[House Hearing, 114 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
POLICING STRATEGIES FOR THE 21ST CENTURY
=======================================================================
HEARING
BEFORE THE
COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED FOURTEENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
MAY 19, 2015
__________
Serial No. 114-29
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on the Judiciary
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Available via the World Wide Web: http://judiciary.house.gov
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COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY
BOB GOODLATTE, Virginia, Chairman
F. JAMES SENSENBRENNER, Jr., JOHN CONYERS, Jr., Michigan
Wisconsin JERROLD NADLER, New York
LAMAR S. SMITH, Texas ZOE LOFGREN, California
STEVE CHABOT, Ohio SHEILA JACKSON LEE, Texas
DARRELL E. ISSA, California STEVE COHEN, Tennessee
J. RANDY FORBES, Virginia HENRY C. ``HANK'' JOHNSON, Jr.,
STEVE KING, Iowa Georgia
TRENT FRANKS, Arizona PEDRO R. PIERLUISI, Puerto Rico
LOUIE GOHMERT, Texas JUDY CHU, California
JIM JORDAN, Ohio TED DEUTCH, Florida
TED POE, Texas LUIS V. GUTIERREZ, Illinois
JASON CHAFFETZ, Utah KAREN BASS, California
TOM MARINO, Pennsylvania CEDRIC RICHMOND, Louisiana
TREY GOWDY, South Carolina SUZAN DelBENE, Washington
RAUL LABRADOR, Idaho HAKEEM JEFFRIES, New York
BLAKE FARENTHOLD, Texas DAVID N. CICILLINE, Rhode Island
DOUG COLLINS, Georgia SCOTT PETERS, California
RON DeSANTIS, Florida
MIMI WALTERS, California
KEN BUCK, Colorado
JOHN RATCLIFFE, Texas
DAVE TROTT, Michigan
MIKE BISHOP, Michigan
Shelley Husband, Chief of Staff & General Counsel
Perry Apelbaum, Minority Staff Director & Chief Counsel
C O N T E N T S
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MAY 19, 2015
Page
OPENING STATEMENTS
The Honorable Bob Goodlatte, a Representative in Congress from
the State of Virginia, and Chairman, Committee on the Judiciary 1
The Honorable John Conyers, Jr., a Representative in Congress
from the State of Michigan, and Ranking Member, Committee on
the Judiciary.................................................. 2
WITNESSES
David A. Clarke, Jr., Sheriff, Milwaukee County Sheriff's Office,
Milwaukee, WI
Oral Testimony................................................. 5
Prepared Statement............................................. 8
W. Craig Hartley, Jr., Executive Director, Commission on
Accreditation of Law Enforcement Agencies
Oral Testimony................................................. 12
Prepared Statement............................................. 14
Susan Rahr, Executive Director, Washington State Criminal Justice
Training Commission and Member of President Obama's Task Force
on 21st Century Policing
Oral Testimony................................................. 43
Prepared Statement............................................. 45
Matthew Barge, Vice President & Deputy Director, Police
Assessment Resource Center (PARC)
Oral Testimony................................................. 47
Prepared Statement............................................. 49
Deborah A. Ramirez, Professor of Law, Northeastern University
School of Law, Boston, MA
Oral Testimony................................................. 60
Prepared Statement............................................. 62
LETTERS, STATEMENTS, ETC., SUBMITTED FOR THE HEARING
Material submitted by the Honorable Luis V. Gutierrez, a Member
in Congress from the State of Illinois, and Member, Committee
on the Judiciary............................................... 90
Material submitted by the Honorable Cedric Richmond, a Member in
Congress from the State of Louisiana, and Member, Committee on
the Judiciary.................................................. 94
APPENDIX
Material Submitted for the Hearing Record
Letter from Rabbi Meyer H. May, Executive Director, Simon
Wiesenthal Center.............................................. 112
Response to Questions for the Record from David A. Clarke, Jr.,
Sheriff, Milwaukee County Sheriff's Office, Milwaukee, WI...... 119
Response to Questions for the Record from W. Craig Hartley, Jr.,
Executive Director, Commission on Accreditation of Law
Enforcement Agencies........................................... 122
Response to Questions for the Record from Susan Rahr, Executive
Director, Washington State Criminal Justice Training Commission
and Member of President Obama's Task Force on 21st Century
Policing....................................................... 125
Response to Questions for the Record from Matthew Barge, Vice
President & Deputy Director, Police Assessment Resource Center
(PARC)......................................................... 127
Response to Questions for the Record from Deborah A. Ramirez,
Professor of Law, Northeastern University School of Law,
Boston, MA..................................................... 131
deg.OFFICIAL HEARING RECORD
Unprinted Material Submitted for the Hearing Record
Material submitted by the the Honorable Sheila Jackson Lee, a
Representative in Congress from the State of Texas, and Member,
Committee on the Judiciary..................................... 109
http://docs.house.gov/Committee/Calendar/ByEvent.aspx?EventID=103474
POLICING STRATEGIES FOR THE
21ST CENTURY
----------
TUESDAY, MAY 19, 2015
House of Representatives
Committee on the Judiciary
Washington, DC.
The Committee met, pursuant to call, at 10:09 a.m., in Room
2141, Rayburn Office Building, the Honorable Bob Goodlatte
(Chairman of the Committee) presiding.
Present: Representatives Goodlatte, Chabot, Issa, King,
Franks, Gohmert, Jordan, Poe, Marino, Gowdy, Farenthold,
Collins, DeSantis, Walters, Buck, Ratcliffe, Bishop, Conyers,
Nadler, Lofgren, Jackson Lee, Cohen, Johnson, Pierluisi, Chu,
Deutch, Gutierrez, Bass, Richmond, DelBene, Jeffries,
Cicilline, and Peters.
Staff Present: (Majority) Shelley Husband, Chief of Staff &
General Counsel; Branden Ritchie, Deputy Chief of Staff &
Chief; Allison Halataei, Parliamentarian & General Counsel;
Chris Grieco, Counsel, Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism,
Homeland Security, and Investigations; Kelsey Williams, Clerk;
(Minority) Perry Apelbaum, Staff Director & Chief Counsel;
Danielle Brown, Chief Legislative Counsel & Parliamentarian;
Kennan Keller, Counsel; and Maggie Lopatin, Clerk.
Mr. Goodlatte. Good morning. The Judiciary Committee will
come to order. And without objection, the Chair is authorized
to declare recesses of the Committee at any time.
We welcome everyone to this morning's hearing on policing
strategy for the 21st century. I will begin by recognizing
myself for an opening statement.
Policing is an inherently dangerous job. Our law
enforcement officers deserve our gratitude for the work they do
on a daily basis to make sure that our streets are safe, the
most helpless in our communities are protected, and those who
commit crimes are brought to justice.
I am very concerned that force is used appropriately, and
that police officers are taking appropriate steps to protect
innocent civilians when they make encounters. There is
increasing unrest in our urban communities about policing.
Protests in Ferguson, New York, and Baltimore were the
outgrowth of the use of force by police officers stopping a
suspect. Although no charges were filed against the officers in
question in two of those cases, it is clear that there is
widespread disagreement about the actions of police in those
instances.
What started as peaceful protests turned into violent riots
where, again, the police reaction to those riots was brought
into question.
At the same time, I am increasingly concerned with the
repeated targeting of our police and law enforcement personnel.
Last week, we learned that two more police officers were
killed. Officers Dean and Tate responding to a routine traffic
stop in Hattiesburg, Mississippi, were gunned down by a group
of five men.
This comes on the heels of the more widely known murders of
Officers Ramos and Liu in New York. It has been reported that
they were specifically targeted by a man looking to kill a
police officer.
While I refuse to consider the actions of police officers
in Ferguson and New York as justifying the responses that
befell those cities, it is clear that we must find a better way
for our police and citizens to interact both in everyday
situations and when more difficult circumstances arise.
We have a distinguished panel before us today with deep
knowledge of police training, tactics, and policies. We have
longstanding leaders in the police community. We have
instructors responsible for police training. Finally, we have
those tasked with monitoring those police departments that have
not met the standards we require of them.
I am hopeful that this will be a constructive and positive
hearing that focuses on current rules and regulations in place,
the training our officers receive, and how we can train them
better in order to apprehend criminals while minimizing harm to
innocent citizens.
I am especially interested to hear what we can do to raise
the level of trust among our police officers and citizens while
still protecting both.
Policing will never be an easy or safe job, but I believe
we must do everything we can to ensure that our officers have
the tools and training they need to protect themselves and our
Nation's citizens.
I would also like to thank the gentleman from Michigan, Mr.
Conyers, the Ranking Member, for working with us so closely to
arrange this hearing. And I was also inspired by the
gentlewoman from Texas, Ms. Jackson Lee, who has been speaking
with me for some time about this issue. I thank them both.
I want to assure all of you that the purpose of this
hearing and the ongoing efforts of this Committee following
this hearing is to make sure that we are doing everything
possible to address the problems that have arisen in recent
months, to make sure that our communities are safer, our police
officers are safer, our citizens' rights are protected, and
that we will not rest until we make progress in those regards.
At this time, it is my pleasure to recognize the Ranking
Member of the Committee, the gentleman from Michigan, Mr.
Conyers, for his opening statement.
Mr. Conyers. Thank you, Mr. Goodlatte, our Chairman.
Members of the Committee, and to our distinguished
witnesses, and to those who have come to this hearing, law
enforcement accountability is an issue that is very topical,
given current events, but also one that has long been a concern
of mine and many other Members.
As a Member of Congress, I have stood on the streets of
Detroit with a bullhorn and appealed for calm while my city
burned around me in 1967. Thinking back, there was a race riot
in Detroit in 1943.
On too many occasions, I have met with the grieving
relatives of those who have lost their lives at the hands of
police. But I have also met with the families of police
officers who lost their lives in the line of duty. Some of
these officers were killed by violent criminals while other
officers were inadvertently killed by some of their colleagues
who could only see the color of their skin.
I have cochaired town hall meetings with fellow Members of
Congress and others across this Nation in response to policing
incidents in Chicago, Miami, New York, and Los Angeles. At
these meetings, we tried to help the residents of these cities
make sense of how to respond to their collective sense of loss
and to understand the role of the Federal Government in
protecting their civil rights.
I have proposed numerous bills to both help protect the
safety of police officers and to provide a system of
accountability for law enforcement.
For example, I worked with Attorney General John Ashcroft
at the invitation of President George Bush to craft Federal
legislation intended to end use of racial profiling in police
practices, which is currently pending in this Committee as H.R.
1933. Next month, I plan to introduce comprehensive legislation
dealing with accreditation, data collection, and policing
practices.
Fortunately, our Committee has generally approached the
issue of policing with a strong, bipartisan spirit. We have
enjoyed success in passing reform legislation--notably, the
passage of the Pattern and Practice Enforcement statute, which
was codified as Section 14141 of Title 42 of the United States
Code in 1994. And we twice passed the Traffic Stops Statistics
Study Act under the chairmanship of Chairman Henry Hyde.
By scheduling today's hearing, Chairman Goodlatte continues
this legacy and is commended for his willingness to face a
difficult issue that has divided communities around the United
States.
Any discussion of law enforcement accountability must be
premised on the recognition of the dangerous and difficult job
that all police officers perform. The vast majority of police
officers perform their jobs professionally and without bias.
But like any profession, there are those who make it difficult
for the rest to serve their communities.
At the outset, I must agree with Professor Orlando
Patterson when he says that the complex and confounding
questions raised by Ferguson, Baltimore, and other cities go
well beyond the issues of racism and violent police behavior.
What occurred in those cities clearly resulted from a vicious
tangle of concentrated poverty and culturally disenfranchised
youth, as well as a countervailing culture of law enforcement
disconnected from their communities and that is lacking
appropriate standards and oversight.
Yesterday, President Obama was in Camden, New Jersey, to
highlight his Administration's initiatives to address the
challenges of policing in our inner cities. While I support the
President's efforts and look forward to working with him to
implement his programs, there is no substitute for concrete
performance standards for State and local law enforcement
agencies that receive billions of dollars each year in Federal
funding.
For reform-focused police executives, many of the current
administrative programs are merely icing on the cake and
probably will not reach many chronically underperforming or
troubled departments.
The entire purpose of Section 14141 was to add teeth to
Federal enforcement that was absent in the grantmaking process.
Although pattern and practice enforcement has been effective in
cases of individual departments, it is far too resource-heavy
to reach across the more than 17,000 police departments in our
country.
There must be another way, and I hope that today we can
talk about the combination of Federal, State, and local
measures that are essential to support necessary changes in
policing culture.
The national outcry that arose after Michael Brown's death
is nothing new to those who are students of policing practices.
From the Sean Bell, Abner Louima, and Amadou Diallo incidents
in New York, to the Eddie Macklin shooting in Miami, to the
Timothy Thomas Over-the-Rhine shooting in Cincinnati, and the
Donovan Jackson beating in Englewood, the response is nearly
always the same: national outcry followed by well-intentioned
programs that never quite get to the heart of the matter.
Out of respect for all who have lost their lives over the
last 9 months, both law enforcement and civilian, I hope that
we can dedicate ourselves to engaging the difficult issues to
make lasting change in our community.
I thank the Chairman.
Mr. Goodlatte. Thank you, Mr. Conyers.
And without objection, all Members' opening statements will
be made a part of the record.
We welcome our distinguished panel of witnesses today. And
if you would all please rise, I will begin by swearing you in.
Please raise your right hand. Do you and each of you
solemnly swear that the testimony that you are about to give
shall be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth,
so help you God?
Thank you very much. Let the record reflect that the
witnesses responded in the affirmative.
Sheriff David A. Clarke, Jr., has served as a sheriff in
Milwaukee County, Wisconsin, since March 2002, when he was
appointed by then-Governor Scott McCallum. He was elected in
November 2002 and is currently serving his fourth term as
sheriff. Sheriff Clarke holds a bachelor's degree in criminal
justice management from Concordia University in Wisconsin, a
master's in security studies from the Naval Postgraduate
School, and has completed various executive education programs
with the FBI and at Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School
of Government.
Matthew Barge is the vice president and deputy director of
the Police Assessment Resource Center, PARC. Among Mr. Barge's
areas of expertise are use-of-force policies; officer training;
and counseling law enforcement agencies to achieve efficient,
constitutional policing. Mr. Barge graduated summa cum laude
from Georgetown University and holds a J.D. from the New York
University School of Law.
Susan Rahr is executive director of the Washington State
Criminal Justice Training Commission, a position she has held
since 2012. From 2005 to 2012, she served as the first female
sheriff in King County, Washington. She previously spent over
30 years as a law enforcement officer. She received a
bachelor's degree from Washington State University and
currently serves as a member of President Obama's Task Force on
21st Century Policing.
W. Craig Hartley Jr. is the executive director of the
Commission on Accreditation of Law Enforcement Agencies, CALEA.
He began his career with the Greensboro, North Carolina, Police
Department in 1989 and served in a number of positions within
the agency before becoming assistant chief of police. Prior to
joining CALEA, Mr. Hartley worked for the Virginia Department
of Criminal Justice Services, where he led the department's
Public Policy, Planning, and Research Division. Mr. Hartley
holds a bachelor's in criminal justice from Appalachian State
University and a master's in public affairs from the University
of North Carolina at Greensboro.
Professor Deborah Ramirez teaches criminal justice at the
Northeastern University School of Law in Boston, Massachusetts.
Much of her work focuses on strengthening partnerships between
law enforcement and communities, which is integral to building
trust and fair, effective policing. Professor Ramirez received
a bachelor's degree at Northwestern University and a J.D. from
Harvard Law School.
All of your written testimonies will be entered into the
record in their entirety. I ask that each of you summarize your
testimony in 5 minutes or less.
To help you stay within that time, there is a timing light
on your table. When the light switches from green to yellow,
you have 1 minute to conclude your testimony. I shouldn't say
this to law enforcement personnel, but it works like a traffic
light. When the light turns red, it signals that your 5 minutes
have expired. But when it turns yellow first, that means speed
up. [Laughter.]
Sheriff Clarke, you may begin.
TESTIMONY OF DAVID A. CLARKE, JR., SHERIFF,
MILWAUKEE COUNTY SHERIFF'S OFFICE, MILWAUKEE, WI
Sheriff Clarke. Good morning, Mr. Chair, and honorable
Members of the Committee on the Judiciary. Thank you for the
opportunity to state my view, which is backed by 37 years of
experience from ground level concerning police accountability,
aggression toward police, public safety concerns, and what
might be the right thing for us to work on now.
Since the events that led to riots in Ferguson, Missouri,
police use of force has become scrutinized nationally. Police
use of force should be scrutinized--locally, that is. It should
be examined in terms of factual data and circumstances that led
to the police action and not from the emotional foundation of
false narratives or catchy slogans like, ``hands up, do not
shoot,'' ``no justice, no peace,'' or ``Black lives matter.''
Let us leave that conduct for the public to engage in, not the
mainstream media or those elected officials who cannot resist
the opportunity to exploit the emotions of an uninformed or
misinformed public simply for political gain.
