[Senate Hearing 114-874]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
S. Hrg. 114-874
THE WAR ON POLICE: HOW THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT
UNDERMINES STATE AND LOCAL LAW ENFORCEMENT
=======================================================================
HEARING
BEFORE THE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT, AGENCY
ACTION, FEDERAL RIGHTS
AND FEDERAL COURTS
OF THE
COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY
UNITED STATES SENATE
ONE HUNDRED FOURTEENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
NOVEMBER 17, 2015
__________
Serial No. J-114-39
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on the Judiciary
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
www.judiciary.senate.gov
www.govinfo.gov
U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
52-542 WASHINGTON : 2025
COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY
CHARLES E. GRASSLEY, Iowa, Chairman
ORRIN G. HATCH, Utah PATRICK J. LEAHY, Vermont, Ranking
JEFF SESSIONS, Alabama Member
LINDSEY O. GRAHAM, South Carolina DIANNE FEINSTEIN, California
JOHN CORNYN, Texas CHARLES E. SCHUMER, New York
MICHAEL S. LEE, Utah RICHARD J. DURBIN, Illinois
TED CRUZ, Texas SHELDON WHITEHOUSE, Rhode Island
JEFF FLAKE, Arizona AMY KLOBUCHAR, Minnesota
DAVID VITTER, Louisiana AL FRANKEN, Minnesota
DAVID PERDUE, Georgia CHRISTOPHER A. COONS, Delaware
THOM TILLIS, North Carolina RICHARD BLUMENTHAL, Connecticut
Kolan L. Davis, Republican Chief Counsel and Staff Director
Kristine Lucius, Democratic Chief Counsel and Staff Director
.........................................................
SUBCOMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT, AGENCY ACTION,
FEDERAL RIGHTS AND FEDERAL COURTS
TED CRUZ, Texas, Chairman
CHARLES E. GRASSLEY, Iowa CHRISTOPHER A. COONS, Delaware,
ORRIN G. HATCH, Utah Ranking Member
JEFF SESSIONS, Alabama DIANNE FEINSTEIN, California
JEFF FLAKE, Arizona RICHARD J. DURBIN, Illinois
LINDSEY O. GRAHAM, South Carolina CHARLES E. SCHUMER, New York
MICHAEL S. LEE, Utah SHELDON WHITEHOUSE, Rhode Island
DAVID VITTER, Louisiana AMY KLOBUCHAR, Minnesota
RICHARD BLUMENTHAL, Connecticut
Ryan Newman, Republican Chief Counsel and Staff Director
Ted Schroeder, Democratic Chief Counsel and Staff Director
C O N T E N T S
----------
OPENING STATEMENTS
Page
Cruz, Hon. Ted................................................... 1
Coons, Hon. Christopher A........................................ 3
WITNESSES
Alexander, Cedric L.............................................. 29
Prepared statement........................................... 53
Davis, Ronald L.................................................. 9
Prepared statement........................................... 61
Driscoll, Robert N............................................... 31
Prepared statement........................................... 68
Responses to written questions............................... 144
Gupta, Vanita.................................................... 7
Prepared statement........................................... 76
Responses to written questions............................... 126
Ifill, Sherrilyn................................................. 26
Prepared statement........................................... 82
Mac Donald, Heather.............................................. 24
Prepared statement........................................... 93
Questions submitted with no response returned................ 149
McCarthy, Andrew C............................................... 33
Prepared statement........................................... 96
Responses to written questions............................... 140
Walters, John P.................................................. 27
Prepared statement........................................... 121
Responses to written questions............................... 141
APPENDIX
Items submitted for the record................................... 155
THE WAR ON POLICE: HOW THE
FEDERAL GOVERNMENT UNDERMINES
STATE AND LOCAL LAW ENFORCEMENT
----------
TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 17, 2015
United States Senate,
Subcommittee on Oversight, Agency Action,
Federal Rights, and Federal Courts,
Committee on the Judiciary,
Washington, DC.
The Subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 2:24 p.m., in
Room 226, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Ted Cruz,
Chairman of the Subcommittee, presiding.
Present: Senators Cruz [presiding], Sessions, Lee, Coons,
Durbin, Whitehouse, Klobuchar, and Blumenthal.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. TED CRUZ,
A U.S. SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF TEXAS
Chairman Cruz. This hearing will come to order. Welcome to
everyone here. Welcome to the witnesses in the first panel, and
welcome to those who have come to participate in this hearing.
The purpose of this hearing is to look at the challenges
facing the brave men and women of law enforcement. A great many
of us have been growing more and more concerned at seeing
police officers the subject of public vilification, seeing
police officers being undermined, and hearing from police
officers across this country that they are less and less able
to do their jobs, that they feel their hands are tied, that
they are scared if they engage in proactive policing in the
community to keep the community safe that they risk being
personally hung out to dry, that they risk seeing their
careers, their livelihoods destroyed, that they risk seeing
their family held up for public condemnation.
