same population
that he was trying to recruit, every other police department in
his area was trying to recruit as well, too.
For example, St. Louis PD, St. Louis County Police
Department. A lot of these officers of color tend to go to
larger agencies where they are paid more money and more
opportunity for advancements. And then you also had him and
others competing for that same population, as well, even in
private industry.
But one thing that I concluded and I made very clear to
him, and I talked to a number of my chief and police and
administrative colleagues across this country, regardless of
what that challenge may be to you, we can no longer accept the
fact we cannot find any. That is no longer acceptable.
What it means, Senator, is that departments that struggle
with recruitment of people of color, they are going to have to
work harder. They are going to have to put money in their
budgets. They are going to have to go outside their communities
to recruit and they may even have to develop within their
communities, within their local public schools, pipelines where
children and young people can become police explorers, and you
begin to groom those young people from very early on in their
educational process so that maybe at some point they become a
pipeline into your police agency.
It is a challenge in some parts of the country. Where I
come from, in DeKalb County, Georgia, metro Atlanta, I do not
have a problem recruiting people of color. I do not have that
issue, but here again, it depends on where you are. But one
thing I will not accept is the fact that I cannot find people
of color. It just means we have to become more creative and we
have to become more determined and we have to look around as
well, too, and see how other departments or other industries
are recruiting, because we may not have to re-create that
wheel.
But accepting the fact that we cannot find people of color
is not acceptable because a community deserves to look like the
government that serves it, whatever that government is that
serves that community, there should be some similarities there
as well, too. But I can say this, there are a number of
departments out there across this country, police departments
across this country, who really make dedicated efforts, who
really work hard to diversify their agency not only at the
lower ranks, but all the way up to the top and we have to
applaud those.
But there are agencies out there as well, too, that
struggle. Some struggle because they do not have any control
over that and others struggle maybe because they do not see the
benefit in it and we have to hold those agencies, whoever they
are out there, we have to hold them accountable.
Ms. Murphy. I would ask that these Senators and Members of
Congress be creative in attaching conditions to Federal funds
to local police departments. We had the Hyde Amendment many
years ago which is still in force. It said no Federal funds
shall be used for abortion.
Why are Federal funds being used for racial profiling? That
is, in fact, what is happening now. We believe the President
has the authority under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act to
require local police departments receiving Federal funds not to
discriminate. And there is a debate in the Justice Department.
So many people in the Justice Department said we cannot have
any jurisdiction over local police, but millions of dollars
flow into over 85 percent of local police departments and I
think this should be an amendment strategy or a conversation
with the President, but it is important for Congress to act
because what is going on in communities of color is just so
horrible when it comes to community and police relations.
Something has to be done.
And I just want to say that Attorney General Eric Holder, I
think, gets this. His staff is working on Byrne JAG grants and
that flows a lot of money into police departments.
They say that Congress has a great deal of authority over
those programs. So I would ask Members of this Committee to
look at the COPS Program, to look at Byrne JAG grants and to
see what restrictions can be enacted so that Federal funds are
not used in a discriminatory fashion.
Mr. Henderson. Senator Franken, could I just add one point
to your last question?
Senator Franken. Sure.
Mr. Henderson. Thank you. You touched on the non-indictment
of Eric Garner and New York and you talked about the police
department being more representative of the community. Indeed,
it is.
Yesterday, Attorney General Eric Schneiderman of New York
issued a request to Governor Cuomo--which we supported, by the
way--asking that in instances where police shootings involving
civilians occurred, that a special prosecutor be appointed to
conduct the inquiry and to handle the indictment process. We
believe that that is necessary.
Police departments have an inherent conflict of interest
with local prosecutors. That is not to say that they have
teamed up to avoid the indictment of police officers. It is to
say that the special relationship that prosecutors enjoy with
police, after all, they depend upon police to provide
information and often testimony in cases that they handle. You
cannot handle a police shooting of a civilian in an impartial
way without bringing in a prosecutor from the outside.