We will no doubt hear a lot of statistics thrown about
today, some distorted to achieve a predetermined agenda. Others
are legitimate.
In 2013, the U.S. Department of Justice under Attorney
General Eric Holder did a study in conjunction with the
National Institute of Justice on traffic stop data. They found
that when you use control factors that statistics and research
require for legitimate findings, any racial disparities are
attributed to differences in offending.
The studies show that Black drivers violated speeding and
other traffic laws at much greater rates than Whites. That
conclusion of the study under an Eric Holder-led DOJ might be
ugly to some, but is what the data and research have found.
That same study showed that three out every four Black
drivers said the police had a legitimate reason for stopping
them.
The same is true in arrest and incarceration data for
African-American males. Participation rates in violent crime
explain the disparity of why so many Black males are locked up
in prison. Black makes are disproportionately involved in
violent crime, and this violence is predominantly perpetrated
against other Black people. It is not the result of a
discriminatory criminal justice system.
Blacks make up 37.5 percent the prison population at the
State and Federal level. If we release those convicted on drug
charges alone, the percentage of Black males in prison would
drop to 37 percent, a mere one-half of 1 percent. So much for
the myth of Black males filling our prisons merely for drug
convictions, not to mention that illegal drug use is the
scourge of the Black community and leads to a great deal of the
violence that occurs.
The police use of force data also tells a different story
than the false narrative propagated by cop-bashers and the
liberal mainstream media. A recent study that looked into
police use of force between 2009 and 2012 showed this
breakdown: 61 percent, or 915 of the 1,491 people who died from
police use of force were White males, while 32 percent, 481,
were Black males.
It is a myth that police kill Black males in greater
numbers than anyone else.
Black-on-Black crime is the elephant in the room that few
want to talk about. We could talk about the police use of
force, but it does not start with transforming the police
profession. It starts by asking why we need so much assertive
policing in the American ghetto.
Are police officers perfect? Not by any stretch of the
imagination. Are police agencies perfect? Not even close. But
we are the best that our communities have to offer.
Instead, the conversation should be about transforming
Black underclass subculture behavior. The discussion must start
with addressing the behavior of people who have no respect for
authority, who fight with and try to disarm the police, who
flee the police, and who engage in other flawed lifestyle
choices.
Bashing the police is the low-hanging fruit. It is easier
to talk about the rare killing--fortunately, rare--of a Black
male by police because emotion can be exploited for political
advantage.
The police are easier to throw overboard because they
cannot fight back politically. This, however, is
counterproductive and will lead to police pulling back in high-
crime areas where good, law-abiding Black people live. Black
people will be the losers in all this as violent crime rates
skyrocket over time. This means more Black crime victims.
Economist and author Thomas Sowell, a man I admire, said
this about policing: If people who are told that they under
arrest, and who refuse to come with the police, cannot be
forcibly taken into custody, then we do not have the rule of
law when the law itself is downgraded to suggestions that no
one has the power to enforce.
Sowell further pointed out that, for people who have never
tried to take into custody somebody resisting arrest, to sit
back in the safety and comfort of their homes or offices and
second guess people who face the dangers inherent in that
process--dangers for both the officer and the person under
arrest--is yet another example of the irresponsible self-
indulgences of our time, unquote.
Thank you very much.
[The prepared statement of Sheriff Clarke follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
__________
Mr. Goodlatte. Thank you, Sheriff Clarke.
Mr. Hartley, welcome.
TESTIMONY OF W. CRAIG HARTLEY, JR., EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR,
COMMISSION ON ACCREDITATION OF LAW ENFORCEMENT AGENCIES
Mr. Hartley. Chairman Goodlatte, Ranking Member Conyers,
and Members of the Committee, on behalf of the Commission on
Accreditation for Law Enforcement Agencies, commonly referred
to as CALEA, thank you for this invitation today to present
ideas on policing strategies for the 21st century. As a part of
this discussion, I think it is important to recognize that
every year, over 1 million police officers dispersed across
18,000 agencies make over 40 million public contacts, where
they encounter incredibly sensitive and highly emotional
situations.
These interactions result in millions of arrests annually,
and police use force or the threat of force 1.4 percent of the
time, using mostly low-level applications. Statistically, this
is a strong indication to the adherence to the democratic
principles of public safety service in this country. However,
this can only occur where there are trusting relationships
between the community and the police.
Recently, the country has observed situations where this
confidence has eroded, resulting in undesirable outcomes.
Although there is no single solution, CALEA accreditation
provides a strategy that institutionalizes best practices
through the application of policing standards. The model
promotes community confidence and instills accountability
across all levels of participating agencies.
About 5 percent of law enforcement agencies participate,
which equates to a little more than 25 percent of the Nation's
law enforcement officers working for enrolled agencies. Given
this level of penetration, the standards serve as a powerful
tool to influence police policy and practice.
These standards remain relevant through a dynamic process
of review by leaders in the public safety industry, which
include practitioners, academicians, judicial officials, and
other subject matter experts.
Additionally, research from leading professional
associations is leveraged, and the process considers
information from special interest groups on such topics as
victims' right and procedural justice.
CALEA recently launched a review of standards to consider
findings from the President's Task Force on 21st Century
Policing and recent DOJ investigations of police agencies, all
this with a focus on creating service philosophies that balance
the need for safety and security with constitutionally
protected rights and freedoms.
The process of accreditation also focuses on intended
outcomes. This is accomplished through a sophisticated system
of linking agency policies to standards, and ensuring practices
complement organizational directives. It is reinforced through
data collection, onsite observation, agency reporting,
community input, and public commission hearings.
As examples of these standards, participating organizations
must develop effective citizen complaint procedures. This must
include investigations of all complaints, including those of an
anonymous nature. The procedures must establish timelines for
notification to complainants and result in the posting of
summary data for public consumption.
From an operational perspective, integrity in criminal
investigation procedures is included in the accreditation
process. This involves accountability with the preservation,
collection, maintenance, and presentation of evidence. Policies
related to interviews, lineups, and show-ups must be developed
and followed.
CALEA accreditation requires agencies to develop community
involvement practices to include establishing liaisons with
community organizations, the involvement of community members
in the development of policy, and publicizing agency
objectives.
Although these are only a few outputs of accreditation, it
demonstrates how standards address core issues impacting
community confidence while supporting police as an institution.
As an association, CALEA supports reasonable legislation to
improve professionalism in the field of public safety. We
support the concept of voluntary participation in accreditation
to promote productive relationships with agencies. We support
incentives that support agencies pursuing accreditation. And we
advocate for stronger interaction with other governmental and
nongovernmental entities for standards development. And we
value approaches that gradually and systematically transition
public safety agencies to programming with reasonable
implementation timelines and technical assistance.
The more than 1,030 public safety agencies enrolled in
CALEA accreditation have voluntarily committed to demonstrating
professional excellence through standards, compliance, and
assessment. I would encourage lawmakers to support
accreditation as an important tool for addressing the
professional delivery of police services as part of 21st
century policing strategies.
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Hartley follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
__________
Mr. Goodlatte. Thank you, Mr. Hartley.
Ms. Rahr, welcome.
TESTIMONY OF SUSAN RAHR, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, WASHINGTON STATE
CRIMINAL JUSTICE TRAINING COMMISSION AND MEMBER OF PRESIDENT
OBAMA'S TASK FORCE ON 21ST CENTURY POLICING
Ms. Rahr. Mr. Chair, Members of the Committee, it is my
honor to be invited to testify today.
I would like you to know a little bit about my background,
so you can put my comments in context. I started policing in
1979 as a patrol deputy, and for the next 33 years, I had the
privilege of serving my community in assignments such as
patrol, undercover narcotics. I commanded our gang unit in the
Seattle metropolitan area for 3 years and spent a great deal of
time working with police conduct cases and training.
When I retired as the elected sheriff in 2012, I had the
good fortune of coming to our State's police academy, where we
train all 10,000 law enforcement officers in the State of
Washington. I have learned a great deal from those recruits.
As we embark on this dialogue today, I think it is
critically important that we consider a wide range of factors
that impact the environment in which police operate and that we
consider strategies that are most likely to increase public
trust and improve public safety.
I would like to highlight two of these major factors. To
add to the context, I think we have a tendency to talk about
the bad apples. I would like to talk about the barrel and the
people who make the barrels.
The first factor is the absence of a national coherence in
policing. We have 18,000 individual police departments, each
with unique cultures and reflecting the policies and practices
that are a product of those 18,000 local governments with a
diverse range of values and expectations. Agency size ranges
from one officer to more than 34,000 officers. About half of
those 18,000 agencies have 10 officers or less.
All of these departments operate in one of our 50 States,
each with a unique system of justice that dictates how criminal
cases are initiated, processed, and adjudicated. Although many
States mandate peace officer certifications and standards for
hiring and training, most States exert limited control over
their local law enforcement. Outside of consent decrees and the
distribution or withholding of Federal funds, the influence of
the Federal Government on local policing is also limited.
The bottom line is, there is no single description of
United States police culture and practice. The environment and
challenges faced by police departments vary widely, and the
control and oversight of our police is almost exclusively
local.
The second major factor to consider is that police
departments do not operate independently. In most cities,
police chiefs are hired or fired by the mayor or another
elected municipal executive. Most sheriffs are elected by the
voters that they are sworn to protect and serve.
When police exert control over citizens, they do so at the
behest of an official elected by the people. Crime control
strategies do not emerge in isolation, nor do decisions about
police accountability. Those decisions are made by
independently elected officials and prosecutors.
Too often, the scrutiny of disturbing incidents begins and
ends with the police department with little examination of
those factors outside the agency that influence priorities and
practices.
The importance of a broader focus of inquiry was
illustrated in the recent examination into the government
practices in the City of Ferguson. The findings serve as a
powerful example of the influence of governing forces outside
of the police department itself.
Ideas for improving policing in the 21st century need to
consider both of these major factors. Most changes in policies
and procedures must be adopted by local governments in order to
be implemented. For example, the requirement to use body-worn
cameras must consider local and State laws related to the
gathering, management, and disclosure of data, as well as local
and State laws protecting individual privacy.
These changes will take time, require a great deal of
cooperation, and, in some cases, the barriers may be
insurmountable.
There are, however, meaningful steps that can be taken at
various levels of government without changing laws. These steps
will improve the culture of policing and expand police training
in ways that contribute to increased public trust and improved
safety. The recommendations of the President's task force
contain a full range of actions that can be implemented
immediately and some that are more long-term strategies.
One of the areas of focus contained in the recommendations
relates to the police training. I sent to you a copy of an
academic report that I co-authored. It was published by the
Kennedy School at Harvard and published by the National
Institute of Justice. This paper expounds on the importance of
addressing the leadership culture in police departments and
suggests a path toward improving culture through effective
training. I hope these ideas will be beneficial as this
Committee explores ways to improve policing in the 21st
century.
Thank you very much.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Rahr follows:]
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__________
Mr. Goodlatte. Thank you, Ms. Rahr.
Mr. Barge, welcome.
TESTIMONY OF MATTHEW BARGE, VICE PRESIDENT & DEPUTY DIRECTOR,
POLICE ASSESSMENT RESOURCE CENTER (PARC)
Mr. Barge. Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member Conyers,
distinguished Members of the Committee, my name is Matthew
Barge. I am the vice president and the deputy director of the
Police Assessment Resource Center.
For 14 years, PARC has provided independent counsel to
upward of 30 police agencies and communities, helping them
solve problems and incorporate best practices on effective,
safe, and constitutional policing.
I want to thank you for the opportunity to appear before
you today.
In light of recent events, some have wondered whether local
police agencies are capable of transforming or repairing trust
with the communities they serve. I am here to tell you that
police departments can change and, indeed, are changing. Real
reform is difficult and messy work, but agencies can put in
place the systems, the policies, and the culture necessary to
self-manage the risk of unconstitutional policing and enhance
community confidence.
Some agencies affirmatively seek reform. The voluntary
implementation of PARC's recommendations in Portland, Oregon,
for example, led to significant decreases in use of force and
complaints about police, without increases in crime or officer
injury.
However, local law enforcement is not always good as self-
identifying problems. I work daily with police officers who
represent public service at its most selfless and laudable. But
the departments where they work often resemble what might
happen if a stereotypical department of motor vehicles ran the
U.S. military, an inefficient, inept bureaucracy overseeing a
rigid command and control structure.
This produces a culture often resistant to new approaches,
transparency, and real accountability. Where issues fester, the
U.S. Department of Justice may exercise the authority granted
by this body to conduct an investigation into alleged patterns
of misconduct. Where allegations are substantiated, a Federal
court overseeing a consent decree may result.
The process is akin to emergency open-heart surgery for
police departments. It addresses serious systemic issues and is
used selectively and at critical moments. Currently, DOJ is
enforcing 10 consent decrees. PARC's executive director is the
court-appointed independent monitor for one, addressing the
Seattle Police Department, where I serve as his deputy.
Regardless of how reform is initiated, the bedrock of
policing in the 21st century must be a strong, responsive
relationship between the Nation's police departments and the
communities that they serve.
To that end, a common playbook of specific, real-world
reforms is emerging for promoting public and officer safety,
efficiency, constitutional rights, and public trust.
First, officers need more specific guidelines on using
force in the real world. The bare, often vague requirements of
courts in this area may work for judges in the comforts of
their courtrooms, but officers in communities need clearer and
more pragmatic rules.
Second, departments need internal mechanisms for critical
self-analysis. For instance, a standard DOJ consent decree
reform is the creation of a dedicated board for critically
evaluating all uses of force so that a department can
continually update policy, procedure, and training in light of
real-world lessons learned. Likewise, permanent civilian
oversight mechanisms can give communities a real-time check and
important say in how policing is conducted.
Third, too many agencies have no idea what their officers
are doing. If data exists on use of force or stop activity, it
is often inaccurate, inaccessible, or ignored. Policing in the
21st century needs to take full advantage of the information
systems that we take for granted in so many other areas of
public and private life.
Fourth, in the cities where we work, we continually hear
from individuals that the weights and burdens of law
enforcement are not equally shared, and there is some empirical
evidence to support that proposition. The challenge for police
departments is to find ways of addressing an issue that, at
minimum, is deeply affecting the police-community relationship.
Forward-thinking departments are providing officers with
training on minimizing the effects of implicit bias and on
person-based decision making.
Modern American policing faces an era of unparalleled
challenges with too many communities viewing the police as
``them'' rather than ``us.'' The challenge law enforcement
agencies must embrace is to implement the kinds of common-sense
steps that might enhance accountability and enhance public
trust.
With that, I thank you again for the opportunity to be
here.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Barge follows:]
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__________
Mr. Goodlatte. Thank you, Mr. Barge.
Ms. Ramirez, welcome.
TESTIMONY OF DEBORAH A. RAMIREZ, PROFESSOR OF LAW, NORTHEASTERN
UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF LAW, BOSTON, MA
Ms. Ramirez. Thank you, Chairman Goodlatte, Ranking Member
Conyers, and the House Committee on the Judiciary.
The police killing of Michael Brown and Eric Garner in July
and August of 2014 have triggered protests not only in the
cities in which those killings occurred, but also throughout
this country. Since those shootings, there have been others,
Freddie Gray in Baltimore and Walter Lamar Scott in South
Carolina.
It is plain to me, and I expect to all of you here today,
that these protests are not just about the unwillingness to
prosecute all but one of those officers for these shootings,
but about a long, simmering resentment in the African-American
and Latino communities that the criminal law applies
differently to them than it does to White Americans; that the
police too often stop and frisk Latino and African-American
youths with impunity and without reasonable, articulatable
suspicions; that automobiles driven by African-Americans,
especially in White neighborhoods, are too often stopped by
police for driving while Black; that the death of a Black man
at the hands of police is seen as more forgivable than the
death of a White man; that prosecutors are less willing to see
Hispanic and African-American defendants as candidates for
rehabilitation who deserve and need a break, and, therefore,
they are more willing to press for mandatory sentences against
them; and that more Black men age 18 to 21 are in prison or in
jail than in college.
We can and should debate how accurate the statistical
studies are and how accurate these perceptions are, and whether
they are more accurate in some States and municipalities than
in others. But I think we can agree that these perceptions are
accurate more often and in too many places than we would want
them to be, and that the perception itself is a reason for
great concern because, beyond the statistical studies, we
cannot be one Nation if a significant percentage of our
community members believe they are receiving an inferior
quality of justice or no justice at all.
The protests have provided an impetus for change, but they
cannot produce change by themselves. We need to ensure that
these protests are different from previous protests, and that
they do not merely cry out for justice, but actually lead to
more justice.
To accomplish that, we need a roadmap for change. And we
need to press our leaders in Congress and elsewhere to follow
that roadmap and travel to a place where justice is more and
fairer.
To move past these tragedies, we need to do some concrete
things. First, we need to strengthen police-community relations
by creating community-policing models focused on the
development of partnerships between police organizations and
the communities they serve.