And, sadly, the consequences of this are significant. The
men and women of law enforcement risk their life each and every
day. Police officers go into dangerous neighborhoods with
criminals, and every day they are taking a risk that their life
may be lost protecting the community.
If the police are intimidated, if they are scared, if they
are not willing to do their jobs, we know the result. The
result is the loss of life. The result is rising crime.
Some recent headlines underscore the consequences of this.
Just 3 days ago, the Washington Post reported that homicides
have risen in several U.S. cities this year. This, quote,
``dramatic surge in killings'' has been confirmed as well by
media outlets as diverse as USA Today, National Review, The
Economist, the New York Times, and the Wall Street Journal.
Indeed, here in the Nation's Capitol, according to the
Washington Post, there have been 143 homicides so far this
year. That is 53 more homicides than at the same point last
year.
Nearby, Baltimore has suffered even worse. Baltimore has
now suffered over 300 homicides this year. This gruesome
milestone, the Washington Post lamented, resembles the violence
Baltimore experienced decades ago.
Similar homicide statistics can be found in Milwaukee, in
St. Louis, in New Orleans, in Chicago, in cities across the
country. And of a great deal of concern to law enforcement. The
number of law enforcement officers killed through acts of
violence had been on a precipitous upswing, according to The
Hill, in an article published this past May. Specifically, the
officers killed in 2014 was nearly double those killed in 2013.
James Comey, the current Director of the Federal Bureau of
Investigation, has been vocal about his concerns over crime
trends. Director Comey has expressed the view that excessive,
unjust scrutiny of State and local law enforcement may be
contributing to this trend.
Now, everyone here agreed that we should enforce the law
and we should vigorously enforce America's civil rights laws.
In any government organization, there can be bad actors. In any
large group of people, there can be individuals who choose to
violate the law. And anyone who chooses to violate the law
should be held accountable.
But in my view, it is deeply harmful not only for the men
and women of law enforcement but for the safety of the American
people for the Federal Government to treat police officers as
the enemy, for the President or the Attorney General to be
holding up police officers for vilification.
I will say I was particularly disappointed last year when
President Obama nominated an individual to serve as the head of
the Civil Rights Division who had previously represented an
admitted cop killer--and had not just represented him but had
represented him pro bono, for free, and had lionized and
celebrated this cop killer.
Now, every individual in a criminal proceeding is entitled
to representation, but those that you go out of the way to
volunteer your time for for free and those who you lionize and
celebrate reveal a great deal about your beliefs and where you
stand.
I would note I was planned--proud to stand with others,
including Pennsylvania Senator Pat Toomey, in helping lead the
fight against confirming that nominee to the Justice
Department. And it is worth noting that even with a Democrat
Senate, even under the leadership of then-Majority Leader Harry
Reid, the Senate refused to confirm that nominee as a number of
Democrats joined the Republicans in saying we should not have a
senior official in the Justice Department be an individual who
has chosen to celebrate and lionize a murderer who has murdered
police officers.
It was a few months ago that I attended the funeral in my
hometown of Houston for Deputy Goforth. Deputy Goforth was shot
at a gas station in an act of violence that I believe was a
manifestation of the growing antipathy directed at law
enforcement. And I will note that funeral service was an
incredible and powerful funeral service. It was held at Second
Baptist Church in Houston. Dr. Ed Young provided the eulogy. It
was an incredible sight to sit in the sanctuary and to see
thousands upon thousands of police officers filling that
sanctuary. Everywhere you could see were men and women dressed
in blue, in their dress uniforms there to honor that fallen
officer.
Dr. Young in the eulogy powerfully observed that in the Old
Testament, the Levis, the priests, wore blue. And he drew from
the Lord's Prayer to describe the core mission of police and,
indeed, in particular, one--one phrase in the Lord's Prayer,
``Deliver us from evil,'' which Dr. Young rightly observed, if
he were to sum up the mission statement of a police officer, it
would be difficult to do so more effectively or more succinctly
than ``deliver us from evil.''
I believe every one of us, Republican and Democrat, should
stand unequivocally with the brave men and women of law
enforcement. I do not believe it is beneficial for this country
to have a culture where the men and women of law enforcement
feel under siege.
I will note there was a seminal moment in this country when
the members of the NYPD stood and turned their back on Mayor de
Blasio. That was a moment I believe penetrated to the heart of
millions of Americans. What on Earth are we doing when senior
Government officials are treating the police officers as the
bad guys?