So when we look at the situation in Staten Island, when we
look at the situation in Ferguson--in the Ferguson
circumstance, the outcome was virtually foretold at the moment
that the prosecutor elected not to recuse himself over the
request of local individuals and his record suggested that this
outcome was predictable. It is not that way in every
circumstance, but certainly it is enough of a concern that the
approach that Attorney General Schneiderman took is one that we
would recommend broadly.
Senator Franken. Thank you--thank you all.
Chairman Durbin. Thank you, Senator Franken.
Senator Blumenthal.
Senator Blumenthal. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you
for convening this hearing. Thank you to each of you for being
here and for your extraordinary work over many, many years. I
want to just go from the last remark that you made, Mr.
Henderson, because I think that the lack of indictment in the
Garner case has certainly shocked and appalled countless people
and led to the kind of suggestions that State Attorney General
Schneiderman made. I am not sure that the Federal Government
would have authority to require a special State prosecutor to
prosecute a local or State policeman, but I think the
suggestion certainly is one that has attracted a lot of support
and understandably and rightly so.
I appreciate all of you raising the sentencing issue. I am
a cosponsor of the Smarter Sentencing Act that was introduced
by our Chairman, Senator Durbin, and Senator Lee, and I know as
a former prosecutor how important discretion is and how
restricting discretion, most particularly in sentencing, can
impede justice and fairness and also be against the interest of
society.
I also have called for a stronger oversight as the use of
military equipment--right now, as you probably know, there
really is no, in effect, collection of data as to what is
dispensed by the Department of Justice, where it goes, what it
is used for. There is essentially no accountability by either
the Department of Defense or the Department of Justice and I
think one or the other has to impose some accountability.
I want to say, in preface to the question I am going to
ask, that I have great respect for police and prosecutors
around the country. I have worked in law enforcement for the
better part of 40 years, beginning in 1977 as the U.S. Attorney
in Connecticut and then as a State Attorney General.
I think there has been tremendous progress in the quality
of our policing community at State, local, and Federal levels
in the quality of training, the quality of people and practices
and even diversity over these years which in no way minimizes
the progress that we still have to make. I respect the jobs
they have to do, day-in and day-out, facing extraordinary
dangers and life-and-death decisions that have to be made
sometimes instantaneously.
But I do think that we all benefit by better information
and right now I think a lot of folks have come to realize that
there is essentially no information about the deaths that occur
while individuals are in custody or under arrest. I have
introduced legislation in the Senate called the Death In
Custody Reporting Act. It is a companion bill to Representative
Bobby Scott's bill which passed the House by a voice vote--a
voice vote and passed this Committee earlier this year.
It is a pretty simple piece of legislation. It requires
States to report how many individuals die each year while they
are in custody or during the course of an arrest. The stark
staggering fact is we do not know. And I am going to ask that
two recent articles be entered into the record. One is from The
Washington Post, of September 8, and it is entitled, ``How Many
Police Shootings A Year? No One Knows.'' The second comes from
the Wall Street Journal, of December 3, and it is entitled,
``Hundreds of Police Killings Are Uncounted in Federal Stats.''
The Washington Post article essentially says that we know
that there are a lot of police shootings, but they are all
self-reported. There is no requirement that they be reported.
And, again, that is in no way to indicate disrespect for the
decisions that are made in those individual instances by 17,000
law enforcement agencies, but the fact is only 750 of them
report shootings.
We know the number of police that were shot. We know a vast
variety of statistics about what is happening on farms, in
cities, but we do not know the number of people including
justifiable homicides as they are called that happen on our
streets and in our police department. So I hope that--and by
the way, Mr. Chairman, I would like for these to be entered
into the record if there is no objection.
Chairman Durbin. So ordered.
[The information appears as submissions for the record.]
Senator Blumenthal. I hope that you will indicate your
support for this legislation. I think it would be meaningful to
have your opinion and would ask you simply whether you feel
this kind of legislation would make sense.
Mr. Alexander. Would you mind if I start, sir?
Senator Blumenthal. Mr. Alexander, I am happy to have you
start. I would ask, Mr. Chairman, that each of the other
witnesses be given an opportunity to respond as well.
Mr. Alexander. Yes, sir. I am in total support of that.