How? New infrastructure and architecture. Infrastructure
and architecture that might provide the coherence we need and
the coherence we need to bring to this enterprise. We need to
create in every State federally funded community-policing
institutes dedicated to creating the tools, templates,
training, and best practices for bringing the police and the
community members to the table for discussions on how best to
keep their communities safe and strong.
And we need to increase police transparency by letting the
public know what the police are doing, and that can only occur
when State and local police departments are required to keep
data regarding police stops, searches, and shootings, and to
record the race of persons stopped, searched, or shot. Why?
Because you cannot possibly manage what you do not measure.
Transparency also means requiring police to install cruiser
cameras, to wear body cameras, and to monitor police discretion
to turn those cameras off.
My last point is about accountability, which means that
allegations of police misconduct or situations in which a
police officer shoots a civilian should be handled by an
independent inspector general. The investigation and
prosecutorial decision should not rest in the hands of a
district attorney dependent on that police department for its
criminal investigations, past and future.
So we need police-community partnerships, a State institute
to support them, cameras, data collection, and an independent
inspector general to investigate police misconduct.
The roadmap does not end here today at this table. The next
part is the most difficult. How do we implement it? The system
is broken. We need Democrats and Republicans to come together
to craft a roadmap to justice and figure out how to fund and
implement it. Only then will we be able to create stronger and
safer communities.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Ramirez follows:]
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__________
Mr. Goodlatte. Thank you, Ms. Ramirez.
I will begin the questioning and start with you, Sheriff
Clarke. When you talk with citizens, do they want more or less
of a police presence? Do they complain more about the actions
of the police or about the inactions of the police?
Sheriff Clarke. They ask for more. They complain about
both, and I think that is human nature. They want safer
neighborhoods. They want safer communities. They know they are
going to have to have assertive policing in some of these high-
crime areas to get that done.
It is situational. They complain about slow calls for
service responses, things like that, which can have an effect
on a person's trust in their law-enforcement agency. In other
words, we call but they do not come.
So it is fluid and, like I said, situational. We deal with
it on a situational basis.
Mr. Goodlatte. Do your officers generally feel--I don't
know what the right word is--welcome, comfortable in these
tougher communities to the police?
Sheriff Clarke. Without a doubt. It is one of the
hallmarks, I believe, of my administration to create a
relationship. When we talk about trust, I believe, in the
Milwaukee area anyway--that is what I can speak to,
personally--there is a great relationship. We, meaning law
enforcement officers, do not have a great relationship with the
criminal element. There is no doubt about that. But I think
sometimes, this--I believe it exists, this lack of trust within
segments of the community, but not as a whole within the
minority community. I bristle at that perception.
Mr. Goodlatte. Good. I am glad to hear that.
Mr. Hartley, you wrote in your testimony that only 5
percent of the Nation's law enforcement agencies participate in
accreditation. That really surprised me.
What is the biggest obstacle you face in terms of getting
other agencies accredited? Is it leadership, cost, or something
else?
Mr. Hartley. I will tell you, I think it is a combination
of all those things. I think it really starts with the
leadership prerogative about what those organizational leaders
think is important to them and the delivery of leadership
across their organizations.
We do hear concerns that the cost of accreditation is too
much. We also hear that the in-kind cost associated with
involvement in the process is difficult because our
accreditation process requires them to do things that they
otherwise may not do.
I can tell you that the process is really structured around
key and fundamental, sound principles of police service
delivery. So the process of accreditation does not increase the
accountability that is already there. It measures
accountability and serves as a yardstick and a framework to
keep organizations focused on key and fundamental areas.
But again, it does relate to cost in some cases and in-kind
services and management of the process, Mr. Chair.
Mr. Goodlatte. Thank you.
Ms. Ramirez, is there a problem with current legal
precedents as they relate to use of force? Does it result in
second-guessing of officer decisions?
Ms. Ramirez. I am sorry, is the question whether or not----
Mr. Goodlatte. I will repeat it.
Is there a problem with current legal precedents as they
relate to use of a force? And does it result in second-guessing
of officers decisions?
Ms. Ramirez. I do not think this is primarily a legal
problem. I think it is a problem with the community not fully
understanding all of the pressures, procedures, protocols that
the police are engaged in, and the police not discussing and
educating the community about the things that the police have
to take into account as they go through a stop-and-search
process.
But I do not believe this is a legal problem. I think it is
a training problem. I think it is a problem that would be
solved with better community policing.
Mr. Goodlatte. Thank you.
Mr. Barge, I will let you answer that same question, but I
also want to add, you mentioned in your testimony that after
your organization was called into Portland, there was a sharp
drop in officer-involved shootings, use of force, and citizen
complaints without any increase in officer injuries. What do
you think most directly causes that?
Mr. Barge. As a legal precedent question, I think that, as
I said in my testimony, judges and courtrooms use a very
different set of rules to guide fair and efficient decision
making. Officers on the street, I think as all of us can attest
to, you do not have the luxury of examining all of the facts as
they turned out to be and have to make split-second judgment
calls.
So I think one thing police agencies can do right now is to
ask themselves, how do I want our police officers to react in
these emerging use of force situations, and craft more
specific, clearer guidance where appropriate, and hold their
officers rigorously accountable to those policies. The policies
can do what the courts cannot as a condition of an officer
being employed in that department.
As to Portland, I think that what we did there was to
institute a number of reforms that are very tested. They have
been implemented in places where the DOJ has gone in the
consent decree process. And in Portland, we had an opportunity
to implement those reforms in a voluntary capacity. The city
wanted us there, and the police department wanted us there.
It was about instilling mechanisms whereby the police asked
themselves difficult questions, asked what we could learn from
incidents that went wrong, asked what we could do differently
in the future.
I think that kind of culture, just by the numbers the city
auditor found there, really changed the department for the
better.
Mr. Goodlatte. Thank you very much.
The gentleman from Michigan, Mr. Conyers, is recognized for
his question.
Mr. Conyers. Thank you.
I appreciate the different contributions from each of the
five panelists, and I think we are off to a good discussion.
I would like you to know that thanks to the Chairman and
Mr. Scott and Mr. Sensenbrenner, we have been having hearings
about overcriminalization. They started out for 6 months, and
Chairman Goodlatte added 6 more months to it, it was so
effective. This moves us further along.
But the fact of the matter is, how do we change this
culture? This goes back a long ways. This isn't a recent
phenomenon at all.
So I am thinking about how we get into this infrastructure
and architecture that we are trying to move to, and I would
like to look at that for just a moment.
But before we do, I would like to raise the question of
police prosecutions. We all know the conundrum. The prosecutor
and the police work together much of the time, and then all of
a sudden, the prosecutor has to decide whether to prosecute one
that he has been working with a long time.
Professor Ramirez and any of the rest of you, please, let
us look at that for a moment.
Ms. Ramirez. As a former Federal prosecutor, I have worked
with law enforcement, and I know firsthand the difficult and
dangerous work that they do. But I also believe that when there
has been a civilian who has been shot or police misconduct, it
is very hard for a prosecutor who works day in and day out with
these law enforcement officers, and knowing that they worked
with them in the past and the future, to make an independent
decision, which is why I think we need a process different from
the process that we have now. So I talk about having an
independent inspector general make the decision.
Mr. Conyers. Yes.
Ms. Ramirez. But also, we need more transparency in the
decision-making process. So right now, we have a secret grand
jury process. Maybe we need something more like an inquest
process or some kind of new process in which, in these
instances, we can develop a way to be more transparent about
that pretrial investigation that takes place now by a
prosecutor in the grand jury context.
And I wanted to say one more thing about reducing use of
force. The studies have shown that in departments where they
have used cameras, body cameras and cameras in the car, that
there has been a significant decrease in use of force, and it
gives us the opportunity to learn from the recorded instances
about best practices for deescalation.
So when we have cameras and there is an incident, whether
the officer succeeded or failed to deescalate, we can learn
more about it.
Mr. Conyers. All right. What has been your experience, sir,
in terms of this problem? More or less, where do we go from
here?
Mr. Hartley, what do you think?
Mr. Hartley. As it relates to prosecution of police
officers?
Mr. Conyers. No, we can go wider than that.
Mr. Hartley. I think to just kind of parlay that discussion
into a little more broad sense, I think the most important
thing for any organization to do is to prepare for that bad
event.
We know that regardless of the best planning, you are still
going to have people that are engaged in fundamental decisions
around the enforcement of law that have impacts on communities.
But the reality of it is that if the preparation takes place in
the proper way with the proper folks around the table, it
relieves those expectations of negativity, if you will, and it
promotes organizational confidence in how the process will be
managed.
I do not feel comfortable saying that one size fits all for
each agency, because I think each jurisdiction brings on
different attributes that has to be considered in the
development of those types of things.
Mr. Conyers. Of course.
Mr. Hartley. But for the public's consideration and for the
officers' consideration, confidence in the process is
important, and it has to do with planning for the event from
start to finish and include community contacts, media
engagement, and other processes related to the legal system.
Mr. Conyers. Thank you very much.
Ms. Rahr, just in closing, do you see some hope in
President Obama's recent statements on the subject, when he was
in Camden yesterday?
Ms. Rahr. I do. I think that there are a number of
recommendations that will be helpful to every police department
in the Nation. For some departments, they will be able to
follow many of those recommendations. I hope that, as time goes
on, the distribution of Federal funding and resources will take
into account the cooperation of agencies that are doing their
best to follow those recommendations.
Mr. Conyers. Thank you.
Mr. Goodlatte. The Chair thanks the gentleman.
The Chair recognizes the gentleman from South Carolina, Mr.
Gowdy, for 5 minutes.
Mr. Gowdy. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Professor Ramirez, you mentioned a couple of cases in your
opening statement, and I know that time is short when you only
have 5 minutes, and you were not able to address other cases. I
wanted to ask you whether or not you were familiar with a few
other cases.
Sandy Rogers and Scotty Richardson from Aiken, South
Carolina, are you familiar with that case?
Ms. Ramirez. No, sir.
Mr. Gowdy. How about Roger Dale Rice from Laurens, South
Carolina, are you familiar with that case?
Ms. Ramirez. No, sir.
Mr. Gowdy. Eric Nicholson or Marcus Whitfield from
Greenville, South Carolina? Are you familiar with that case?
Ms. Ramirez. No, sir.
Mr. Gowdy. Russ Sorrow from Greenville, South Carolina?
Ms. Ramirez. No, sir.
Mr. Gowdy. Or Kevin Carper from Spartanburg, South
Carolina?
Ms. Ramirez. No, sir.
Mr. Gowdy. Professor, those are just a handful of the more
than 340 police officers who were killed in the line of duty in
South Carolina. And Kevin Carper's case is most instructive
because his partner did CPR on the suspect that killed Kevin,
trying to save his life.
Let me ask it another way. Are you familiar with the case
of Ricky Samuel?
Ms. Ramirez. No, sir.
Mr. Gowdy. How about Tamika Huston?
Ms. Ramirez. No, sir.
Mr. Gowdy. How about Nell Lindsey?
Ms. Ramirez. No, sir.
Mr. Gowdy. Miranda Auell?
Ms. Ramirez. No, sir.
Mr. Gowdy. Santiago Rios?
Ms. Ramirez. No, sir.
Mr. Gowdy. Those are all folks that were the victim of
intraracial homicides in South Carolina. And I hasten to add,
there were not protests either with those police officer
killings or any of the intraracial killings.
And I suspect you agree with me, Professor, that all lives
matter. Whether you are killed by a police officer or your
next-door neighbor, you are every bit as dead, aren't you?
Ms. Ramirez. Yes, sir. I, actually, as a former prosecutor
and someone who has worked with police officers, have the
deepest respect for them.
Mr. Gowdy. So do I. And despite that deep respect,
Professor, I still maintain the objectivity of prosecuting
police officers who engaged in misconduct. We have a process in
place, if you don't think you can be fair. It is called
recusal, which is what some of us did in every single one of
our officer-involved shootings. We recused it to another
prosecutor, so he or she could make that decision.
So there is a process in place. You called for a process.
There is one. It is called recusal.
Do you know, as a former prosecutor, or can you deign, what
may have been the biggest impediment to our being able to
successfully prosecute homicide cases, particularly homicide
cases involving victims of color? In my criminal justice
jurisdiction, do you know what the biggest impediment was?
Ms. Ramirez. In Massachusetts, one of the biggest
impediments is trying to get witnesses to come forward.
Mr. Gowdy. You are exactly right. You are exactly right.
You have a victim of color and we had trouble getting witnesses
to cooperate with law enforcement and prosecutors, which then,
as you know, diminishes the quality of that case and your
ability to prosecute it, which may result in a lesser plea
bargain because you do not have the facts, which may then
result in what you said in your opening statement, which is
people have a tendency to treat Black lives differently than
White, when the reality is the case wasn't quite as good. Isn't
that a possibility, too?
Ms. Ramirez. For every prosecutor who is out there, this is
a serious problem, and you are correct in pointing that out,
sir.
Mr. Gowdy. Right. And it wasn't just me pointing it out,
Professor. I happened to have a fantastic chief of police when
I was the D.A., fantastic man by the name of Tony Fisher, who
happened to be an African-American chief of police. And he
lamented the exact same thing you and I are talking about.
It is the loss of life in his community and the refusal of
people to cooperate, even in a drive-by shooting of an 8-year-
old at a birthday party, a drive-by shooting outdoors where the
whole world saw the car drive by, and nobody would cooperate
with the prosecution in the murder of an 8-year-old.
So I hope that part of this 21st century police strategy
conversation that we are having includes getting people to
cooperate with law enforcement, so you can hold people to the
exact same standard regardless of the race of the victim.
And I want to say this, too. I want to thank my friends
Cedric Richmond and Hakeem Jeffries and others who are working
on this issue, because they want a justice system that is
colorblind. After all, it is represented by a woman wearing a
blindfold, so let us go ahead and make it colorblind. And both
of those guys have worked really, really hard and will continue
to do so, because let me tell what you my goal is. My goal is
for witnesses to feel comfortable cooperating.
But here is my other goal, and I am out of time but I am
going to share it with you. I want to get to the point where we
lament the death, the murder of a Black female like Nell
Lindsey just as much if it is at the hands of an abusive
husband, which it was, as we would if it would have been at the
hands of a White cop. I want to get to the point where we are
equally outraged at the loss of life, and I hope we can get
there.
With that, I would yield back.
Mr. Goodlatte. The Chair thanks the gentleman and
recognizes the gentlewoman from Texas, Ms. Jackson Lee, for 5
minutes.
Ms. Jackson Lee. Mr. Chairman, thank you so very much. And
let me thank both you and the Ranking Member, my Ranking
Member, for listening and engaging and leading. And I was
delighted to participate in the process.
And I would like to say to my colleagues that this effort
of criminal justice reform is going to be a Committee effort.
Every Member's input and assessment and analysis and
legislative initiatives will stand equal, I believe, in the
eyes of the Ranking Member and the Chairman and, certainly,
those of us who serve as the Chairperson and Ranking Member of
the Crime Subcommittee, as I do.
America will not be responded to unless this Committee
works together, and that our efforts are in unison and
collective, responding, of course, to the many witnesses that
will come before us.
So this is the first hearing, and I think America should
recognize the very large step that we are making.
Sheriff Clarke, let me thank you for your service. We may
agree to disagree, but there is no disagreement with your
service and the sacrifice that you represent. As you indicated,
we met a couple of weeks ago.
Just May 15, I was on the west side of the campus of this
great Congress, dealing with the many families who had lost
loved ones in law enforcement. So my tone today will be that we
do ill when we take each other's pain lightly. The pain of
``Black lives matter,'' the pain of ``hands up, don't shoot,''
the pain of ``I can't breathe.'' That is pain.
And it is equally the pain of Mr. Geer who was on the steps
of his house August 2013 and was shot in Virginia. He happened
to be an Anglo or Caucasian male.
What we have to do to make a legislative step of monumental
change that gives our officers the confidence of their work,
further enhance their training, is to be able to work together.
My line of questioning will be how do we fix these problems and
how do we get the 5 percent number, that is a lot of officers,
to be 25 percent, 50 percent accreditation. That is what the
American people, I think, are looking at.
I do not want anyone's pain to be diminished, and I sit
here today recognizing that pain.
So let me just quickly say this regarding statistics. James
Comey, the director of FBI, said the following about the
Uniform Crime Report, the now 3-year-old source that was cited
in the sheriff's testimony. He said the following, the
demographic data regarding officer-involved shootings is not
consistently reported to us through our Uniform Crime Reporting
program. Because reporting is voluntary, our data is incomplete
and, therefore, in the aggregate, unreliable.
Mr. Hartley, I have thought that data is important,
introduced a bill called the CADET bill to gather statistics of
shootings by police and by individuals against police, because
I believe in fairness.
So if this was required, would that be an asset to CALEA,
as you do your scientific work, of providing insight for
training?