This hearing is to discuss the challenges facing police
officers, the degree to which they have been vilified publicly,
and the consequences we are facing in terms of innocent men and
women facing crime, facing murder, lives that have been lost
because the police have been unable to do their job. And I
appreciate everyone for being here for this hearing. I
recognize Senator Coons.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. CHRISTOPHER A. COONS,
A U.S. SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF DELAWARE
Senator Coons. Thank you, Chairman Cruz, and thank you for
the opportunity today to discuss the core issue of how it is
that we can simultaneously honor and respect the constitutional
rights, the civil liberties, the civil rights that are the very
foundation of our constitutional order while still securing
peace and safety, how it is that the law enforcement officers
with whom I had the honor of serving in county government for a
decade can meet their call to not just, as has been put,
``deliver us from evil,'' but to actually protect and serve.
While I do think we have an important topic before us
today, the title of the hearing, quote, ``The War on Police''
unquote, reflects unfortunately, I think, more overheated
rhetoric, all too common in Congress when discussing complex
policy matters rather than any on-the-ground reality. And it is
belied by the fact that there are no law enforcement leaders
testifying today, despite there being more than 17,000 law
enforcement agencies in the United States, in support of the
proposition that there exists a war on police being waged by
the Federal Government. In fact, we will hear from two chiefs
of police to the opposite.
My hope is that today's hearing can be an opportunity to
have a constructive, broader discussion about public safety in
our Nation and the critical need for meaningful support from
the Federal Government for State and local law enforcement and
for the vigorous and appropriate enforcement of civil rights.
When I first arrived in the Senate in November 2011, I
looked through the very long list of caucuses already in
existence and discovered none of them was dedicated to the
issues of law enforcement. So, I was pleased to join with
Republican Senator Blunt of Missouri and establish the Law
Enforcement Caucus, which continues on a bipartisan basis to
meaningfully educate Members and staff on the real issues
facing State and local law enforcement and their relationship
with the Federal Government and to advocate for the brave men
and women of law enforcement.
I am pleased our caucus includes a strongly bipartisan
group of 26 Senators--14 Democrats and 12 Republicans--and will
invite the Chair, should he be so inclined, to join us at some
point. Together we work to ensure State and local law
enforcement has a voice in Congress as we honor our commitment
to public safety by supporting programs like the COPS Hiring
Program and the Byrne Justice Assistance Grant.
One of our first events as a caucus in May 2012 discussed
the Bulletproof Vest Partnership, a program which has literally
saved the lives of over 3,000 law enforcement officers,
including two in the New Castle County courthouse in my home
town of Wilmington. I was honored to work with the champion of
the legislation to reauthorize this program, Ranking Member
Leahy. We have also held events that focus on the resources
shared between Federal, State, and local law enforcement, such
as Regional Information Sharing Services, funded by the
Department of Justice, that provides critical equipment and
specialized services that local law enforcement needs but most
often can't afford.
I think these are the sorts of meaningful actions to really
support law enforcement that we could and should be discussing
today. So, at this time, I would like to enter into the record
11 letters, all bipartisan, which have represented the strong
and continued interest by many Senators, myself include, in
supporting Federal programs critical to the success of State
and local law enforcement.
[The information appears as a submission for the record.]
Senator Coons. More recently, 4 weeks ago we welcome law
enforcement leaders from Delaware and Missouri to a Law
Enforcement Caucus event as they discussed their work improving
the relationship between law enforcement and the communities
they serve. It was a productive conversation that highlighted
the successes and challenges in implementing modern community
policing programs.
Which brings us to our topic today: the need to protect the
civil liberties and constitutional rights of every American
while providing the public safety services that are the core
responsibility of Government. We cannot choose between these
objectives. We must work to achieve both.
The role of the Department of Justice is both to support
State and local law enforcement and protect the constitutional
rights of every American, which sometimes requires
intervention. The statute enforced by the Civil Rights
Division, Section 14141, was enacted in 1994 as part of the
Violent Crime Control Act and was inspired by national outrage
over the beating of Rodney King in Los Angeles after a high-
speed car chase. This provision ensures there can be no pattern
or practice that deprives any of our constituents of the
rights, privileges, and immunities secured under the
Constitution. The idea that enforcement of this statute, which
literally cribs from, is drawn from our foundational documents,
represents somehow a war on police is, I think, contrary to our
ideals as a Nation.
Of course, implementation of any statute, including this
important one, requires effort and oversight, so I welcome the
testimony of Ms. Gupta, and I look forward--and I look forward
to exploring with her how we can work together to further
advance the twin goals of public safety and civil rights.
We are aided in this effort by recent reporting, as the
Chairman referenced, from the Washington Post and the PBS
series ``Frontline'' in their joint investigation of police
departments that have undergone reforms, and I will share just
one of many case studies that I think are illustrative.
The Justice Department launched investigations of the
Prince Georges County Police Department after dogs in its K-9
unit inflicted 800 bites over 7 years, and there were 47
officer-involved shootings resulting in death. The reforms the
Justice Department required included provisions that
supervisors approve the use of police dogs and that a board be
established to review officer-involved shootings.