Part of what we are experiencing across this country right now
is a failure by many Americans, not just African Americans, but
Americans across this country feel a total disconnect from the
criminal justice system. In light of the Michael Brown
shooting, Eric Garner case, it has become more pronounced. I
think people who are not African American, people who did not
have that experience, being African American or of color in
this country, are beginning to see clearly that something is
wrong in our criminal justice system, not just police, but our
entire criminal justice system across the board 360 degrees.
In regards to what you are speaking to sir, I find it
unfortunate and embarrassing, as a law enforcement official,
that there is not any Federal legislation that requires that
cities, States, travel communities, villages all across this
great Nation are not reporting those types of shootings and
deaths to a Federal authority because they need to be reported,
they need to be investigated, they need to be studied
scientifically and develop some evidence-based material that
might be helpful in identifying a trend in which right now we
are just all kind of anecdotally looking at.
So I certainly support that as the president of NOBLE and I
would hope that the rest of this country would support it as
well, too, because as a sophisticated country as we are, and
the leaders of the world, we have a responsibility in this
Nation where we have the people who are now protesting in the
streets from Berkeley to Maine and from South Florida to
Detroit, all across this Nation and around the world. We need
to take more accountability.
We need to begin to close some of those gaps and expose
ourselves and become much more transparent to the American
people in terms of the criminal justice system and how we do
business because that is the biggest piece that angers people
in Ferguson, and Staten Island, and the rest of this Nation.
There is absolutely no sense of transparency. There is a loss
of trust and commitment not just from police, but from the
entire criminal justice community, and we are a better Nation
than that and we have to move toward some real reform, sir.
Senator Blumenthal. Very well said.
Mr. Alexander. Thank you.
Senator Blumenthal. Ms. Murphy?
Ms. Murphy. Yes. We support the Death in Custody Act and we
hope that the Senate can take it up before the end of the lame-
duck session. But, you know, data collection is key. We were
making momentum in Congress after the Rodney King shooting.
First, the ACLU helped write the Traffic Stop Statistics
Act because we had documented in a report that we call,
``Driving While Black,'' how many times Black motorists were
pulled over by State and Federal police. There was no data
there, but then the problem expanded to stop and frisk and
street interactions and we did not have data there. So we
worked on the End Racial Profiling Act which would require data
collection as a key element. And we think without the data, it
is hard to make real reform because we need to know where the
problem is, how long it has been going on, which departments
are having the most difficult encounters, and the fact that
this information is not collected by the Federal Government is
just a travesty.
So data collection is crucial to any kind of criminal
justice reform, especially getting to the issue of racial
profiling.
Mr. Henderson. Senator, my colleagues have elaborated quite
clearly on the value of the Death In Custody Act. The
Leadership Conference is a big supporter of the bill. Like Ms.
Murphy, we are hopeful that the Senate will act on this
initiative before it adjourns sini die. That gives us just a
few days, but it is such a basic fundamental piece of
legislation.
The data collection is essential and that is all the bill
would do. So for that reason, we hope that I can get the kind
of bipartisan support here that it was able to obtain in the
House and we hope the bill becomes law.
Senator Blumenthal. Thank you--thank you all.
Chairman Durbin. Senator Coons.
Senator Coons. Thank you Senator Durbin--thank you Chairman
Durbin for convening this hearing today. I would like to thank
the panel for your compelling testimony and for your answers to
the many questions posed here.
Like my colleagues, and certainly the leadership of Senator
Durbin has been outstanding on this, I am a cosponsor and a
supporter of the Smarter Sentencing Act that he and Senator Lee
have advanced of the Death In Custody Reporting bill that was
just discussed by Senator Blumenthal. So let me--rather than
repeating a lot of topics that have already been covered--
simply ask for your input on two different questions that are
related.
First, I, too, find it shocking we do not have reliable
statistics. I, like many of my colleagues, worked closely with
and respect law enforcement and the difficult and dangerous
jobs that they do, but for us to simply have no data, no
meaningful data on deaths in law enforcement incidents, to me
is deeply puzzling, frustrating, concerning, and something we
need to step forward and take some responsibility for and act
to address.