Mr. Hartley. Ms. Jackson Lee, let me first start by saying
that I think data helps drive decision making, and it helped
drive it in an important way because you do not know what you
do not know sometimes. And what we find is organizations that
engage with CALEA in accreditation discovered data in the
process that really helps them make fundamental decisions that
drive the organization in a responsible way toward community
service.
Ms. Jackson Lee. Do you have enough money to accredit all
of the police departments across America? Would you need some
incentivizing, some funding to help you do that?
Mr. Hartley. Well, we do not need the incentivizing or
funding to help that occur, but those organizations sometimes
do. Organizations that participate with us range in size from
10,000 to 10.
Ms. Jackson Lee. So funding to them would be a helpful
component of police accountability?
Mr. Hartley. I think that would support agencies in this
mission.
Ms. Jackson Lee. I have a series of questions. On the CALEA
standards for body cameras, police arrests and transport, and
independent review of lethal force by law enforcement, are
there standards--that is the question--on body cameras, police
arrests, and transport?
One of the issues I am concerned about, because when the
issue came out in Baltimore, it wasn't sort of put aside,
police departments were saying all over, you know what, those
are some of the things we do.
But do you have standards on that and use of lethal force?
Mr. Hartley. We do have standards on all of those subjects.
The one related to transport didn't particularly address the
issue faced in Baltimore. However, there is a standard that
encourages the safe transport of individuals, regardless of the
type----
Ms. Jackson Lee. But we need to help to enhance that and
make that a noticeable part of policing across America.
Mr. Hartley. Well, I think that standards themselves are a
dynamic, living tool. I think as we encounter new issues, and
we certainly will, we have to be prepared to make adjustments
in those standards to address those issues.
Ms. Jackson Lee. May I quickly ask you, Ms. Rahr, you have
written about the obstacles of implementing changes in training
programs, particularly opposition from those wedded to the
status quo. Can you explain that? And can you also add to your
conversation?
I do not want any police officer to not go home to their
family. That is a mantra that we all stand by, you know,
everyone says, we have great relationships. I am a big believer
in community-oriented policing. The father of community-
oriented policing lives in Houston, Lee Brown.
But could you comment on that, and the idea of deescalation
in training and how that impacts on police interaction?
Mr. Goodlatte. The time of the gentlewoman has expired, but
the witness will be allowed to answer the question.
Ms. Jackson Lee. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It is a very
exciting hearing. It generates a lot of questions. Thank you.
Ms. Rahr. Thank you, sir.
I have described the philosophical shift that I have been
promoting for a couple of years as moving our culture closer to
a guardian mentality rather than a warrior mentality. I believe
the warrior mentality was a result of a political movement that
started in the 1960's when we declared war on crime, war on
drugs, war on all sorts of things. The police agencies across
this Nation responded, as they do to their political leadership
in their communities.
What I am trying to do is help our new police officers find
the right balance, because officers absolutely must have keen
warrior skills and they must be able to use them without
hesitation or policy. But I want them to consider their role
within our democracy, and that role needs to be the role of a
protector with the goal of protecting people rather than
conquering them.
When you try to initiate this type of a mindset shift,
there is naturally going to be resistance. The greatest
resistance I have encountered is just the misunderstanding of
what I am talking about. When I have the opportunity to explain
it in more depth, most officers will say to me that is how good
cops have always done it.
I want our recruits on their first day on the street to
have the wisdom of a good cop with 20 years' experience.
Mr. Goodlatte. The time of the gentlewoman has expired.
Ms. Jackson Lee. Thank you. I yield back.
Mr. Goodlatte. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from
Michigan, Mr. Bishop, for 5 minutes.
Mr. Bishop. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I would like to thank the panel for your testimony today.
Grateful for the time you have taken to be with us today.
Sheriff, I had an opportunity to speak with the law
enforcement community in my community, and I did a roundtable
discussion. I had an open dialogue about the events of the day
and some of the concerns that have been raised in this very
discussion.
They were concerned, as well, about some of the bad actors
in their own rank and file that we have been seeing around this
country and very concerned about it, but also were adamant
about the fact that they express that the vast majority of the
officers they work with, the emergency response personnel, are
hardworking, good professional people who are there for a
common purpose, and that is to serve the public.
They are concerned that that does not resonate, that we see
more now about the bad acting, some of the negative that has
gone on out there. And it is important we identify and we deal
with that and we not tolerate it in any way, shape, or form.
But it is also important that we do whatever we can do to
really rally behind those who have given so much in the law
enforcement community.
I think I would really like to know from you, what is going
on with the morale of the law enforcement community? Are you
having problems with recruitment and retention of officers as a
result of all that has gone on around the country?
Sheriff Clarke. Mr. Chair, Congressman, we are at a tipping
point, and it is something that I expressed not too long after
what happened in Ferguson, Missouri, about the psyche of the
American police officer who watches these things go on, just
like anybody else does. And the constant bashing and maligning
of the profession is starting to take its toll.
I just spent this week in the D.C. area for the National
Law Enforcement Officers Memorial week, police week, if you
will. And I talked to law enforcement officers from across this
country, and the one common theme I heard from them, first of
all, their mindset is they are beleaguered right now. But the
common theme that I heard is, you know, Sheriff, I do not know
if I want to continue to take that extra step anymore, because
I do not want to be the next Darren Wilson. I do not want to be
the next, you know, officers in Baltimore or New York or
anywhere, because they, in a good faith effort--we are talking
about the good faith action of law enforcement officers. We
operate in an environment of chaos and uncertainty when we get
sent to these calls.
Sometimes in this imperfect world, things can go horribly
wrong, which they did in Ferguson, Missouri. I am not going to
get into whose fault that was, but something went horribly
wrong.
But some of the best law enforcement work that goes on all
across the country is called self-initiated. It is not the call
for service. When an officer gets sent to a call for service,
something already happened. It is reactive. The crime already
occurred. But the self-initiated policing is when that officer,
that man or woman, uses their experience, their sixth sense, if
you will, their street sense, that criminal activity may be
afoot. And they establish the reasonable suspicion so they can
make that stop consistent with our Constitution, and they go
and investigate. They pull that car over, or they go and what
we call, you know, stick up a group of individuals hanging on a
corner or casing an area, so to speak, and we start to
investigate.
In self-initiated policing, you are going to find the guns
that are being used to transport to and from drive-by
shootings. You are going to find prohibited persons with
firearms. You are going to find drugs. You are going to find
people wanted on serious felony warrants, through self-
initiated policing.
When that starts to fall off, and there will be a lag time.
This won't happen overnight. The cops in this country aren't
going to quit. But over time, when they start to worry, they
look and they see that suspicious vehicle or they see that
suspicious individual and say, maybe not today, I do not want
this thing to go haywire on me and, next thing you know, I am
one of those officers who becomes a household name in America.
That is going to be a lag time, okay. I do not like to
create hysteria. But over time, I think it is going to have an
effect on crime rates in those communities that need assertive
policing the most, and that is our minority communities.
Mr. Bishop. Thank you, Sheriff.
I guess my time is up, Mr. Chairman, so I would yield back
the balance.
Mr. Goodlatte. The Chair thanks the gentleman and
recognizes the gentleman from New York, Mr. Nadler, for 5
minutes.
Mr. Nadler. Thank you.
Before I ask the question, let me just make an observation.
Sheriff Clarke talked about the sixth sense, about taking that
extra step. Sometimes taking that extra step is very necessary,
but sometimes we maybe want the officer not to take that extra
step. Maybe that is sometimes the problem and that leads into
the question of changing police culture, which Ms. Rahr talked
about.
Ms. Rahr, what is the greatest challenge in changing police
culture?
Ms. Rahr. I think the greatest challenge is recognizing
that we have a real variety of cultures already existing across
the country. When officers come to begin their career of
service, most of them come to the table with the goal of doing
something good, doing something to benefit the community. And
then they are confronted with the realities of trying to do
those good things.
As a result, sometimes they take on a tougher persona, and
they may lose sight of their original reasons for coming in the
door.
I think we need to work harder within the agencies, the
leadership within the agencies, to support our police officers,
make sure that they are healthy both mentally and physically,
and that they feel supported by the agency. If an officer does
not feel support inside their agency, they are not going to be
willing to take a risk and try something different. They are
not going to be willing to take as much of a risk to go out on
a limb to protect someone.
I think the internal culture of policing is absolutely
critical. And when that is strong and healthy and confident,
officers will be willing to try something different.
Mr. Nadler. And what, if anything, can we in Congress do to
help this change?
Ms. Rahr. I would love to see Congress provide funding for
improved training. I will just cut right to the chase.
There are a number of excellent programs already in
existence that could literally transform the profession of
policing in this country.
I have been involved for the last couple of years with a
program called Blue Courage, and that program seeks to support
police officers, build their pride, build their sense of high
morale, and especially assist them in seeing their appropriate
role as the guardian in democracy. That program costs money,
and agencies that want to acquire that training have to pay for
an officer on overtime to fill the districts.
Mr. Nadler. Appropriating money for training. Anything
else?
Ms. Rahr. Besides training?
Mr. Nadler. Besides money?
Ms. Rahr. Oh, besides money, I am sorry. I think just the
recognition that individual police agencies need to be
supported. There is not going to be a one-size-fits-all Federal
solution to this.
Mr. Nadler. Thank you very much.
Professor Ramirez, all over the country, we have had a
number of problems, obviously, with violence against citizens
who turned out not to have weapons or be guilty of anything.
And sometimes the police officer gets prosecuted. Sometimes the
police officer does not. Sometimes people are happy with it.
Sometimes they are not. We have seen these controversies.
And, of course, it has been suggested that the D.A.s are
too close, they have to work day-to-day with the police
officers. They are too close to make that decision without
being thought partisan, whether they are or not.
Should we have a law or regulation that mandates a special
prosecutor or special master for investigations of police
officers on the grounds that the D.A.s are, in fact, too close
to do this fairly? Would that be a good idea?
Ms. Ramirez. I think it would be a good idea.
Mr. Nadler. Would that enhance community confidence and
impartiality? And what are the negatives on it?
Ms. Ramirez. Yes. While we do have a recusal system, that
recusal system is now in the hands of the district attorney, so
the district attorney in Ferguson did not recuse himself. And I
think having laws and a process would create more legitimacy
and more transparency to the public.
Mr. Nadler. Thank you. Also, Professor, what is the
greatest impediment to prosecuting police officers who violate
constitutional rights of individuals in their official
capacity? Obviously, we do not do--what is it? 18?--deprivation
of civil rights under the color of law very often by law
Federal Government.
So what is the greatest impediment to prosecuting police
officers who ought to be prosecuted, and there are some,
obviously?
Ms. Ramirez. I am someone who has prosecuted police
officers. I would say that the first impediment is that, in a
prosecutorial office when you work with police, when you work
with law enforcement, it is very hard to decide to prosecute--
--
Mr. Nadler. What we talked about in our previous question?
Ms. Ramirez. Right.
Mr. Nadler. Okay, because my time is running out,
obviously, there have been a lot of controversial encounters,
in some of which police officers were prosecuted and others in
which they weren't, sometimes the D.A. was excoriated for
prosecuting, sometimes for not prosecuting. Would it be better
for the sense of justice on the part of relatives of victims,
would it be better for the police officers who could be
exonerated by this, if police officers used body cameras all
the time whenever they had such an encounter?
Ms. Ramirez. I think cameras are critical at this juncture,
and we know that four things happen when you put cameras in
place, because we have done research on this in both Great
Britain and in this country when cameras were used.
First, the use of force diminishes, and that is important,
because police officers know they are being recorded during an
incident.
Second, complaints against police officers diminished
significantly, which reduces the cost and process of
adjudicating these incidents after the fact and trying to find
facts.
Surprisingly, the third thing is that there has been an
increase in successful prosecution of domestic violence,
because the police can record on the scene at the time what
happened.
The fourth thing that would be very helpful in moving the
police culture from a warrior culture to a guardianship culture
is that you could begin to have guardianship metrics. The
current metrics are warrior metrics. How many people did you
arrest, search, seize? How many guns did you seize? How many
drugs did you seize?
If you had cameras, you could begin to do two things. You
could begin to evaluate officers on guardianship values. You
could look at every 100th tape and say, was this officer
respectful? Were they courteous? Did they follow procedures?
Did they try to deescalate?
Finally, it serves as an early warning system to the
police, because if you are watching on a regular basis randomly
some of these cameras, you will discern who are the bad apples
who have anger management issues and other issues.
Mr. Nadler. Thank you. I yield back.
Mr. Goodlatte. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from
Arizona, Mr. Franks, for 5 minutes.
Mr. Franks. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman. You know, Mr.
Chairman, to paraphrase the poet, we sleep safe in our beds at
night because rough men stand ready to visit violence on those
who would do us harm. And, certainly, I believe that the people
that wear the uniform, the many women that wear the uniform,
fit in that paradigm very well, because unless there are those
that are willing to stand between the innocent and the
malevolent, then the malevolent will prevail. I think that
those who wear the uniform and place themselves in those
dangerous positions are among the most noble figures in our
society.
And, Sheriff Clarke, I heard you on one of the television
interviews and was so struck by your clarity and your eagle-
eyed approach, and I thought this gentleman personifies that
nobility that we talk about. And I really think that my
children and the children of this country have a safer, more
hopeful future because of people like you.
So I would suggest to you that others have come to the same
conclusion. That might be why you are here in this hearing this
morning.
My question is first for you, have the recent events and
the press response to those events had any kind of impact on
your officers or made them more likely to employ strategies and
tactics that might actually compromise their safety or the
safety of the community?
Sheriff Clarke. Mr. Chair, Congressman, without a doubt, it
is part of the tipping point that I talked about. You know, we
need balance in this, obviously. And even if we find balance,
maintaining it is going to be even more difficult. An officer
delaying that thing that is telling him or her to do a certain
thing that does not happen may cost them their lives.
But let me say this about the use of body cameras. I am for
this, the use of this technology. I think it is a force
multiplier. It can only help.
But what I have been advising, I think we are rushing into
this, because we are going to end up with the law of unintended
consequences. There are some privacy issues involved. It
potentially could lead to fewer people wanting to come forward
and cooperate with the police, especially in our minority
communities where cooperating with police can lead you to a
very bad conclusion. You do not want to be seen doing that. You
do not want to be videotaped cooperating with the police. So we
need to think about what impact it will have on witnesses
wanting to come forward or even calling to report crime.
And I just want to close by saying that the use of body
cameras and the early evidence that it is leading to fewer
complaints and fewer instances of force, there is evidence to
suggest this, not to show it, that that isn't just the result
of the officer knowing that someone is watching. It is also
letting the person who the officer is dealing with know, if I
make a false complaint against this officer, it is going to be
on video. And that could lead to a decrease in complaints as
well. So I do not want everybody to presume that it is because
the officers are being watched, that they are changing their
behavior.
And the same with suspects. They know they are being
videotaped. Maybe they are less likely to fight the police and
engage in some of that behavior as well.
So that is why I say I support that, the use of those body
cameras. But there are some things associated with it that have
not been flushed out yet. I just say, let us not rush into this
because it is not a panacea.
Thank you.
Mr. Franks. Thank you, sir.
Ms. Rahr, in your testimony you discuss the absence of a
national coherence in policing. I wonder how you would propose
to implement national policing standards while still ensuring
that local police departments maintain the autonomy necessary
to be relevant and effective in their own jurisdictions?
Ms. Rahr. Sir, I haven't suggested national standards. What
the task force worked on were recommendations to provide
guidance and to provide more support for police departments. I
do not think we will ever come to a place where we have
national standards for police policies and procedures. There
are just too many different variables in each community.
Mr. Franks. Well, Mr. Chairman, I would just suggest, sir,
that while I think everyone sees our police force, in general,
as guardians, I am thankful that there are enough warrior
mentality among them to hold back those that would desecrate
the innocents. And I would yield back with that.
Mr. Goodlatte. The Chair thanks the gentleman and
recognizes the gentleman from Tennessee, Mr. Cohen, for 5
minutes.
Mr. Cohen. Thank you, Mr. Chair. And I want to thank you
for holding this hearing. It is most important.
And I want to say on the front end, I started my legal
career, I was a lawyer, as the attorney for the Memphis police.
I spent 3 1/2 years working for the police, and I understand
policing and appreciate policing, and know it is essential for
an ordered liberty and a society that has on the frontlines men
and women willing to risk their lives.
And I have great respect for Mr. Gowdy and I am happy he is
back here. He mentioned that he looks for the day that we rue
the death of the lady, I forget her name, who was apparently
killed by her husband in a domestic violence situation, the
same as we rue the problems when a White policeman kills a
Black citizen.
And I would have to say, with great respect for Mr. Gowdy,
there is a big difference. One is a private tragedy; the other
is a public tragedy, because it is under color of law. And
while we would like to see no crime whatsoever--and that would
be wonderful--we can only mostly be concerned about color of
law killings. And that is something we should be concerned
about. It is a big difference.
A question for Professor Ramirez, you mentioned an
investigation, prosecutorial decisions rest in the hands of
D.A.s, and Mr. Gowdy mentioned recusal. Recusal is up to the
D.A.