PG County Chief of Police, Mark Magaw, a department
veteran, was recently quoted in this very article saying,
quote, ``It was a painful time, there is no question about it.
But both of these agreements have made us better as a police
agency hands down.'' The article then notes the number of
complaints to the NAACP regarding excessive police force have
been reduced dramatically from nearly 15 calls a month to just
1 or 2.
I would also suggest to anyone watching at home and to the
Chairman and Members of this Committee they might read a
helpful report that just came out of a summit organized by the
Police Executive Research Forum, or PERF, entitled ``Civil
Rights Investigations of Local Police: Lessons Learned.'' The
summit included police representatives from agencies all over
this country, and I ask that that full report be included in
this hearing record.
[The information appears as a submission for the record.]
Senator Coons. The report points specifically to the new
Collaborative Reform Initiative from the COPS Office, and I
look forward to hearing Chief Davis' testimony on the state of
that initiative today. I will briefly share one story from that
instructive report.
The Las Vegas Review Journal published a series of articles
on officer-involved shootings by the Las Vegas Metropolitan
Police and raised questions about accountability. In response
to those articles, then-COPS Office Director Bernard Melekian
contacted Sheriff Doug Gillespie and offered the assistance of
the COPS Office in developing reforms, in policy and
procedures, training and tactics, investigation and
documentation. Sheriff Gillespie sent a team of his executive
command leaders to Washington to meet with the COPS Office and
its leaders and to discuss the proposal. They reached an
agreement, and 10 months later, in November 2012, the COPS
Office released a full report detailing its findings, and I
think all engaged have concluded this was a constructive and
positive advance in both policing and civil rights.
As the most visible form of Government, law enforcement
officers are at the front line of our responsibility to
safeguard constitutional rights while ensuring public safety.
It is unsurprising they are held to a very high standard given
the tremendous responsibility we empower them with in our
constitutional order. It is also why I believe when certain
commentators talk about a so-called Ferguson effect with no
evidentiary support, it is insulting to the brave men and women
who do get out of their cars, who do put themselves on the line
each and every day to protect communities across this country.
I am not alone in that sentiment, and I might close with a
quote from one of law enforcement's most important voices, a
recent statement by national president of the Fraternal Order
of Police, Chuck Canterbury, who, in response to comments by
FBI Director Comey, stated:
``First, in rejecting FBI Director Comey's claim that when
politicians use their police to deal with years of inequities
and urban blight and do nothing to try and build a better life
for their citizens, then it is these politicians and not the
police who have failed their citizens. Law enforcement is
generally left to deal with all the issues that other parts of
government tend to avoid.''
And a closing quote, if I might, from FOP President
Canterbury: ``Police officers have not been chilled and have
not stopped responding to calls, especially high-priority calls
that involve violence. This is evidenced by the fact 32
officers have been killed by firearms in the line of duty
already this year. Officers who are killed or injured in the
line of duty do not speak to a lack of engagement. It shows
real engagement.''
With that in mind, I would like to thank all of the
witnesses from both panels for their time today and my
colleagues for their interest in working together to support
State and local law enforcement. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Cruz. Thank you, Senator Coons.
I would now like to introduce our first two witnesses. Ms.
Vanita Gupta currently serves at the Department of Justice as
the Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General and the head of
the Civil Rights Division. A graduate of Yale and New York
University School of Law, Ms. Gupta has previously worked for
both the NAACP and the ACLU while also serving as an adjunct
clinical professor.
And Mr. Ronald Davis is also with the Department of
Justice. He serves as the Director of the DOJ's Community
Oriented Policing Services, COPS Office, and he is also the
Executive Director of the President's Task Force on 21st
Century Policing. A graduate of Southern Illinois, Mr. Davis
has a lengthy and distinguished law enforcement career in
California before joining the Department of Justice.
I would ask each of the witnesses to please rise and raise
your right hand. Do you affirm that the testimony you are about
to give before the Committee will be the truth, the whole
truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God?
Ms. Gupta. I do.
Mr. Davis. I do.
[Witnesses are sworn in.]
Chairman Cruz. Thank you. Ms. Gupta, you may begin.
STATEMENT OF VANITA GUPTA, PRINCIPAL
DEPUTY ASSISTANT ATTORNEY GENERAL, CIVIL
RIGHTS DIVISION, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF
JUSTICE, WASHINGTON, DC
Ms. Gupta. Chairman Cruz, Ranking Member Coons, and
distinguished Members of the Committee, good afternoon. Thank
you for the opportunity to participate in today's hearing and
to share with you the Justice Department's efforts to support
State and local law enforcement and to promote constitutional
policing and public safety.
Our Nation is in the midst of an important conversation
about policing and the relationship between law enforcement
agencies and the communities they serve. As part of this
conversation, we must all recognize the dedication and bravery
of America's law enforcement officers. They put themselves in
harm's way every day to keep the rest of us safe.