First, why do so many departments refuse to collect and
report reliable statistics and why can we not get stronger
bipartisan action on that first? Second, we have an undeniably
unequaled impact on communities of color in this country from
our criminal justice system. Just in my home State of Delaware,
which is roughly 22 percent African-American, 42 percent of
arrests, 64 percent of the prison population, 86 percent of
those who are arrested for drug use. There is an undeniably
disparate impact on communities of color and there are several
different ways that we could also have broken that out.
The costs, both the lifetime costs, the moral cost, the
fiscal costs on African-American men in particular, as my
colleague, Senator Booker detailed earlier, is overwhelming. I
choose to be encouraged that there are bipartisan bills that I
hope this Congress will consider and take up now and in the
next Congress. But what can we do to reduce and eliminate the
unfair toll that our criminal justice system takes on minority
communities? And I would be grateful if the panel will answer
each of those two questions to the extent you feel inclined, in
the time we have remaining. Thank you.
Mr. Henderson. I will start, Senator Coons, and I will be
very brief. First, again, I want to reiterate a point that both
I and Laura Murphy have made about using Title VI of the Civil
Rights Act to condition the receipt of Federal funds on a
commitment of nondiscrimination and providing the affirmative
training necessary to ensure that that commitment can be
carried out.
I believe--I think many of us believe that the departments
that receive Federal funds, over 85 percent of the police
departments in the country today, do not begin with an
affirmative decision to discriminate against their citizens.
These are police departments with officers that are committed
to fair treatment, I think, for all.
Having said that, however, there are certain systemic
factors that enter into the equation that make the kind of
biased policing that we have seen almost inevitable.
Stereotypes, misperceptions about activity, the assumption that
one community is more dependent on drug use than another when
in fact the statistics would suggest almost equanimity in the
way in which drugs are used. All of those are factors.
So data collection is important. Training is important and
encouraging affirmative behavior by using a statute that is
over 50 years old, in our view, makes common sense and we hope
that that can be encouraged.
I would make one other point. The Smarter Sentencing Act is
an incredibly valuable tool and it is often framed in moral
terms as a way of addressing this disparity that exists in
sentencing and, indeed, it is a moral issue.
But there is another very practical factor that makes this
such an important initiative. The Department of Justice will
tell you that the Bureau of Prisons, which it administers, is
currently eating up about 40 percent of the Department's budget
with that number growing annually because of the mass
incarceration that our Government supports.
The growth of the Federal budget, the Department of Justice
budget and being consumed by the Bureau of Prisons means that
other discretionary programs that are so important to the
communities in which our Federal officers are deployed cannot
be administered effectively with that rate of growth in the
Bureau of Prisons. And we are hoping that those statistics will
help encourage Members to look at this.
And then last, the President has initiated, as you know, a
program called My Brother's Keeper. It has spawned a private
initiative called the Boys and Men of Color Initiative. When it
was initially proposed, there were some who seemed skeptical
about the value of that program.
However, looking at the events of recent weeks and months
with the killing of young boys and men by police officers and
the attendant economic circumstances that feed into that
problem, one would hope that the President's initiative would
get a second look and a measure of support and that goes beyond
the enforcement of existing Federal laws and using the good
offices of the President and Members of Congress to encourage
private engagement in these activities as well.
Senator Coons. Thank you, Mr. Henderson.
Dr. Alexander?
Mr. Alexander. Yes, Senator, I think it becomes important
to note, unfortunately, sometimes cities and States are not
going to take the responsibility to collect data. And it
becomes, for me, I think, at that point, a Federal issue where
legislation needs to be imposed so that we can begin to direct
communities to impart with all of us publicly and privately any
information, particularly around in custody deaths. I would
even go beyond that and say severe injuries as well, too,
because if there are re-occurrences or if there is a threshold
that is met that brings about a certain amount of pause.
I think that gives an opportunity for all of us to begin to
look at those agencies. Sometimes it may not be without ill
intent. It may just be because of poor training or a lack of
internal policies that dictates that certain procedures need to
take place.