And in the recommendations of the President's task force,
there were recommendations that we have an independent
prosecutor. Congressman Clay and I have introduced a bill that
requires States to adopt independent prosecutor laws or face a
cut in Byrne JAG funding. This would present a solution.
Is part of the reason that the problem exists is
perception? Is that part of the reason why you think it is
important to have an independent prosecutor, because the
perception the public has that there is not independent
analysis of the cases and independent determination of who
should be prosecuted?
Ms. Ramirez. Yes, sir. It is primarily a matter of
perception, because I believe that prosecutors across the
country try to do the best that they can and exercise the best
judgment. But because of this inherent conflict, there may be
the perception in the eye of the public that this was not a
fair and full hearing.
Mr. Cohen. The D.A.'s main witnesses are always police.
Ms. Ramirez. Correct.
Mr. Cohen. In my community, the D.A. hires, which makes
sense, former sheriff's people or police people to be their
investigators.
Ms. Ramirez. Yes, sir.
Mr. Cohen. Yes, so there is an inherent conflict. That is
the reason we have our bill, Lacy Clay and I, because we think
not only would it eliminate the perception, but also there are
certain cases where there are politics are involved. And a base
for the D.A. who is elected is law enforcement, and that is a
political problem. So that is number one.
Ms. Rahr, you were a member of the President's task force,
and thank you for your work and your colleagues' work. The task
force recommended the use of independent prosecutors as well,
where police use force and it results in death or injury.
Was the recommendation based on instances where D.A.s did
not pursue cases against police as aggressively as they should
have, or, again, was it based on the mere perception of the
conflict of interest and the damage that perception can have on
public trust?
Ms. Rahr. In our debates and conversations, the primary
focus was on the perception. It is in recognition that we have
to maintain public trust.
There are many prosecutors across this Nation that are
perfectly capable, I believe, of doing an objective
investigation and prosecution of police shootings.
Unfortunately, we have to maintain public trust. And when you
try to balance those two issues, it was the consensus of the
task force that public trust had to have more weight than just
the pragmatism of having that particular prosecutor.
Mr. Cohen. We are down to my last minute, but you mentioned
training. Part of the bill I have with Representative Clay
requires some kind sensitivity training for police to recognize
ethnic differences, gender differences, et cetera, et cetera,
and maybe sexual orientation differences.
Do you think this would be helpful for police to have
training in terms of the diverse societies that we have today?
Ms. Rahr. I do believe it would be helpful to have
training. I wouldn't title it ``sensitivity training'' because
I think the police would shut down immediately.
Mr. Cohen. I agree with that.
In my last minute, Sheriff Clarke, let me ask you this. You
mentioned in your testimony that much of the population in
State and Federal prisons was for violent crime. Probably, that
is true. But in the Federal system, it is mostly for drug
crime. There is not so much violent crime there. That is where
the drug situation really fills up the Federal prisons.
You said that illegal drug use is the scourge of the Black
community. And it is a problem and leads to a great deal of
violent crime. Would you agree that marijuana possession is not
the scourge of the Black community and does not lead to violent
crime the same way that meth, crack, cocaine, and heroin do?
Sheriff Clarke. No, I wouldn't agree with that at all.
Mr. Cohen. Well, that is interesting. I wish I had more
time to talk with you.
Thank you for allowing me this opportunity. A defense
attorney is not supposed to ask a question they don't know the
answer to, but it was such an obvious answer, I never thought I
would get that answer. [Laughter.]
Mr. Goodlatte. The time of the gentleman has expired.
The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Iowa, Mr. King, for
5 minutes.
Mr. King. Resisting the temptation to yield the balance of
my time to Mr. Cohen.
Mr. Cohen. Thank you, Mr. King.
Mr. King. I would point out that I have in my hand an
article from Investor Business Daily, and it is dated, by the
way, the 6th of May, but is titled, ``Obama praised Baltimore
police he is now investigating.'' It points out the study that
the gentleman from Tennessee referenced, the President's Task
Force on 21st Century Policing, which I have in my hand.
And it also quotes from the police chief of Baltimore, who
said he changed outdated procedures that put officers at odds
with the community. This goes back to March of 2015. The date
of this article is the first week or so in May.
It is interesting to me, as I listen to the testimony of
Ms. Rahr, and I give you credit for contributing to that report
as well, that you would like to see a shift from the warrior
mentality to that of a guardian. And I think of the night I
came here and I watched live on television the encounters with
Baltimore police and rock-throwing mobs. And I saw the
Baltimore police retreat from rock-throwing mobs.
So I would ask you, is there a time they need to convert
back to the warrior mentality and was that the time?
Ms. Rahr. I want to clarify when I talk about a guardian
mentality, that absolutely does not imply retreat. It does not
imply weakness. It implies being able to do two things at once.
Mr. King. You can do that by just answering my question,
also.
Ms. Rahr. I am sorry?
Mr. King. You can also clarify by just answering my
question. Was Baltimore a time there should have been more of a
warrior mentality when they were facing rock-throwing mobs and
retreating in the face of rock-throwing mobs? Was that a time
that there needed to be an engagement of the police rather than
a retreat?
Ms. Rahr. They needed to use warrior tactics while having
the mindset of a guardian.
Mr. King. Okay, thank you.
I would turn to Mr. Ramirez, and your testimony was very
interesting to me. And I began thinking about our Constitution
and where it says in the First Amendment, I will paraphrase,
but also accurately, Congress shall make no law respecting the
right of the people peaceably to assemble and to petition the
government for redresses of grievances. Do you agree with that
statement?
Ms. Ramirez. Yes, sir.
Mr. King. And there is no prohibition in that statement
that I read, and would you agree, that prohibits Congress from
making a law or enforcing a law that would prohibit the people
from violently assembling to petition the government for
redress of grievances?
Ms. Ramirez. Congress does have the right to restrain
violence in any form.
Mr. King. Yes. And so we agree that freedom of speech isn't
the right to yell fire in a crowded theater?
Ms. Ramirez. Correct.
Mr. King. Then we could also agree--no, I will ask you. Is
it then lawful or unlawful for one to pay protesters and
encourage them to become violent?
Ms. Ramirez. I think that is a crime.
Mr. King. Yes. And I would agree with that also.
I would point out that my--and ``encourage violence,'' I
want to pull that part out as a separate clause in my statement
here for this purpose. I have in my hand a stack of tweets and
stories and messages about protesters in Ferguson, Missouri,
who now are protesting that they didn't get paid for the work
that they did. And I put that word ``work'' in quotes.
Have you reviewed any of that? Are you knowledgeable about
any of that information, Ms. Ramirez?
Ms. Ramirez. No, but, I would say this, that at this
juncture, the most helpful thing that we could do is to try to
bring the community and the police together in dialogues at the
local level.
Mr. King. I do understand that. That was in your testimony,
and I think the panel understands it.
But if you were presented with information that indicated
that there was a funder or funders who had hired protesters
that may well have been to bused into places like Ferguson,
Missouri, or sent to places like Baltimore, and we ended up
watching buildings and businesses be burned and property damage
being created, and in some cases assault, would that be worthy
of an investigation, would you think, by the local police
force?
Ms. Ramirez. Yes.
Mr. King. And what about the U.S. Attorney General?
Ms. Ramirez. I think that if there is evidence that someone
was being paid to engage in violent protests and engage in
violence, then that is a serious problem.
Mr. King. But you wouldn't think that if they didn't say
violence, if they just said protest, and it turned into
violence, that wouldn't be a crime?
Ms. Ramirez. That is a different situation.
Mr. King. Thank you.
I would like to turn and ask Sheriff Clarke if he could
respond with his reflections upon this exchange that he heard?
Sheriff Clarke. Sure. I was a little disappointed there
weren't more aggressive prosecutions and attempts to
investigate some of the behavior of some of the rioters who
were captured on videotape. One of the ones that stands out to
me is a group of young individuals standing and dancing on top
of a police cruiser that had been destroyed, so to speak, as if
they had captured some sort of ground. That is government
property.
In Wisconsin, we have a statute of inciting a riot. I think
those things should be used on both sides. There just seems to
be too much focus on what the police may have done, you know,
prior to the riots breaking out.
As you indicated, there is a more socially acceptable way
under our First Amendment to display your frustrations, your
anger, and it is not rioting. It is not destroying property of
other people.
We saw that night what Baltimore would look like without
the police, with police stepping back as they did. Some say
retreating. It was an ugly situation for a great American city.
Mr. King. Thank you, Sheriff.
I thank the Chairman and the witnesses and yield back the
balance of my time.
Mr. Goodlatte. The Chair thanks the gentleman and
recognizes the gentleman from Georgia, Mr. Johnson, for 5
minutes.
Mr. Johnson. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to thank you
and the Ranking Member for agreeing to hold this hearing.
Sheriff Clarke, I heard about and read about your
astigmatic testimony--that is the word I am trying to use--
astigmatic testimony. Please note my strong respect and support
for police and law enforcement, and also note my strong
insistence that the rule of law apply to all, regardless of
whether a person is a civilian or law enforcement.
The failure to prosecute police officers, militarize police
responses to peaceful protests, and video footage of people
dying by the hands of law enforcement have led us to where we
are today.
While discussing police accountability is an essential way
to improve the relationship between the community and law
enforcement, I hope that this Committee will hold additional
hearings that will allow us to specifically focus upon grand
jury reform, use of body cameras, and the DOJ's data collection
and transparency practices.
Before we witnessed the militarization of police in
Missouri, I had been working on the Stop Militarizing Law
Enforcement Act, which prevents local police forces from
receiving MRAPs, tanks, and other weapons left over from the
war. And I am very grateful and humbled that President Obama
yesterday issued an executive order that virtually ends the
1033 program.
I have also introduced the Grand Jury Reform Act, which
calls for the use of special prosecutors and independent law
enforcement agencies when there has been a police killing.
And also, I have introduced the Police Accountability Act,
which would expand the DOJ's authority to bring charges against
law enforcement officers.
Sir, have you ever heard the name Ariston Waiters before? I
am sure that you haven't. He was just a 19-year-old unarmed
Black male, just a typical unarmed Black male down in Union
City, Georgia, who was shot while lying on his stomach. Shot
twice in the back by a law enforcement officer, a police
officer from Union City. Shot twice in the back at close range.
The officer who killed Mr. Waiters allegedly exhibited
signs of posttraumatic stress disorder. He was an Afghanistan
war veteran. According to the Anxiety Disorders Association of
America, there are 40 million adults in the United States over
the age of 18 who suffer from anxiety disorders, and 7.7
million of those Americans suffer from posttraumatic stress
disorder.
I am concerned about the role mental health issues play in
officers using excessive force against civilians. We have
talked about police officers receiving training on how to
apprehend people suffering from mental illnesses, but what is
your department doing to make sure that officers themselves
aren't suffering from mental illnesses?
Sheriff Clarke. Mr. Chair, Congressman, that is one of the
most difficult situations that law enforcement officers today
are dealing with, the mentally ill.
Mr. Johnson. Would you agree that there must be some out
there among the 7.7 million Americans suffering from
posttraumatic stress disorder who are law enforcement officers?
You would not deny that, would you?
Sheriff Clarke. I do not have any data to refute it.
Mr. Johnson. But would you think that there may be some
cases where there are officers who are suffering from
posttraumatic stress disorder and who are serving currently in
law enforcement?
Sheriff Clarke. If I had to guess, yes. I had such a
situation with one of my patrol sergeants who served in the
first Gulf War, I believe, and he slapped around a handcuffed
prisoner.
I not only had him charged with a felony, he went to prison
for 18 months.
Mr. Johnson. You are to be commended for that.
Sheriff Clarke. It was a hard thing to do.
Mr. Johnson. Does your department have a system of
monitoring police officers or your officers periodically, just
to determine whether or not they have any mental health issues
that could impede their ability to protect and serve the
people?
Sheriff Clarke. No, not a systematic one. We have our
standard early warning system.
Mr. Johnson. Do you think it would be wise for the Federal
Government--I noticed that in your statement, you say that, I
am quoting you, ``Police use of force should be scrutinized--
locally, that is.'' Does that mean you do not think that the
Federal Government should concern itself with these issues at
all?
Sheriff Clarke. It is not that I do not think the Federal
Government should concern itself. I think the Federal
Government should observe what is going on across the Nation
with all these issues, but I think it is a slippery slope.
Mr. Johnson. You say it should be scrutinized locally,
though. Does that mean to the exclusion of the Federal
Government?
Sheriff Clarke. Well, if I could finish the sentence----
Mr. Goodlatte. The time of the gentleman has expired, but
the witness is allowed to answer the question.
Mr. Johnson. Thank you.
Sheriff Clarke. Sure, it should be scrutinized, without a
doubt.
Mr. Johnson. Thank you.
Mr. Goodlatte. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from
Pennsylvania, Mr. Marino, for 5 minutes.
Mr. Marino. Thank you, Chairman.
It is a pleasure to have you here today. Sheriff, if you
could zero in on an issue for me concerning resources, if you
had the money, would you hire more sheriffs, deputy sheriffs?
And where would you put them, what would you do with them?
Sheriff Clarke. Yes, I would hire them. I am in a court
battle now with the county. I have had to sue the county to be
able to hire some more law enforcement officers. I would put
them in the field based on what the data is showing where the
crimes are occurring, and not just the crime but to provide a
consistent visible presence as a deterrent to crime, not just
making arrests and writing citations, but to deter and prevent.
Mr. Marino. I agree with you. If you need help in that case
with your superiors who fund money for your sheriff's office,
let me know. I will be glad to join in and help.
Sheriff Clarke. I will do that.
Mr. Marino. Ms. Ramirez, I come from a long line of law
enforcement people. We take it very seriously. I was an
assistant district attorney. I was a district attorney. I was a
United States attorney. My colleague here was one of the best
assistant U.S. attorneys in the country. And I prosecuted cases
myself.
And I did not base my decision to prosecute cases involving
African-Americans or police on color or on the police. I based
it on the rule of law. It had nothing to do with who committed
the crime and who didn't and what police were involved.
And you stated that you had a difficult time choosing over
law enforcement and police. I never did. If you have a
difficult time like that, you shouldn't be a prosecutor.
Why would you prosecute if you made that statement that I
have a difficult time prosecuting police if they broke the law?
Ms. Ramirez. In my particular situation, as an assistant
U.S. attorney, we had not prosecuted police officers in the
past. And the U.S. attorney at the time said to me, do you plan
to practice law as a defense attorney here in Boston afterward?
Mr. Marino. Okay. Let me reclaim my time. You are going to
get into the U.S. attorney or that individual.
You know you have a step to go to if you have a complaint
about prosecuting a case in the U.S. attorney's office. You can
go from one person to another and you can actually go to the
Justice Department. Now, you also raised the issue----
Ms. Ramirez. Which we did, sir. And may I say----
Mr. Marino. No. I am asking the questions here.
Ms. Ramirez. Okay.
Mr. Marino. You also raised the issue of recusal, that it
is up to the district attorney. It is up to the U.S. attorney.
In the State courts and even in Federal courts, if there was a
recusal, we looked at it very seriously. I have recused myself
from cases and my staff.
But, you know, it is not totally up to you. You can take
that step to the judge. You can petition the court for recusal
and petition as to why. You didn't mention that.
And here is another thing I ran into as a prosecutor, as my
colleague said. It was very difficult to get young African-
American males to testify against others, even in cases where a
family member was killed.
Can you address that for a little bit, please?
Ms. Ramirez. That is one of the most important problems
that needs to be addressed, and I want to talk about how we
addressed it in Boston.
Mr. Marino. Would you please do it quickly? I only have a
minute and a half.
Ms. Ramirez. We went to the community organizations. We
went to the faith-based community. And we talked to the
community and asked them why people were unwilling to come
forward as witnesses. There were a myriad of causes. We set up
a process and hearings.
As a result, we had I do not know how many cold cases that
were solved through a process in which the faith-based
community went out, did outreach to the community. The
community organizations did that, and we have improved on that.
Mr. Marino. Okay, reclaiming my time, I agree, and that is
a good way to handle it. But you do agree it is a problem.
Ms. Ramirez. It is definitely a problem, sir.
Mr. Marino. It is a big problem. You had an extensive,
exemplary career, but have you ever ridden in a car with a
police officer when they are faced with a quick reaction
situation? I know you couldn't do it as an assistant U.S.
attorney. But as a D.A., have you been on the street when a
police officer had to make a split-second decision that has
taken the United States Supreme Court 2 years to determine what
is right and wrong in a 5-4 decision?
Ms. Ramirez. Yes, I have been in cars where police had to
make split-second decisions. I will tell you, I found it very
frightening. And they do a job I could not do.
Mr. Marino. There is a difference between a split-second
decision and the fact that someone has to determine over a
period of time what is right and wrong.
You cherry-picked a lot of cases, but you didn't bring up
the issue that the number keeps coming up, that 93 percent of
the young Black males, those ones that are murdered, 93 percent
are killed by young Black males. Why is this happening, and
what can we do to change that?