We must also recognize the pain in communities subjected to
excessive force, discriminatory policing, or other misconduct.
We are committed to working together to restore trust between
law enforcement officers and community members where it has
eroded.
We all want the same things: safe streets, officers who
come home safely every night, and the protection of the rights
of all people to be treated fairly and justly. We want thriving
communities in which residents and law enforcement officers
work hand in hand to ensure peace and safety. Mistrust between
police and citizens, however, breaks down collaboration. It
impedes the sharing of information, and it leads to less
effective policing. This is dangerous for everyone--for
residents and officers alike.
The Justice Department is committed to supporting State and
local law enforcement and to strengthening local communities
through funding for more officers and vital equipment, through
training and research, and at times through the investigation
of misconduct. Let no one mistake this. The overwhelming
majority of women and men who police our streets do their jobs
with honor, pride, and distinction. They are driven to the
police academy out of a commitment to public service and a
desire to make an impact in their communities. And as several
recent assassinations of police officers remind us, they do all
of this at considerable risk to themselves.
Moreover, the vast majority of law enforcement agencies
police their communities professionally, successfully, and
within the bounds of the law. As Congress has recognized,
however, there are times when the federal government has a role
to play in protecting Americans' constitutional rights. The
Department's Civil Rights Division has long-standing authority
to investigate individual officers for criminal violations of
constitutional rights. And in carrying out this mandate, we are
committed to impartial, fact-driven investigations. This means
pursuing criminal charges when the evidence supports them and
closing cases when they do not.
In addition, Congress in 1994 charged the Division with the
responsibility to investigate law enforcement agencies for a
pattern or practice of conduct that violates the Constitution
or Federal statutes and to develop remedies to eliminate such
misconduct where it is found.
During the last 20 years, we have incorporated lessons
learned into our work and continually strive to achieve
constitutional policing and promote public safety in the most
effective and collaborative manner possible.
As part of these civil investigations, we speak directly
with line officers and learn firsthand what challenges they
face in their jobs and on the streets and what changes they
think are necessary. They report often a lack of adequate
support, training, and even equipment to keep themselves and
their communities safe. And the truth is really that we ask
more of our police officers than anyone can reasonably expect.
Daily, they encounter people in crisis, people struggling with
mental illness, alcohol and drug addiction, anger management
problems, all social problems that they never envisioned
consuming up so much of their time.
In pursuing remedies then, we aim to ensure that officers
receive the equipment, the tools, the specialized training that
they need to do their jobs consistent with the Constitution and
the law. And we also strive to provide them with critically
important professional support to cope with the stress and
trauma that they encounter on the job.
The remedies that we seek--clearer policy, modernized data
systems, better training, closer supervision, fairer
accountability mechanisms, and more positive community
engagement--are substantially informed by the input of policing
experts and the work of professional police organizations, such
as the Police Executive Research Forum, the International
Association of Chiefs of Police, and the Major Cities Chiefs
Association. And I routinely engage with these groups and
others, such as the Fraternal Order of Police, the National
Association of Police Organizations, and the National Sheriffs
Association to ensure that we take into account their expertise
and their experiences.
And informed by these perspectives and the perspectives of
the community, the Civil Rights Division's reform agreements
are helping to reduce unnecessary force, ensure bias-free
policing, enhance public safety efforts, and strengthen the
relationship between police departments and the communities
they serve. From Portland, Oregon, to East Haven, Connecticut,
from Seattle to Missoula, we are seeing meaningful change in
building trust.
Thank you for the opportunity to discuss this important
work at this very critical moment. I look forward to answering
your questions.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Gupta appears as a
submission for the record.]
Chairman Cruz. Thank you, Ms. Gupta. Mr. Davis.
STATEMENT OF RONALD L. DAVIS, DIRECTOR,
OFFICE OF COMMUNITY ORIENTED POLICING
SERVICES, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE,
WASHINGTON, DC
Mr. Davis. Thank you, Senator. Good afternoon, Chairman
Cruz, Ranking Member Coons, and distinguished Members of the
Committee. Thank you for this opportunity to discuss the many
ways in which the Department of Justice is providing valuable
support and resources to the Nation's 800,000 law enforcement
officers in the more than 16,000 local, State, and Tribe--
Tribal police agencies and sheriffs' offices across the
country.
I come to you today not just as the Director of the
Department's Office of Community Oriented Policing Services,
also known as COPS, but as one who has spent close to 30 years
as a local police officer. I served 20 years in the Oakland
Police Department, rising to the rank of captain, and close to
9 years as police chief for the city of East Palo Alto,
California. For me, Senators, the decision to become a cop was
a very easy one. I simply followed my father's footsteps, who
served 25 years on the Philadelphia Police Department.