Oftentimes, what I found over the years, and I have been in
this business a very long time now, is that many of our police
officers out there who were doing this job every day across
this country are doing a great job. That is the greatest
majority of them. And sometimes along the way, being that
policing is not an exact science, sometimes they get it wrong,
not intentionally, but sometimes they do.
But the difference is this, though, it is life-and-death
and when death is experienced, then it comes to light and then
people start asking questions across this country and in those
communities and oftentimes there are no answers. That is one of
the biggest problems that is happening today. There are no
answers. There is a feeling of no transparency whatsoever. And
where truth is not seen or experienced or felt by people
emotionally, what we end up with is just what we are
experiencing today.
The questions you are asking, Senator, are really age-old
questions and questions we have talked about and danced around
before, but we have never drawn any conclusion to.
We are at a place now, in this Nation's history, that we
are going to have to begin to answer these questions. We are
going to have to explore, Mr. Chairman, reasons and ways in
which we are going to change and look at this criminal justice
system in a very different kind of way because it is not the
same for all people.
Sometimes it is based on race. Sometimes it is based on
gender. Sometimes it is based on what your economic class may
happen to be or all of the above plus some more. But we have
got to change this because this is just not a--what we are
experiencing every night in this country now is no longer just
a fashionable thing, if you will.
It is not just a reaction. We are seeing what is evolving
into a movement. It is like we saw the civil rights movement in
the 1960s. It is evolving into a movement because all people
across this Nation--if you look at Berkeley, California, you
look at the demographics of that community both economically
and race, thousands of people who are marching out there every
night and some will say that that group is also made up of
anarchists, and it may be, but I can pretty much assure you as
well to that a great number of people that are marching across
this country every night are just American citizens who are
saying we want to see something different. We need--our whole
criminal justice system needs to be explored and possibly
revamped.
Now that is a heavy lift. We understand that, but what we
have to do right now and ginger in the rest of this country, is
a sense of hope that someone is looking at this, someone is
paying attention, someone is hearing them and something
different is going to happen because the American people in my
estimation are just not going to accept this is just being
another incident because they had been too frequent and they
had been--I should have you look at the overall incidence in
each one of these cases, what you will constantly find is young
African Americans confronting police officers who are
oftentimes very different from them in race and in economic
status, there is a disconnect in this country, not just in
policing but there is a disconnect across the whole criminal
justice system.
Even the grand jury process needs to be explored because
when you have communities in this Nation who no longer trust
law enforcement, when you have people in this Nation who tell
their children that they should be afraid of the police and
they are afraid for their children to go outside because they
may be harmed by the police, that is a bad place that we are at
in this country and we need to acknowledge it and we need to
begin to do something about it.
But I have to be perfectly honest with you, I am tired of
people talking to me about it. We truly have to figure out some
strategies, some new strategies and maybe do some things in
this country we have never tried before, but we have got to
take some risk to do something very different than just the
same rhetoric that we can constantly give back to people of
this country because they are not accepting it any longer and I
am not going to give it to them any longer.
Back in my community, my whole idea is to help create some
strategies, some change so that community and police and the
criminal justice system work well together. A safer community,
a safer America. This is not a separated States of America.
This is a United States of America and part of our whole
criminal justice system is based on the fact of equality for
everyone and when we can reach that goal--and it may not become
attainable in my lifetime, but we have to get on that
trajectory and we have got to find a way to get there. I am
willing to do whatever it takes to get there and I think we all
are, but it is something that has to be addressed today, sir.
Thank you for the question.
Senator Coons. Thank you, Dr. Alexander.
Ms. Murphy?
Ms. Murphy. Yes. It is always interesting being the only
woman at a hearing. We represent 50 percent of the population,
but we have to be feisty in order to be heard. So I appreciate
my male colleagues but I think there are a number of questions
that I would like to address and if I am not able to address
them in the oral part of the hearing, I would like to be able
to submit answers to you for the record.
But I think your specific question about why we cannot get
to data collection goes back to the Fraternal Order of Police.
They oppose the Traffic Stop Statistics Act, they oppose the
End Racial Profiling Act.