Ms. Ramirez. That is a serious problem, sir, but I do agree
with others who have said that what happens under color of law
is different from what happens privately between private
individuals.
They are both problems, but they are different problems.
And when someone kills under color of law, that merits a
different process.
Mr. Marino. I think any prosecutor worth his or her salt
understands that very, very much.
I yield back the time.
Mr. Goodlatte. The time of the gentleman has expired.
The gentlewoman from California, Ms. Chu, is recognized for
5 minutes.
Ms. Chu. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Ms. Rahr, you have used a new approach of policing called
LEED, Listen and Explain with Equity and Dignity, which puts a
premium on conversation and listening during a police
encounter.
Could you walk us through a hypothetical situation where
LEED has worked to deescalate a situation and tell us why it
works?
Ms. Rahr. The purpose of developing the LEED model is to
simplify the principles behind procedural justice and give
officers very specific tangible, behavioral direction.
In situations where there is conflict, taking the time, if
there is not a threat present--I want to be very clear about
that. If someone is pointing a gun at you, you do not listen
and explain. You do what you have to do.
But in most police interactions in the community, there is
time. And if officers are reminded of the benefit of listening,
that will help set that interaction going down the correct
track.
Most police officers, like myself, we like to step in and
control things, and we have to be reminded to stop and listen.
When people say police should treat people with respect, the
most effective way to convey respect is to listen, so we really
want to emphasize that for our officers.
The other area where many officers forget is that we know
the system inside out. We know how the process is going to
work. We know what is going to happen next. People we are
interacting with do not know that. It is that lack of knowledge
that creates another level of conflict.
And again, if the officer is reminded, tell the person what
they can expect, they will be more likely to cooperate.
When we talk about equity, that is simply to underscore to
make sure you are recognizing, whatever biases you bring to the
table, make sure you are making your decision on the outcome in
an equitable way.
And always leave the person you are interacting with with
their dignity in tack, and act with dignity yourself.
A lot of officers will mock whenever we use an acronym, and
I get that. But it is also a very effective way to teach very
specific behavior.
Ms. Chu. In fact, talking about dignity, studies have shown
that people in a community care more about how they are treated
by police rather than the actual outcome of a police encounter.
Police that may pull people over for a driving offense may find
that people care more whether they were treated fairly by the
police officer than whether they actually got the ticket.
But as you have acknowledged in the past, empathy and
patience do not necessarily come naturally for some police
recruits. Something as simple as officers having friendly
nonenforcement-related conversations with community members
have shown to have huge benefits in building community trust.
How do we change things so that the system values these
characteristics in our police?
Ms. Rahr. I think we start in the training academy by
modeling that type of behavior and being very clear about that
as an expectation.
We also need to clarify that empathy is not the same as
sympathy. Empathy means you understand what the person on the
other side of the interaction is experiencing. I think it
starts with training.
I think it was mentioned by another witness that we have to
come up with appropriate measures. People will rise to those
things that are measured. When we find ways to measure officers
behaving in ways that convey respect and dignity, that behavior
will increase.
Ms. Chu. Mr. Barge, thank you for acknowledging the role
that implicit bias might play in making the type of quick
decisions that police encounter every day. Social science
research has shown that even individuals who believe that
everybody should be treated equally may be affected by implicit
biases or subconscious association between people of color and
a perception of aggression and crime.
Can you give us an example of a situation in which an
officer's perception about an individual might be influenced by
the way they react to that individual? And how can police
departments work to preemptively dismantle this implicit bias?
Mr. Barge. I think that one of the prototypical examples is
one that Sheriff Clarke mentioned earlier, sort of the self-
initiated stop, maybe a broken taillight, that kind of thing,
not even necessarily the initiation of the stop but how that
interaction proceeds in that critical first few seconds. It may
be informed much more about, I think with any of us, sort of
broad categories that we are placing a new person who we have
never met with or interacted with before into generalized
buckets. And if officers do not do as training in several
jurisdictions is starting to offer them instruction on, to slow
down the situation where possible and sort of try to use very
intentional decision-making strategies, I think they risk,
especially because they often have to make these split-second
decisions, being in some instances overly swayed by the
subconscious sort of factors that they may not even be aware
of, and if they were aware of, they would want to make sure
were not going into their decision making.
Ms. Chu. Thank you. I yield back.
Mr. Gowdy [presiding]. I thank the gentlelady from
California.
The Chair would now recognize the gentleman from Texas, the
former U.S. attorney, Mr. Ratcliffe.
Mr. Ratcliffe. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Although far less successful or accomplished than you, Mr.
Chairman, or my other colleague, Mr. Marino, I was also a
Federal prosecutor and, as such, certainly believe in enforcing
the law.
Unfortunately, our national dialog currently on this issue
reveals a mistrust on all sides of the issue that we are here
to talk about today. But I very much appreciate all of you
being here today to talk about how we as a society can address
this in a sensitive, careful, and effective manner. And I wish
that I had the opportunity to make inquiry to each one of you,
but there are time restrictions and I do not.
So I am going to focus at least initially on the witness in
the field, if you will, you, Sheriff Clarke. I would like to
first ask you, does your police department have clear policies
on the use of force?
Sheriff Clarke. Mr. Chair, Congressman, yes, sir.
Mr. Ratcliffe. Do you have an opinion, and I am sure that
you do, as to whether or not there is a problem with the law as
it currently stands related to the use of force in this
country?
Sheriff Clarke. No, I do not.
Mr. Ratcliffe. Okay. So it is your opinion that, as a
Member of Congress with my colleagues here, there isn't
anything that we need to do at this point to make it clearer to
officers, so that officers are not second-guessed, if you will,
as much as they are currently?
Sheriff Clarke. I think that is a proper role for Congress,
advisory oversight a little bit. But when the mandates start
coming down as to how we should do our job at the local level,
I am going to push back a little on that.
Mr. Ratcliffe. So community policing certainly is intended
to take the edge off of interactions, if you will, between the
police and the communities that they serve. But would you agree
with me that police work by its very definition is one that
must involve conflict?
Sheriff Clarke. It has great potential for conflict because
of human interaction.
Mr. Ratcliffe. Certainly, with respect to the end of the
day, regardless of how the officer goes about his or her job,
he or she has the responsibility to enforce the law, whether
they are doing it with a smile on their face or not?
Sheriff Clarke. Huge responsibility.
Mr. Ratcliffe. Yesterday, the President's task force on
policing issued findings that focused squarely on this issue of
community policing. I know it is a very hefty document, but I
was wondering if you had a chance to review it? And if so, what
are your thoughts with respect to the findings?
Sheriff Clarke. On the 21st century project?
Mr. Ratcliffe. Yes, sir.
Sheriff Clarke. Yes, I did read it. I didn't like a lot of
it from the beginning. When the task force was put together,
there were no elected sheriffs. I know my colleague is a former
sheriff, but no elected sheriffs on the panel. I found that
interesting. I also didn't see a lot of representation for a
two-way exchange of what life was like for an officer on the
street. They had some police administrators there. They had one
organization that represents some fraternal organization of
police, but that does not give the day-to-day example of what
life is like on the street and why we have to do some of the
things that we do. So I thought it fell a little short.
Recommendations were heavy on Federal involvement, Federal
control. Those are technical fixes that, okay, we can do that.
But it is not going to change the behavior of many law
enforcement agencies or the behavior of many of the individuals
of color that we come in contact with on the street that end up
in deadly confrontations. It does not reach far enough to do
that.
Mr. Ratcliffe. So, Sheriff, this is your opportunity to
talk to Members of Congress. What would you like our takeaway
to be with respect to that report or those findings, or
corrections that you think are not reflected in there that you
would like to make to that?
Sheriff Clarke. One of the things that is not addressed
that we keep glossing over, and I said ``we.'' We keep glossing
over conditions that have led to the rise of the underclass of
the American ghetto, where people can't find meaningful work.
They have to send their kids to poor schools. Kids don't have a
chance to reach their God-given potential to break out of that
cycle of poverty, entrenched poverty.
We have to look at some of the urban policies that have
been enacted at the State and the Federal level that continue
to feed into this growth of the underclass. What we are
experiencing recently, it is not poor generally or Black people
generally. It is the underclass behaviors.
Kids growing up without fathers. School failure. Failure to
stay in the workforce consistently. Failure to raise your kids.
Father-absent homes. Those have nothing to do with the police.
You can try to transform the police all you want, but as
long as those behaviors, those lifestyle choices, are going to
continue to grow in these urban centers, where the most
assertive policing is needed, you are still going to have these
confrontations.
And when you try fight the police and disarm the police, so
on and so forth, things are not going to end up well for you. I
do not care how much more we pour into training. It approaches
it as if it is linear. The world we live in is very
asymmetrical.
Mr. Ratcliffe. Sheriff, thank you for your insights and for
your thoughtful comments.
Again, I thank all the witnesses for being here today on
this important subject.
I see my time is expired. I yield back.
Mr. Gowdy. Thank the gentleman from Texas.
The Chair would now recognize my friend from Illinois, Mr.
Gutierrez.
Mr. Gutierrez. Thank you so much, Chairman Gowdy.
First of all, I would like to thank all the witnesses for
making their presentations here this morning. And I would like
to talk just a little bit.
I met with a group of young people from the Phoenix
Military Academy in the City of Chicago, White youth, Hispanic
youth, Black youth. Military academy, these are the best of the
best.
Have a conversation, everybody. We should have some of
those people. I mean, I think, with all due respect to
everybody here, we are a little too old to be having this
conversation among ourselves about the problems that the police
are encountering with young people. I would simply suggest next
time we invite some those young people, those bright, dynamic
young people.
You know what they are going to tell you, Sheriff Clarke? I
listened to a young Black man, Lieutenant Colonel in the
Phoenix Military Academy, tell me that he has learned how to
deescalate when he is confronted and comes into an exchange
with a police officer. That almost brought tears to my eyes,
that this wonderful, brilliant young man dedicated to this
country, graduated from his class, has to talk about
deescalating. He does not see the police as a source of
protection. He sees it as somebody that he has to learn--the
police have to be the adults. The children have to learn how to
be adults many times, in how it is they exchange with police
officers.
We are having a conversation here where people are saying,
well, Black people do not care about Black people. Nobody has
made that claim here. I don't know why certain of my colleagues
here say, well, they are not outraged when a Black person kills
a Black person. That is not the issue here. It is really not
the issue here.
That is, certainly, an issue we might want to talk about.
But it is not the issue. Nobody made the claim that that is a
good thing.
You know, that rioters are out there getting paid. Nobody
said here it is a good thing that rioters should be paid. I
could understand when you are making an argument against
something that somebody is like sustaining. But it seems as
though we are talking past each other as adults in this room
instead of having young people.
So I would just like, for the record, because I know there
won't be enough time, I would like for the record, Mr.
Chairman, these are the questions that the Phoenix Military
Academy students, if I could just add this, Mr. Chairman, for
the record?
Mr. Gowdy. Without objection.
[The information referred to follows:]
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__________
Mr. Gutierrez. Thank you so much.
Look, there is a young Latina, Jasmin Esquivel. She said,
how can minorities feel less of a double standard during
interactions with the law? Why does it feel like Whites are
treated with more respect than minorities when questioned by
police?
These are students. To everybody here, understand
something, I have talked to different groups of high school
students, and they all tell you the same thing in the inner
city.
In Chicago last week, there were 45. So, Sheriff Clarke,
you are right, too. There were 45 shootings in 1 weekend in the
City of Chicago.
Did I lock my grandson, Luisito, up? No. Did I tell my
daughter do not go out on the streets? No.
In my neighborhood, none of those shootings happened, in
the neighborhood that Luis Gutierrez the congressman lives in.
It is a tale of two cities. The shootings happen in
geographical areas.
In my city, when I grew up, the majority of the population
in the City of Chicago was White, so you would expect a
majority of the police officers to be White. Yet today, when
Whites no longer constitute a majority, the majority of police
officers in the City of Chicago are White.
Is it that we are selling everybody that only White folks
want to be police officers and care about this? I think that is
a fundamental problem.
So we go to Ferguson where there might be two Black police
officers in a population that is almost 70 percent African-
American. That kind of disconnect is going to cause problems--I
would think we would want to talk about some fundamental
changes about how is it that we recruit people.
I do not know, Sheriff, maybe you can answer this question,
maybe you can help me. In Chicago, what I feel is, when I go
talk to the cops in my district, and I go into some of the
areas where there is more gang violence, I find it to be
younger cops and I find that the older cops, like my dad, if he
worked somewhere, by the time he had any seniority, he took the
good shift, right? Are the young police officers getting the
brunt of the work? What do you think?
If the police officers, like when you joined the police
force, the older veteran police officers who might have the
training and the experience, are they the ones in the
neighborhood where there is a lot of trouble, where you might
need more veteran police officers? Or does seniority give you a
better shift?
Sheriff Clarke. Some of that is a collective bargaining
agreement. You get shift assignment. I agree with your
assessment there. The older, wiser, more experienced are
earning better assignments because of collective bargaining
rules. That is an issue.
Mr. Gutierrez. I know we have gone over time. I just want
to say, Mr. Chairman, I hope we can have another hearing. I had
a conversation with Mayor Rahm Emanuel. I don't know how many
of you got to hear his inaugural speech yesterday, where he
dedicated it to the youth, and how it was that in the City of
Chicago that no police force, that no government, was going to
take the place of a good mom and a good dad, but that we have
to be there to make sure that those parents have the resources,
and that we stop living, even in the City of Chicago, in a tale
of two cities where people feel safe in part of the city and
where the police and the community are in sync with one another
and another part where they are not.
The last thing is, let us bring the young people. With all
due respect, I am 61, so in some places I am a senior citizen
already. Let us bring some young people.
There are not enough young people around here or out there.
They are 100 percent, as you all know, of our future and you
are not going to settle this issue, I believe, in great
measure, until we get young people and listen to their voices.
Mr. Gowdy. The gentleman from Illinois is certainly very
young at heart, and he yields back.
The Chair will now recognize the gentlelady from
California, Ms. Bass.
Ms. Bass. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I realize that our subject matter today is talking about
policing, but I do want to make reference because it has come
up several times about why there is not outrage when African-
Americans are killing African-Americans. I just have to tell
you that it is always very frustrating to hear this raised,
because it is as though people are not working on a daily basis
day in and day out to address these issues in neighborhoods.
I started an organization 25 years ago. I spent 14 years
every day working in South Central Los Angeles in the height of
the crack cocaine and Blood and Crips and all of that was going
on, to address the crime, to address homicide. There are people
working in communities all over this country.
But the frustration we have always felt is that it is never
covered in the news. What is covered in the news is when there
is an incident between the police and, frankly, it is new that
that is even covered in news, because the only thing that is
new here are cell phone cameras, frankly.
What has been going on in communities that is getting a lot
of coverage now has been going on for years. So to say that
communities are not concerned, to say there is not the outrage
over the homicide rate, is just not accurate.
I spent one summer in one area where homicides were
concentrated. We did a whole effort, and we were able to go 3
solid months without homicides. Then the resources ended.
So we have to look at the root causes as to why the
problems exist. It is not just a matter of behavior. I frankly
do not believe that it is the policeman's job, and I agree with
you Sheriff Clarke, it is not up to the police completely to
address these problems. But what has to change in communities
is the police working with the community.
Unfortunately, people are fearful of the police in some of
the communities. It was also asked what do people in tough
neighborhoods want to see happen? People in tough neighborhoods
want the same thing that anybody wants. They want to be safe in
their homes and they want to be safe in their neighborhoods.
Frankly, these issues are not just happening in
``ghettos.'' And I think it is shameful, frankly, for the
communities to be referred to that way.
I have a brother who lives in Beverley Hills, okay? He gets
pulled over by the police, stretched out on the ground, and
asked why he is there. I think it is well known throughout the
country that African-Americans, folks of color, can be outside
of their ``ghettos'' and still have to deal with issues related
to the police.
A question was raised as to why folks do not cooperate with
the police. Well, I will give you a couple of examples that I
experienced on a daily basis working in South Central L.A. I
cannot tell you how many people told me, well, I called the
police, and I called about this crack house, and police went to
the crack house and they said Ms. Jones down the street called
and said you were selling crack here.
People do not feel the police will keep them safe. And,
frankly, there are not enough resources in the community to
relocate people.
So you want people to go and testify and put their lives at
risk? If there were more resources, then people would be much
more cooperative.
We had a lot of problems in L.A. We were actually able to
turn the situation around with the new chief, with community-
based policing. We are having some of the same problems emerge
again.
But we had a past police chief who said, when there was a
spate of people who were dying because of chokeholds, he said
at a press conference the reason that African-Americans were
dying of chokeholds was because our veins were different, they
collapsed quicker. We, fortunately, were able to get rid of
that police chief.
But these situations can be turned around. I listened to
the testimony of Ms. Ramirez and Ms. Rahr, and there are other
ways to go about policing. And we have seen some changes in our
communities.