I can tell you as a 30-year, second-generation cop, there
is no greater, more noble profession than policing, and I can
also tell you without hesitation that the men and women who
answer this calling are truly America's finest. As you can
imagine the great satisfaction it brings me to lead the COPS
Office and to work for the Justice Department, an agency that
provides tremendous support to local, State, and Tribal law
enforcement.
For example, since 2009, COPS has awarded over $2 billion
in hiring grants to create and preserve more than 10,000 police
officer and deputy positions in nearly 2,600 law enforcement
agencies across this country. For some agencies, providing
funding for just one officer may mean the difference in having
a full shift and making sure all officers have sufficient cover
and safety.
COPS also supports the development of effective crime-
fighting initiatives. As a former police chief, I have
implemented several of these initiatives which contributed to
dramatic reductions in murders in my city, a city that was once
dubbed ``the murder capital of the United States.''
Over the past 20 years, COPS has been providing training to
over 700,000 officers and deputies and supports valuable
research, releasing publications on a wide range of issues from
homeland security to reducing gang violence to building
community trust to enhancing officer safety and wellness. These
publications are extremely critical to the field because, as
you know, most agencies have fewer than 50 officers and do not
have the capacity to conduct this research on their own.
Just last month, COPS released two valuable research
reports--one addressing ambush attacks against police, and
another presenting models for protecting the physical and
psychological health of police officers. These reports will
enhance officer safety and save lives.
Through our executive session, COPS brings together the
best and the brightest minds in the field to tackle issues such
as crime and violence, preventing violent extremism, handling
mass casualty events, use of force, and officer safety. The
information gleaned from these sessions is then distributed to
the field.
Another way in which we help the field is through our COPS
Collaborative Reform Initiative. At the law enforcement
agencies' request, COPS examines key operational areas within
an agency, such as training, internal investigations, use of
force, and racial profiling, and provides recommendations that
we believe will enhance community trust and public safety. The
COPS Office then works closely with the agency in implementing
these recommendations.
As was mentioned in the introduction, the Las Vegas Police
Department was the first to complete this process, and we now
have collaborative reform efforts under way in Spokane,
Philadelphia, St. Louis County, Salinas, Calexico, and
Fayetteville, with the latest coming last week from the
Milwaukee police chief.
This voluntary process has received support from the Civil
Rights Division and my esteemed colleague next to me, Ms.
Vanita--Vanita Gupta. It is considered in some cases a viable
option, when appropriate, over a pattern and practice
investigation.
Through our cattle grants, COPS works with and supports the
major law enforcement organizations in addressing key
challenges facing law enforcement ranging from the use of force
to animal cruelty to leadership development to mentoring and
also safety and wellness. COPS also funds a critical response
for technical assistance program that offers immediate real-
time assistance to agencies dealing with major public safety
incidences and crises.
For example, within days of the start of the mass
demonstrations in Ferguson, COPS was able to connect regional
police leaders with police executives with vast experience in
dealing with similar issues. We have provided support to nearly
a dozen agencies at their request and will continue to do so.
And as with all COPS projects, the lessons learned from these
cities are then shared with the over 16,000 law enforcement
agencies throughout the United States.
This year, the COPS Office also served and provided
administrative support to the President's Task Force on 21st
Century Policing, a task force comprised of law enforcement and
community leaders which issued 59 recommendations to help
agencies and communities build trust and advance public safety.
While policing is primarily a local issue, it is clear the
Federal Government has a critical role to play in helping our
local law enforcement agencies respond to the challenges of
policing in the 21st century. Under the leadership of President
Obama and Attorney General Lynch, the Department of Justice has
made supporting law enforcement one of the--one of the
administration's top priorities. As a career police officer, I
know firsthand just how important this support is, and I can
say without hesitation that the men and women at the Justice
Department make this their priority every day.
Thank you, Senators, and I look forward to your questions.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Davis appears as a
submission for the record.]
Chairman Cruz. Thank you very much, both of you, for coming
and testifying here today.
On October 13th, I sent a letter to the Attorney General
requesting some basic information about both the closed and the
ongoing Civil Rights Division investigations of State and local
law enforcement agencies, including municipal police
departments. Yesterday, Monday, November 16th, the Department
of Justice responded to that letter, and without objection, I
will move both the letter and the response into the record.
[The information appears as a submission for the record.]
Chairman Cruz. In response to our questions on this topic,
the Department of Justice listed 16 State and local law
enforcement agencies that have had investigations opened
against them since January 1, 2011. Those agencies are the
Albuquerque Police Department; the Baltimore Police Department;
the Cleveland Division of Police; the Colorado City/Hilldale;
Arizona, Marshals Office; the Evangeline Parish, Louisiana,
Sheriff's Office; the Ferguson Police Department; the Los
Angeles Sheriff's Department; the Meridian, Mississippi, Police
Department; the Miami Police Department; the Missoula County
Attorney's Office; the Missoula Police Department; the Newark
Police Department; the Portland, Oregon, Police Bureau; the
Seattle Police Department; the University of Montana Office of
Public Safety, and the Ville Platte, Louisiana, Police
Department. The letter also mentions that 9 of these 16
investigations have been closed via consent decree or
settlements while 7 remain open.