What we need is a convening of police unions and civil
rights leaders, maybe at the initiation of you, Senator Coons,
or you, Senator Durbin, because they feel--and members of the
FOP have told me that if data is collected, it will be used to
punish them.
We are not out to punish the police. We are out to end
discrimination. And I think the police have to be brought into
these discussions and the unions have to be brought into these
discussions because they are the people who many Members of
Congress rely on for political endorsements. So they have a
greater power in some cases than many of our organizations that
do not have political action committees.
I still think that there is this lingering fear that many
elected officials have of looking soft on crime. So we have not
policed the police as vigorously as we could or should.
I think now is a moment. We have got to use this moment. If
it does not happen now, it is not going to happen.
Senator Coons. Well, thank you, Ms. Murphy. Thank you, Mr.
Chairman, for indulging a full answer to my questions by the
whole panel of witnesses. It is, to summarize, my hope to that
in a period when a lack of answers, a lack of transparency, a
lack of accountability has led many to protest, not just the
perception but the reality of a disconnection between our
communities and those charged with the important duty of
keeping us safe but doing so within our constitutional order,
it is my real hope that we will take action--an action that
leads to change, that leads to hope.
But I am clear that without this sort of action that you,
Mr. Chairman, have led in leading this bipartisan bill, we will
not make progress. So thank you for your leadership in
convening this hearing, and for everything you are doing and we
hope to do together ahead. Thank you.
Chairman Durbin. Thanks, Senator Coons. I would like to do
maybe one or two follow-up questions.
Ms. Murphy, when I first saw that armored personnel carrier
in Ferguson, Missouri, I thought, what in the world is going on
here? I did not know police departments had that kind of
equipment. I assumed, maybe the most elite biggest city,
terrorist threat type of situation, but Ferguson, Missouri?
And it crossed my mind, several questions, what in the
world are they doing parading that out at what appeared to be,
at the moment, a much different kind of street demonstration?
Second, what are we doing as a Federal Government peddling this
kind of hardware? Third, is this just a product of some
swaggering, chest-thumping chief of police and procurement
officer that want to have the newest and biggest and toughest
looking vehicles?
But then another question kind of came to me. Do we not
live in a country where people are fighting for the right of
individual citizens to own military assault weapons? And are we
not asking these police to keep communities safe where those
citizens might live?
It seems to me that there is an interesting conversation
that needs to take place here. I do not want to see armored
personnel carriers in every police department in my State, by
any means. But I also want to be cognizant of the fact that our
police are facing weaponry that we are blessing here, at some
levels--and you have even heard it here today in this
Committee--that go way beyond the threats that policemen
historically faced. I want to be sensitive to that. So how do
you respond?
Ms. Murphy. I want to be sensitive to that, too. But, if
you look at the usage of these armored vehicles, these
helicopters, these bazookas, these M-16s, they are used for
routine law enforcement.
Chairman Durbin. Which makes no sense.
Ms. Murphy. Which makes absolutely no sense. Now, if they
were used to fight terrorism or armed robbery, bank robberies,
or hostage situations, then it makes more sense. And it is so
racially biased the way this equipment is being used.
When there is a hostage crisis in the White community, you
will see the armored vehicles. But when there is a routine
protest or drug arrests in the Black community, you will see
these vehicles and more.
Plus, we are rewarding people like Sheriff Arpaio who has a
boatload of weaponry that he claims he needs in order to
enforce our immigration laws.
Chairman Durbin. Let us let the police organization
respond.
Mr. Alexander. Thank you, Chairman. I certainly do
appreciate what my colleague, Ms. Murphy, is saying and I
certainly do understand her perception and am quite sure in
conversations that she has had with many citizens in her
community across the country.
Let me say this as a 37-year veteran in policing where I
have spent all of my career, from Miami, Florida, to Orlando to
New York and now DeKalb County, Georgia.
The 1033 Program, I think one of the failures of the
program, sir, is quite frankly this. You just cannot give out
this equipment to anyone who wants it.