Like I said, some of our problems are reemerging in Los
Angeles again. But I just wanted to ask, in the last seconds,
if, Ms. Ramirez, if you can give examples of a couple of
communities that have turned the situation around where the
police department works in cooperation with community
organizations, where the police department has changed their
perspective from the warrior mentality over to a mentality that
works in partnership with communities, and where crime has been
reduced, and where trust has been increased with the police
department.
Ms. Ramirez. The one I know best is Boston. We have
decreased homicide rates. We have decreased the number of
people we have incarcerated. And crime has gone down.
The Boston Police Department has been working with the
faith-based community and community groups on both issues. On
issues of homicide, so if we have all these cold cases, as I
said earlier, how are we going to get witnesses to come
forward? One example of that is some witnesses said I would be
happy to tell my account to someone who is not a police
officer. Then some of that could be used for corroboration to
get search warrants.
There are many other examples in this country of excellent
community-policing models were homicides have gone down. There
are now 14 States that have decided to decarcerate. In each of
those States, where they have taken the money from the criminal
justice system that they were using to incarcerate people--in
Massachusetts at $51,000 a year per inmate--taken the money and
said, the system we have is too expensive, ineffective, and
racially disparate. We are going to use that money to invest in
education, to invest in treatment. Those communities have saved
money and crime has gone down.
Ms. Bass. Thank you. I yield back.
Mr. Gowdy. The gentlelady from California yields back.
The Chair now recognizes the gentleman from Louisiana.
While I realize a lot of people have worked on criminal justice
reform, Mr. Richmond has been talking about it since the very
first day he got to Washington.
Mr. Richmond?
Mr. Richmond. Mr. Chairman, thank you for yielding.
First, I would like to ask unanimous consent to enter into
the record a Washington Post article that gives two Pinocchios
to fact-checking Giuliani's claim that 93 percent of Black
murder victims are killed by other Blacks, because of the
relevance of the statistic.
Mr. Gowdy. Without objection.
[The information referred to follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
__________
Mr. Richmond. Let me just start with answering the question
that my colleague posed. The real question, in his mind, is
Black-on-Black crime and what do we do to solve that. Well, the
first thing we do not do is cut Pell Grants and cut Head Start,
which gives you a 9-to-1 return on your investment, and Pell
Grants help you get to college. We all know that education is
the best path out of poverty, and the circumstances in these
neighborhoods.
So we could start there, which we have done every year
since I have been in Congress, with the budgets that we have
passed. I think that is a very good start.
Another start is to just have the conversation. I talk
about it all the time. If anybody is concerned, I am here and
willing to address it.
I think that as a young African-American male who grew up
in the inner city, I can have a lot to offer.
Mr. Chairman, I prefer not to focus where we have
differences. I think we have many. But I think we have some
very similar goals, which is to keep our police officers safe
and keep our constituents safe and to provide honest services.
Whether it is police or whether it elected officials, people
deserve honest service.
Let me just ask a question from your policing. Do you
believe that the makeup of the police department is important,
in terms of looking similar to the community that it polices?
Sheriff Clarke. I believe that.
Mr. Richmond. I was asking you that because I wanted to
share some of my real-life experiences as a young African-
American male, and why I think it is so important.
The first time I was pulled over, when I got home from
college and I was in St. Charles Avenue, the fancy part of
town, in my mother's car. I did not have my license. A Black
officer stopped me.
He went through the process to get my information, ran it,
came back to the car and said, ``I see a Morehouse sticker on
the back of your car. You go to Morehouse?'' I said yes. He
said, ``Well, Martin Luther King, who went to Morehouse, said
the man can't ride your back if your back isn't bent.'' He
said, ``You need to go home.'' And he let me go, and I went
home. I never forgot that.
While I was in the legislature, I saw a White officer stop
a car full of White kids on the State Capitol grounds who were
all smoking marijuana. He gave them a lecture and then called
their parents to come get them.
In all of my experience, if that White officer had stopped
a car full of Black kids with marijuana, I do not think his
answer would have been to lecture and call the parents.
And it may just be cultural, but I think we have to look at
the entire system. When we talk about diversion programs,
whether they are being applied evenly, because we know once a
kid gets a conviction, especially an African-American male, his
life goes in a completely different direction, whether it is
marijuana or whether it something more serious. He has a harder
time getting financial aid to go to college. He has a harder
time getting a job, all of those things.
Without a job or without being engaged in society, it is
hard to be a good parent. We have to make sure our law
enforcement scheme, law enforcement practice, is not adding to
the hurdles that many people are going to face anyway.
So the question becomes, how do we ensure that those
officers who have a lot of discretion when they make a stop,
how young African-American and minority men and women feel that
officer would give them the same lecture, the same break as an
African-American officer or a officer who is looking their
vested interests?
I hope you can answer that.
Sheriff Clarke. The use of discretion is always going to be
scrutinized. I reject the notion that every time a White
officer stops a car full of Black kids that they are
necessarily going to go to jail.
Mr. Richmond. I don't think it is every time, but it is
going to be the majority of the time.
Sheriff Clarke. Okay, well, let us just move beyond that.
What I talk to young people about, young people of color,
Milwaukee has a significant Black population, when I am in
these schools, in these neighborhoods, I talk about lifestyle
choices. When you engage in behavior and make flawed lifestyle
choices, there has to be some accountability. It does not mean
your life should be ruined. Maybe there could be a learning
experience. I do not think an arrest for a small amount of
marijuana early in your life is going to be a life-ruining
experience. It is not. Will you recover?
The greatest virtue that my parents instilled in me, the
product of a two-parent family, the ability to overcome
obstacles. You make mistakes. My dad said, you are going to
make mistakes, you are going to fall down, you are going to
fail, you are going to make questionable decisions. Learn from
it and move on.
I think that is a better message for even the individuals
who have gotten into these situations. I had a young man once
stop me on the street and said, ``Sheriff, I am a convicted
felon and can't find work. Nobody will hire me because of my
felony conviction.'' I said, ``Do you have kids?'' He said,
``Yes.'' I said, ``How many?'' He said, ``Three.'' I said,
``There is your job right there, to make sure your kids do not
end up in the predicament that you are. Go home and be a good
dad.''
You know, he thanked me for it. I do not know whether he
actually did it. But sometimes that message is a little more
helpful to an individual than for me to commiserate in his
misery, saying it is unfair, and the man, and this and that,
and the discriminatory criminal justice system, and the racist
police. That is not going to help the guy.
That is what I try to do. I do not control all law
enforcement officers, but I am not going to let people indict
them with this broad brush like we have the tendency to do
sometimes.
Mr. Richmond. In closing, and I see my time has expired, I
would just say two things. I think we should remove the
barriers that keep people from moving on and learning and
getting past that mistake, which may have been a marijuana
conviction or something else.
Another thing I would just say is I think it is great
advice to tell him to be a father, but at the same time, he
still has to get a job and put food on those kids' plates,
because you cannot learn in school if you are hungry.
Thank you, and I yield back.
Mr. Gowdy. The Chair thanks the gentleman from Louisiana
and recognizes the gentlelady from Washington, Ms. DelBene.
Ms. DelBene. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I want to thank all the witnesses for being with us today,
in particular, our former Kent County Sheriff from Washington
State, Ms. Rahr, for being here with us.
Actually, I had a question for you. I know that you have
made many changes since you have been at the Criminal Justice
Training Commission, and you talked a lot about transitioning
away from a boot camp or military style approach to training
officers toward a process that emphasizes the role as police as
part of the communities, as guardians and protectors rather
than military warriors.
After a long career as an officer yourself, when you got to
the CJTC, you replaced the trophy case with the U.S.
Constitution and put in place training procedures that included
recruits being sprayed with pepper spray so they know what it
feels like, instituting psychology classes so trainees can
better understand the people they will eventually be working
with and protecting and interacting with.
I know your methods have not been without skeptics. I
wondered if you could share with us why you think a new
approach to training our young men and women to serve as police
officers is needed, especially today, and how these training
methods translate to different outcomes or interactions in
practice.
Ms. Rahr. Thank you for the question. I want to clarify
that I do not condemn the training practices in the past. I
think we have learned a lot through research and science about
how to prepare officers to be more effective. That has been one
of the biggest areas of resistance, people being offended that
somehow by improving our training that we are criticizing what
used to be. That is not the case. We have learned more.
In terms of pepper spraying the recruits, many people have
misinterpreted that as an attempt to get them to feel empathy.
Actually, the reason we do that is we want to put them in a
fight-for-their-life stress situation, so they can learn for
themselves that they can overcome extreme pain, extreme fear,
and still carry on.
When I talk about a guardian mindset, I have to continually
reemphasize this is not a kinder, gentler way of doing the job.
It is just the opposite. We have actually increased our
firearms training. We have increased our defensive tactics
training, because we want to create strong, effective police
officers who have the confidence that they do not have to
behave in an intimidating manner.
When someone has confidence, that actually tends to
deescalate as well.
I think that when we were too focused on the boot camp
method of training, it detracted away from our ability to train
officers to be critical thinkers. When they were so worried
about simply getting the right answer and memorizing a
checklist, it took away from those critical-thinking skills.
So what we have tried to shift toward is more of an officer
training, a military officer's type of training, where you
really focus on critical thinking and confidence.
Ms. DelBene. Yesterday, President Obama signed an order
restricting certain military equipment from going to police. Do
you think that is also part of this transition? How do you feel
about that?
Ms. Rahr. I want to be clear that many of those pieces of
equipment that police departments obtain through the 1033
program are very much needed in the field. When I was sheriff,
I cannot tell you how many times I needed that armored
personnel carrier to either rescue an officer pinned down
behind gunfire or a citizen pinned down behind gunfire. An
armored personnel carrier allows police officers and hostage
negotiators to get closer to the scene to actually find ways to
resolve the conflict without gunfire.
Unfortunately, when the program started, there was not a
lot of accountability and training that went with it. I believe
that is what the changes in the law focus on.
Police departments will still be able to get armored
personnel carriers, because they are absolutely necessary to
have in the field. The weapons, the rifles, that type of
equipment, those are also necessary, and they are less
expensive when we get them through the military.
So I hope there is an opportunity down the road for people
to understand more clearly the benefits of that program, but
also the necessity of the accountability that comes with it.
Ms. DelBene. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back.
Mr. Gowdy. Thank the gentlelady from Washington.
The Chair would now recognize his friend from New York, Mr.
Jeffries.
Mr. Jeffries. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for your
work on criminal justice reform, as well, as we try to work
toward a productive resolution of the challenges we face here
in America.
I think most would agree that, in a democracy, we just need
a balance between effective law enforcement on the one hand and
a healthy respect for the Constitution, for civil rights, and
for civil liberties on the other.
What people want in inner city communities like those I
represent, or as Sheriff Clarke would refer to as the ghetto,
what people want is to make sure that the constitutional
principle of equal protection under the law applies to
everyone. There is concern that, in certain instances, that is
not the case.
The overwhelmingly majority of police officers are
hardworking individuals who are there to protect and serve the
community. That is my position. I believe that is the position
of everyone who is genuinely interested in police reform.
But we cannot ignore the fact that we have a problem in
some instances with excessive use of police force, and the fact
that often it is the case that when a police officer crosses
the line, they are not held accountable by the criminal justice
system. That creates consequences in terms of a distrust in
many communities, perhaps leading to the absence of
cooperation.
Let me start with Sheriff Clarke. You mentioned in your
testimony that Black-on-Black crime is the elephant in the room
that few want to talk about. Is that correct?
Sheriff Clarke. Yes, sir.
Mr. Jeffries. We have had a very robust discussion about it
today. Have you been satisfied? It has come up several times.
Sheriff Clarke. Not at all.
Mr. Jeffries. Okay, you are not satisfied. Now, I agree it
is a problem.
Eighty percent of Whites kill Whites, correct?
Sheriff Clarke. I won't dispute that figure.
Mr. Jeffries. Okay. Actually, it is 83 percent.
Now, is White-on-White violence a problem in America that
we should also have a robust discussion about?
Sheriff Clarke. Mr. Chair, Congressman, violence in
America, in general, is problematic. But if you look at the
rates, that is where it starts coming a little more into
balance in terms of the data I have seen, and I have looked at
a lot of it. The White-on-White crime does happen at the 80
percent figure you put out there, but when you look at the
rates of it, these two are not even close.
Mr. Jeffries. The rates are roughly equivalent in terms of
the context of people who live next to each other, and because
of housing, segregation patterns, or just where people tend to
live in America, ethnic violence, racial violence, tends to
occur within the same group.
So elevating it beyond that fact I think is irresponsible.
We all want to deal with the Black-on-Black violence problem.
It was mentioned that there is a cooperation issue in the
Black-on-Black violence context. I do not think I have heard
the phrase ``blue wall of silence'' mentioned here. So if we
are going to have a conversation about cooperation, when
someone crosses the line, it seems to me to make sense that we
also have to deal with what may be another elephant in the
room, to use your term, Sheriff Clarke, the blue wall of
silence.
The overwhelmingly majority of officers are good officers,
but what often occurs is that when an officer crosses the line,
the ethic is not to cooperate or participate or speak on what a
bad apple officer has done.
Professor Ramirez, would you agree that that is perhaps
something we should also be focused on?
Ms. Ramirez. I think it is a serious problem both at the
Federal and State level.
As I said earlier, in my own experience, in trying to
prosecute police officers, here is just one problem. The FBI
and DEA said we will not even serve subpoenas on a case in
which a police officer is a defendant.
Here is a second problem: They tried to testify in the case
in favor of the police officers, saying that they had made
their own independent evaluation of the case.
This is the case, by the way, that was adjudicated guilty
against all officers, and they were incarcerated for between 10
and 20 years after the trial.
As you know in Boston, we had a problem with the FBI, that
there were FBI agents who were engaged in a series of
misconduct with Whitey Bulger. That went on for many years and
was not prosecuted.
Mr. Jeffries. Thank you, Professor Ramirez. My time is
getting ready to expire.
But, Sheriff Clarke, you also mentioned the use of force
should be examined in terms of factual data and not an
emotional foundation of false narratives. Is that correct? Did
I get your testimony correct in that regard?
Sheriff Clarke. Mr. Chair, Congressman, yes.
Mr. Jeffries. Okay. Now, was the reaction to the Eric
Garner case, who was choked to death using a procedure that had
been banned by the NYPD for more than 20 years, wasn't
resisting arrest, said, ``I can't breathe'' 11 times, 11
different occasions, there was no response by all of the police
officers there, was that a false narrative that people in the
City of New York and the country are reacting to, sir?
Sheriff Clarke. Mr. Chair, Congressman, first of all, he
was not choked to death, not from the report I had seen out of
the grand jury testimony and even from the medical examiner's
report. He wasn't choked to death.
Mr. Jeffries. The medical examiner ruled the death a
homicide by asphyxiation. In the ghetto, that is called being
called choked to death, sir.
Sheriff Clarke. Well, we can have this discussion later on
about the facts, because we could be here for a while. My
understanding is he died of a heart attack, okay?
But anyway, you said he was not resisting arrest. He was
resisting arrest. He was told that he was under arrest and put
his hands behind his back, and he would not do so.
That is why I put in my remarks here, the reference from
Thomas Sowell about when law enforcement officers tell someone
they are under arrest and they cannot use force to execute that
arrest, we do not have the rule of law when it is merely a
suggestion for them that they are going to jail or to put their
hands behind their back.
Those are behaviors, like in the instance of Mike Brown in
Ferguson, Missouri, where some different choices by the
individual could have helped the situation. In other words,
Mike Brown was just simply told to get out of the street.
Mr. Jeffries. Sir, my time has expired. But for you to come
here and testify essentially that Eric Garner is responsible
for his own death when he was targeted by police officers for
allegedly selling loose cigarettes, which is an administrative
violation for which he got the death penalty is outrageous.
If we are going to have a responsible conversation, we have
to at least agree on a common set of reasonable facts that all
Americans interpret, particularly in this instance, because
they caught the whole thing on videotape.
I yield back.
Mr. Gowdy. The Chair thanks his friend from New York.
The Chair will now recognize the gentleman from Texas,
Judge Gohmert.
Mr. Gohmert. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I thank all the witnesses for being here, for your
thoughtfulness. Obviously, you have spent a lot of time on
these issues through your career, rather than just the time
here today.
It is a difficult issue. I saw a report, though, this
morning from the task force. I understand we have a member
here. It quotes the task force as saying, ``The U.S. Department
of Homeland Security should terminate the use of the State and
local criminal justice system, including through detention,
notification, transfer requests, to enforce civil immigration
laws against civil or nonserious criminal offenders.''
I am wondering, to fix the problem that we saw explode
there in Ferguson and in Baltimore, is there anybody, any one
of our witnesses, that thinks preventing State and local law
enforcement officers from notifying the Feds about people
illegally in the country, that that would do anything to solve
the problems in Ferguson or Baltimore? Anybody?