Are there any additional open investigations against State
or local law enforcement agencies currently in the Civil Rights
Division?
Ms. Gupta. No. The ones that we listed are the ones that
are actively ongoing.
Chairman Cruz. So, there are no additional investigations
that are open?
Ms. Gupta. No, not to my knowledge.
Chairman Cruz. I want to turn for a moment to a case that
has become known as the Danziger Bridge case. I suspect it is a
case you are quite familiar with.
Ms. Gupta. I am familiar with it, yes, Senator.
Chairman Cruz. Can you summarize for this Committee the
Department's conduct in the Danziger Bridge case?
Ms. Gupta. Certainly, Senator, and first, thank you for
the--for the question. The Danziger Bridge case involved
significant prosecutorial misconduct that was found by the
Office of Professional Responsibility at the Justice Department
of two Assistant United States Attorneys who ultimately have
now left the Department. And it is a case that is currently in
ongoing litigation, and, therefore, I am not able to comment
that much more in-depth about the matter. But it is a matter
that obviously came to my attention as soon as I came into the
building.
Chairman Cruz. You know, I will note this began as an
investigation to a shooting that occurred in Louisiana in the
wake of Hurricane Katrina, but it has now produced two lengthy
judicial opinions detailing what has been described as a
widespread pattern of misconduct by the U.S. Department of
Justice. Both the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District
of Louisiana and the Fifth Circuit Federal Court of Appeals
have had the chance to review--review the facts underlying this
case.
District Judge Kurt Engelhardt wrote a 129-page opinion
chronicling what can be described as an unprecedented pattern
of wrongdoing by the Department of Justice. Without objection,
I am going to enter into the record both the district court
opinion and the Fifth Circuit opinion in that case.
[The information appears as a submission for the record.]
Chairman Cruz. The district court found that key attorneys
in the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of
Louisiana and the Civil Rights Division were repeatedly posting
online comments against the police officers who they were
seeking to prosecute. They were doing so anonymously under
pseudonyms, seeking to stoke up public anger and resentment
directed at these police officers, agitating the potential jury
pool.
One of these attorneys who was posting these anti-police
online comments, as I understand it, was a Civil Rights
Division attorney named Karla Dobinski. Ms. Dobinski's conduct
at the Department of Justice was particularly astonishing given
that her official responsibility was she was assigned to
prevent the defendant police officers from having their public
reputation smeared during the legal process.
It is more than a little astonishing that the lawyer
charged with preventing the police officers from having their
reputation smeared would be going online with an anonymous
pseudonym smearing the reputation she was charged to protect.
Is that conduct of which the Department is proud?
Ms. Gupta. Senator, I share your view about the seriousness
with which employee misconduct has to be taken at the Justice
Department, and my understanding is that in light of the facts
that emerged, that the Department's Office of Professional
Responsibility conducted a thorough review of all three of the
individuals of which you speak and concluded that two of the
members of the United States Attorney's Office had indeed
engaged in misconduct, but concluded after reviewing Ms.
Dobinski's limited postings of what were absolutely ill-advised
and inappropriate comments, that those did not rise to the
level of misconduct.
The Civil Rights Division then reviewed the facts and
circumstances pursuant to the law that governs our disciplinary
procedures and processes and took appropriate action in light
of that.
Chairman Cruz. I will note that the Fifth Circuit described
the Department of Justice's conduct as what could only be
described as a, quote, ``online 21st century carnival
atmosphere.'' That is the Federal Court of Appeals describing
the Department of Justice.
It went on to state that it was, quote, ``beyond dispute''
that, quote, ``three supervisory level prosecutors committed
misconduct in connection with the Danziger Bridge
prosecution.''
Do I understand correctly that Ms. Dobinski remains with
the Department as a trial lawyer in the Civil Rights Division?
Ms. Gupta. She remains with the Civil Rights Division. The
Office of Professional Responsibility did conduct a thorough
review of all three employees and found that Ms. Dobinski's
actions, while, as I said, inappropriate and ill-advised, did
not constitute misconduct, unlike the other two individuals.
Chairman Cruz. Well, it seems both the Federal district
court and the Federal court of appeals disagree with the
Department in that regard. Senator Coons.
Senator Coons. Thank you, Chairman Cruz.