In Ferguson, Missouri, that equipment did not belong to the
Ferguson Police Department. That equipment belonged, if I am
not mistaken, to St. Louis County Police Department or the
State Police. Now, some of that equipment, maybe all of it, I
cannot say specifically, may have been acquired through the
1033 Program, but the way in which it was utilized in Ferguson,
quite frankly in short, was wrong. All day it was wrong. And
many chiefs across this country have spoken out against the
fact that, how it was used was wrong.
Now the other piece, or the other side to your point, Mr.
Chairman, is the fact that post-9/11, this country is still in
a position where we are keeping ourselves safe. Police
departments across this country are certainly being confronted
with small arms and large arms that are at the pleasure of a
lot of criminals that are out there.
We find situations, and certainly I have seen situations,
in my county in DeKalb where we have used equipment, they are
not tanks, we do not own bazookas and sometimes I think this
equipment gets exaggerated because none of us have rocket
launchers or bazookas, but to the common layperson it all looks
the same. I get it. It is the optics of it.
But the reality of it is, there are going to be times when
police are going to have to respond to active shooters. If we
think about situations across this country where we have had
school shootings, mall shootings, movie theater shootings, we
want our officers to be able to get in, find that target, and
do what needs to be done to save the lives of others. The only
way they are going to do that sometimes is, they are going to
have to be in armored equipment.
The problem is not the equipment itself, it is the
utilization of it and before that heavy equipment, in my
opinion, is given out, there needs to be--you need to be able
to show a need for it in your community. That is number one.
You need to be able to show cause and a need.
Number two, you need to be held accountable to that
equipment which means that you have to have written policies
which have its terms of engagement as to when you will take
that equipment out and under what circumstances it would be
used for.
One thing we cannot use it for is for people who are
peacefully protesting in this country. We cannot do that. The
optics on Ferguson was horrific and I think it shocked many
people in this country, all across this country, regardless of
whether they were Democrats or Republicans, Black or White, men
or women. It was shocking. And we learned from it, hopefully.
But what we want to be able to do is also protect our
police officers. But there has to be a time and moment when
that equipment is utilized because if I am being held hostage
in my home or in my bank when I am making a deposit, I want the
police to be able to get there and be safe in getting there so
that they can secure that bank, arrest that criminal, and get
me home.
So there is a place for it, but it is not to be used
against American people who are protesting and exercising their
First Amendment right as to what we all witnessed and which,
understandably, left a bad taste in many Americans' mouths.
Chairman Durbin. Thank you very much, Dr. Alexander.
Mr. Alexander. Thank you.
Chairman Durbin. My thanks to this panel. There has been a
great deal of interest in this hearing today. We have here a
statement from Senator Leahy and statements from more than 70
different organizations wanting to be a part of the record on
this general overview of civil rights in America today. Since
there is no one here to object, it is going to be put in the
record.
[The prepared statement of Chairman Leahy appears as a
submission for the record.]
[The information appears as submissions for the record.]
Chairman Durbin. I want to make two closing comments.
First, I want to acknowledge Mara Silver on my staff who
has been the author of the Smarter Sentencing Act and has
worked harder on it than anybody. Mara, thank you so much for
what you have done.
And special thanks to Joe Zogby who, 8 years ago, said to
me, Senator, I think we need a Subcommittee on Human Rights.
And I said, Joe, what would we talk about? Well, we found a lot
to talk about for 4 years and then, when we were merged into
the Constitution, Civil Rights and Human Rights Subcommittee--I
am very proud of what this Subcommittee has set out to do,
particularly proud of the fact that we actually created
legislation that starts to address some of these issues rather
than just talk about them and that is primarily due to the
guidance of Joe Zogby and the staffers who have worked with
him. I thank Joe and his family here today, for giving me such
great service to this Judiciary Committee.
There may be some follow-up questions coming your way and
if you could respond to them in a timely fashion, I would
certainly appreciate that.
This is, as I said, my last hearing as Subcommittee Chair
for the time being and I am hoping that Senator Cruz, or
whoever succeeds me, will continue in this tradition of
addressing the issues of our day.
Thank you for joining us.
This Subcommittee stands adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 4:40 p.m., the Subcommittee was adjourned.]
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