I mean, I am also perplexed, having been a prosecutor, rode
along with law enforcement back in those days, a district judge
handling felonies, a court of appeals chief justice, we had a
real problem with the Federal Government not picking up
criminals. They would tell our local law enforcement this
person is illegally in the country so we have jurisdiction.
This task force makes a comment about nonserious criminal
offenders.
I think it was nine DWIs a fellow had who was in my court.
He finally came to felony court after he hurt and nearly killed
some folks. But I sentenced him to prison because he was not
being deported. And about 6 months later, he is back in my
courtroom because, he said, through the interpreter, well, the
Federal people took me to the border and told me to walk across
the bridge. Then when they left, I came back across. He got
back, got drunk again, in another accident.
I am really having trouble with the task force thinking
this is going to solve any problems with regard to racial
difficulties in our cities.
Perhaps you can help me out here. I know, Ms. Rahr, you had
a really great career. You have served your community, your
country now.
Do you see just having State and local law enforcement to
avoid any discussion about immigration, is that really going to
help problems in our cities?
Ms. Rahr. As I recall, the recommendation does not say
there should be no cooperation. The discussion that we had in
the task force involved the balance of public safety. There are
many communities where there are large groups of undocumented
people living in neighborhoods that commit crimes and are
victimized by crimes. Because there is such a fear of being
deported, a lot of victims do not call the police because they
are afraid of deportation.
This is particularly a problem in domestic violence
situations.
Mr. Gohmert. I know, I saw that same concern by the big
group of people illegally here in the gallery that were trying
to disrupt. I have seen people illegally here in this gallery
disrupting. I did not note a lot of concern about law
enforcement deporting them, because you have to be pretty
ignorant about what is going on in this country to think you
are at risk for deportation.
Anyway, I am more concerned about the victims who are
victims of crime needlessly, if we would enforce at least the
immigration laws on those who commit crimes. We are not doing
it.
What I see is a disregard for law enforcement, because they
are not even going to help because this person is illegally in
the country. So nothing is going to happen to them, and I end
up being the one victimized. I hear that as much as anything.
But I appreciate your sensitivity to these issues. I know
the first couple of murder cases I worked on as a prosecutor,
it was an African-American who shot an African-American in both
cases. They were both in bars. We had people in the community,
including the African-American community, saying, well, they
should not have been there. It is not that big a deal. I found
it offensive then that anybody would care about the race, and
when somebody kills somebody else, it is not big deal.
I am still concerned after all these years. We prosecuted
those. We had concern. We did not care what the race was of the
victim or the defendant. A killing is a killing.
And I am glad that you all care about law enforcement in
America. Thanks for your input.
Mr. Gowdy. The gentleman from Texas yields back.
The Chair will now recognize the gentleman from Rhode
Island, and then the gentleman from Texas after that.
The gentleman from Rhode Island, Mr. Cicilline?
Mr. Cicilline. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Thank you to our witnesses for being here.
I think everybody on this Committee brings their own life
experiences and perspectives here. Before I came to Congress, a
long time ago, I was a criminal defense and civil rights
lawyer. Most of my civil right cases involved claims of police
brutality. I went from that to being Mayor of Providence, where
I was acting public safety commissioner for 8 years overseeing,
obviously, the Providence Police Department, and proud to
report that in those 8 years, we brought the crime rate to its
lowest rate in 40 years.
So I bring my own set of experiences and have deep, deep
respect for law enforcement and for the hard work of dedicated,
good police officers.
And nothing will be seared in my mind more directly than
April 17, 2005, when a police officer was murdered in the
Providence police headquarters. So I understand the hard work
of our police, and I understand the importance of what they do.
I think we do have to focus on systems, which build good
review and detection of police misconduct, good oversight and
civilian reviews, prosecutions, all of that.
But what I want to focus on because the fact is those are
important to do and we have to do them to rebuild trust between
the police and the community. But in many ways, it is too late
when those problems have already occurred.
So what I really want to focus on is what do we do to help
ensure that those kinds of situations do not occur? How do we
build this mutually respectful relationship between police and
community?
I had a police chief who always used to say you should have
a family doctor, a family lawyer, and a family police officer.
We built a community-policing model in which there were
lieutenants that were in charge of a neighborhood. They knew
the residents in that neighborhood. Everyone in that
neighborhood had their cell phone numbers. They were on housing
boards. There were in nonprofits. They became part of the
community. That is what helped result in the lowest crime rate
in 40 years.
So that is good not only for the community but for the
police officers, the good police officers who deserve to have
the respect and trust of their community.
But at the core of this, as my chief used to say, the most
powerful weapon I have, the most powerful piece of equipment,
is the trust of the community. That is the single best tool I
have to reduce crime in the city. We saw the results of that
kind of attitude.
So what I would like to hear from the witnesses, I think
there are two ways to help achieve that kind of paradigm.
Accreditation is one, and community-policing implementation is
the other, not a unit within your department, but the entire
department embracing this attitude of service and guardianship.
So what are the impediments, Mr. Hartley? Providence went
from a department when I took office that was under
investigation by the Department of Justice for patterns and
practice violations and other investigations to an accredited
police department. But that is a hard process.
So is it resources? How can we help more departments go
through this accreditation process, so that we know they have
standards and practices in place that respect this important
balance that was mentioned between keeping communities safe and
respecting the civil rights of individuals? What are the
impediments? What can Congress do to assist many more police
departments to go through that accreditation process?
Mr. Hartley. Thank you. I will tell you, it is a
complicated picture, because, as you know, it costs to be
involved in this programming, so we talked a little bit about
funding to help support organizations that want to pursue that.
I also think it is critically important there is a broader
awareness that there are other resources throughout the law
enforcement and public safety community that exist to help
agencies go through that. If you have been involved in it
yourself, you know there are police accreditation coalitions
out there that bring tremendous resources, because some
organizations simply do not have the capacity to develop policy
to support accreditation itself. So those organizations exist
to help shepherd organizations in that particular direction.
Mr. Cicilline. Should we consider requiring departments
over a certain period of time to at least develop a plan to
reach accreditation? I mean, it is sort of the gold standard of
policing that I think police departments universally aspire to.
But rather than just encourage it, should we be considering
some system where we require departments at least to articulate
a plan to get that place?
Mr. Hartley. I think the requirement to consider how you
might implement it is important, but I also will tell you the
way we are structured to review agencies and assess their
credibility, if you will, does not have investigatory
authority, nor are we seeking that. In some ways, if you
require it, it becomes a regulatory body, which in some ways I
think prevents the integrity of the process from moving forward
effectively, so I want to be cautious about that. But I think
incentives to support organizations moving in that direction is
critically important.
Mr. Cicilline. I have just a few seconds left. I just
wonder if any of the witnesses have any suggestions on how we
might encourage or incentivize departments to really transform
themselves into this community-policing model.
I know, Ms. Ramirez, you talked about a community-policing
institute. But I think the other part of that which no one has
mentioned today is we have to figure out ways to encourage or
require our police departments to ensure they reflect the
diversity of the communities they serve. We have too many
departments across this country that do not look like the
people that they serve. And the value of people coming from the
neighborhood who understand the cultural traditions and social
mores, the different parts of the neighborhood, who are parts
of the community and return back to that neighborhood after
work at night, is incredibly valuable.
I do not know that we have heard enough about how we ensure
police departments reflect the diversity of the communities
they serve.
Ms. Rahr. In my experience, the most important thing to
lead somebody to go into a career of law enforcement is to have
a personal connection to someone who is already a cop. The way
you get that is by building community trust and those
connections.
I know it is very popular to say officers should live in
the communities where they police. In my county, most of our
officers cannot afford to live there, so it is not realistic.
But when you assign a deputy or officer to the same
neighborhood for a long period of time, those connections grow.
When that officer or deputy is rewarded for participating in
the community, not just enforcing the law but also
participating, that connection grows.
It is the anonymity that really is the enemy here.
Mr. Cicilline. Ms. Ramirez, it looks like you wanted to say
something?
Ms. Ramirez. This is on diversifying police departments. I
just wanted to add a fact. In Massachusetts, we have a civil-
service system, and every police department chief who has been
chief while I was there has tried to diversify the police
department. The top scorer in Massachusetts, the person who got
the highest grade on the exam they have to take to be a police
officer, was 328th on the list. The reason for that is a whole
series of preferences, mostly veteran preferences.
I think a lot of the police chiefs are trying to figure out
how they can reform the civil service system such that they can
diversify the police department.
They are stuck. They need some help. Do they need an
inspector general? Do they need a State community justice
institute? Or do they need some fact-finding process that can
look at to what extent there are legal and civil-service
challenges for police chiefs who are trying to diversify their
police departments.
Mr. Gowdy. The Chair thanks the gentleman from Rhode Island
and would now recognize the gentleman from Texas, Judge Poe.
Mr. Poe. I thank the Chairman. I am over here on this end.
I thank all of you for being here.
I am a former prosecutor in Houston, a former judge. I
spent 30 years at the courthouse. I tried people who assaulted
and killed police officers, both as a prosecutor and a judge.
And I have tried cases as a prosecutor of police officers who
have killed individuals and charged with violation of the law.
So I have seen both sides of this perspective for a long time,
having only tried criminal cases.
Sheriff, I will start with you. Do you have any idea how
many arrests, felony arrests, are made a year by police
agencies in the country?
Sheriff Clarke. No, I do not.
Mr. Poe. Would you care to guess?
Sheriff Clarke. No.
Mr. Poe. I do not have any idea either. Does anyone know
how many arrests are made by police officers?
Sheriff Clarke. Mr. Chair and Congressman, it is available
through the Bureau of Justice Statistics, and I believe the FBI
would probably have some data on that as well.
Mr. Poe. Okay, we will find that out then.
Would you say or not the vast majority of those encounters
with the police and a citizen are done according to the rule of
law on the part of the peace officer?
Sheriff Clarke. Without a doubt.
Mr. Poe. How many would you say are not, there is some
violation of the law, some violation of the rights of the
accused in those felony cases?
Sheriff Clarke. Averages is what I am basing that on.
Mr. Poe. So what would it be?
Sheriff Clarke. I wouldn't care to assign a number to it,
because I do not know.
Mr. Poe. Is it the majority or minority?
Sheriff Clarke. It is very low.
Mr. Poe. It seems to me that any police agency needs to
have a plan for all circumstances. Would you agree with that or
not? Some type of response, community policing, a protocol,
whether it is a 101 arrest.
I will give you an example. I am sure you are familiar with
the event that took place in Waco, the town of the Chairman's
alma mater, Baylor, this weekend, where you have five gangs,
motorcycle gangs, three of which, the Cossacks, the Bandidos,
and the Mongols, all assembled together in a place.
Trouble ensued. Shots are fired. And a dozen police
officers are there. Nine people are killed. Others are wounded.
But the shooting stopped.
The police, 11, 12 police officers, maybe a few more,
arrested 170 individuals.
Do you think that having a plan to respond to that type of
situation is important for a local police agency to have?
Apparently they did, they had some plan involved.
Sheriff Clarke. Without a doubt, but I also think that in
the moments leading up to that, the question I had was what
kind of intelligence they had or information that this thing
was going to go down, just in terms of these rival groups
coming together.
Mr. Poe. I am sure they had lots of intelligence. It
appears they had intelligence. To me, that is part of a plan,
is it not, to respond based on the intel you get that something
may take place?
Sheriff Clarke. Right, and part of that response really
needs to be the preplanning, pre-staging, pre-marshaling of
resources. When you have that many individuals coming together,
you cannot just have a handful of officers. You do not have
time to wait for calling in reinforcements. The planning is
huge.
Mr. Poe. No matter what the situation is, whether it is
going to be a big event or small event, police planning and
response so that the rule of law is followed, no matter the
circumstances, is a good idea for policing, is it not?
Sheriff Clarke. It is critical, yes.
Mr. Poe. Okay. How many peace officers were killed in the
line of duty last year?
Sheriff Clarke. Last year? I know they added 238 names to
the wall here at the national. Some of those were previous
years, though. I do know that it is up nearly 90 percent so far
in the first quarter of this year, around 54 officers killed in
the line of duty. So the exact total out of that 238 for last
year, I do not have.
Mr. Poe. I have more questions. I will submit them in
writing, Mr. Chairman. Thank you.
Mr. Gowdy. Thank you, Your Honor.
The gentleman from Texas yields back.
The Chair will now recognize the gentlelady from Texas, who
has a unanimous consent motion.
Ms. Jackson Lee. May I, in unanimous consent, just say one
or two points, Mr. Chairman?
First of all, let me ask the Chairman to have unanimous
consent to enter into the record the following documents: a
statement and testimony from the American Civil Liberties
Union; a statement from the National Urban League; Executive
Order 13688, which provides Federal standards for acquisition
of military equipment; a letter from myself, Mr. Scott, Mr.
Cohen, and Mr. Conyers, requesting a hearing in 2014; and then
an article entitled, ``Law Enforcement's 'Warrior' Problem,''
to be added into the record.*
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*Note: The submitted material is not printed in this hearing record
but is on file with the Committee. Also, see Submissions for the Record
by Rep. Jackson Lee at:
http://docs.house.gov/Committee/Calendar/
ByEvent.aspx?EventID=103474.
Mr. Gowdy. Without objection.
Ms. Jackson Lee. And then, Mr. Chairman, if I might, just
in thanking the witnesses, just make one simple comment. That
is, I want to express to all of you the significance of your
testimony, and that the Judiciary Committee, through our
Chairman and Ranking Member, and those of us who work on these
issues, are very serious about coming forward in the spirit of
recognizing the pain of an officer's death, and the pain of a
civilian's confusion and apprehension about police, and maybe
even their death.
Frankly, I believe we can find that common ground. I hope
you will allow us to inquire of you. We did not get to question
everyone. I hope you will make yourself resources as we go
forward to address a mother's pain, and as well as find that
even place.
And I end my remarks by quoting a philosopher, Johann
Wolfgang von Goethe. ``Treat people as if they were what they
should be, and you help them become what they are capable of
becoming.'' Justice Hand said, ``If we are to keep our
democracy, there must be one commandment.'' And, Sheriff
Clarke, I think this is what you are speaking of. ``Thou shall
not ration justice.''
Everyone deserves justice. We do not deny your officers
justice, and we have to let the civilian population, no matter
who they are, know that they will get justice.
That is what this Committee's purpose is. I hope that we
will have more provocative hearings, maybe those who have lost
loved ones, maybe young people who are raising the signs
because of their passion of ``Black lives matter,'' ``all lives
matter,'' ``hands up, don't shoot,'' and as well, ``I can't
breathe.'' Let us give all of those people dignity.
This hearing has been one to give all of us, including,
Sheriff, all the men and women you represent.
I yield back to the Chairman.
Mr. Gowdy. The gentlelady yields back.
On behalf of Mr. Conyers and the entire Committee, I want
to thank our panel of witnesses for your expertise, for your
experience, your life experience, your perspective, your
collegiality, not only with one another but also with the
Members of the Committee.
I could not help but think while Judge Poe was talking, and
Tommy Marino and Mr. Richmond and Mr. Jeffries, that we are all
in part beneficiary but also part prisoner of our own
background, our own experience. Prosecutors may not have the
benefit of a judicial view like Judge Poe has. Or what Cedric
described growing up is something that I would not have
experienced growing up.
So I think it is a good idea for us, to the extent we can,
to rely upon the experiences of other people, well-intentioned
people.
There were a lot of issues raised, all of which are
important. The issue I hope we can have another Committee
hearing on, at some point--I think, Hakeem, Mr. Jeffries from
New York, touched upon it--the failure to cooperate on that end
impacts the prosecution of police officers who have done wrong.
I saw the failure to cooperate in the faces of moms and
dads who are trying to get justice for their murdered young
people, because other witnesses would not cooperate.
I think we all want a justice system that is respected. In
fact, we have to have a justice system that is respected or we
will not make it.
So I hope this is the first of many hearings.
Again, on behalf of Mr. Conyers, and all the other Members
who participated, we want to thank you for your participation.
This concludes today's hearing. Without objection, all
Members will 5 legislative days to submit additional written
questions for the witnesses or additional materials for the
record.
With that, thank you very much. We are adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 1:07 p.m., the Committee was adjourned.]
A P P E N D I X
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Material Submitted for the Hearing Record
Letter from Rabbi Meyer H. May, Executive Director,
Simon Wiesenthal Center
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Response to Questions for the Record from David A. Clarke, Jr.,
Sheriff, Milwaukee County Sheriff's Office, Milwaukee, WI
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Response to Questions for the Record from W. Craig Hartley, Jr.,
Executive Director, Commission on Accreditation of Law Enforcement
Agencies
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Response to Questions for the Record from Susan Rahr, Executive
Director, Washington State Criminal Justice Training Commission and
Member of President Obama's Task Force on 21st Century Policing
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Response to Questions for the Record from Matthew Barge, Vice President
& Deputy Director, Police Assessment Resource Center (PARC)
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Response to Questions for the Record from Deborah A. Ramirez,
Professor of Law, Northeastern University School of Law, Boston, MA
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]