Let me just take us back, if I could, to the beginning of
your testimony, Ms. Gupta, in which you began by observing that
of the 800,000 law enforcement professionals in this country, I
think the roughly, is it, 18,000 agencies at the State, local,
and Tribal level, the overwhelming majority of law enforcement
officers are honorable, dedicated, and carry out their public
safety duties with exceptional quality and service. In fact, as
the Chairman reviewed, you have had, I think, on average three
cases per year since 2011 and have only seven open today out of
18,000 agencies. How many staff attorneys are there in the
United States Department of Justice? How many attorneys are
serving the whole country as part of the U.S. Department of
Justice?
Ms. Gupta. As part of the entire Department of Justice,
there are over 100,000 professionals.
Senator Coons. Out of 100,000 professionals, how many of
them are working for the Civil Rights Division, roughly?
Ms. Gupta. Just under about 700.
Senator Coons. About 700. I will agree with you and with
the Chairman that the conduct of the prosecutors in the
Danziger Bridge case was absolutely outrageous, conduct
unbecoming, inappropriate, and there have been sanctions taken
by the Office of Professional Responsibility. But it is no more
accurate to describe the entire Department of Justice or the
entire Civil Rights Division as being out of control or
outrageous or engaged in misconduct than it is to incorrectly
smear the entire law enforcement community nationally because
of a few isolated instances of misconduct.
In fact, Ms. Gupta, I have been struck by the depth of your
support from national law enforcement organizations. Some of
this was reported in a July 15th article in USA Today with the
headline, ``Department of Justice police unions finding common
ground.'' It notes your nearly daily contact with the
leadership of the Baltimore police during the crisis that
occurred, and I would like to enter that union, excuse me--that
article from USA Today into the hearing record.
Chairman Cruz. Without objection.
[The information appears as a submission for the record.]
Senator Coons. I think there also was a recent letter
addressed to you from the executive director of the Major
Cities Chiefs Association, Darrel Stephens, that states, quote,
``Your efforts to reach out to law enforcement to enhance
communications and establish a collaborative relationship has
been noticed and has made a real difference,'' unquote.
Could you just discuss your commitment to working
respectfully and collaboratively with our Nation's police and
how your work in upholding constitutional rights actually leads
to better policing, safer for law enforcement officers and for
the community, and enhances public safety?
Ms. Gupta. Thank you, Senator. I would be happy to. You
know, ever since I came into the Justice Department, it has
been very important to me to reach out very often and to engage
with law enforcement, with chiefs from around the country, with
union leaders, with police officers, as well as with civil
rights and community groups, in part, because we are all in
this time together, really trying to assess some of the hard
questions about how to build trust, because in too many
communities around the country where there is frayed trust,
where the community simply does not have the confidence of law
enforcement, frankly it puts officers' lives at risk, and it
creates--it undermines public safety. And our work at the Civil
Rights Division to advance effective constitutional policing
actually advances public safety. These things are not at odds.
They are critically important. When the community trusts the
police, they are partners in providing information to solve--
solve and prevent crimes. They serve as witnesses in trials.
And, of course, officers' lives are much more likely to be
enhanced and protected and their jobs made more easier when
they have the trust of the community.
And so my outreach really is because I think, frankly, a
lot of people in law enforcement right now as well as community
leaders are kind of working together to address and really
understand how to rebuild trust where that has eroded because
it is so critical to public safety.
Senator Coons. Thank you, Ms. Gupta.
If I might, Chief Davis, thank you for your 20 years of
service with the Oakland Police Department and your 9 years
with East Palo Alto. Can you also discuss how mistrust hurts
public safety and describe the efforts that the Department is
making, that the COPS Program is making, to address this issue
and to improve law enforcement officer safety and public
safety? And then, last, if you would just comment on how
officers and police chiefs and leaders you know around the
country are reacting to the idea of a so-called Ferguson effect
or a war on police?
Mr. Davis. Thank you, Senator, for the question. To start
with the first question with regards to trust, I think it would
be fair to say that trust is the foundation of public safety.
As Ms. Gupta has said, you really cannot achieve effective or
sustaining crime reduction, enhanced public safety, or even
national security if you don't have the trust of the community.
And so, I think as a former police chief, your focus on
building trust is your number one crime reduction tool. People
testify, they give you information, they support you when there
is trust. So, we know that is very important.
I think generally where the field is at right now is the
field is acknowledging and recognizing that there is strain
within communities, many communities--not all--and the police
and that we need to do something to strengthen it. So, there is
a lot of focus, Senator, from local police chiefs and union
leaders to really focus on building that trust because it makes
everyone's job easier.
With regard to the--to the so-called Ferguson effect, I
think the opening statements that both Senator Cruz and
yourself made really answers it best: first, that there really
is no data to suggest that there is a Ferguson effect and that
somehow that's linked to any increase in crime in certain
cities, because we know there are some cities where there's an
increase, but we also know there are cities where there are
decreases. And so, we do need to find out. And I think Director
Comey was head on about really making sure we can find out the
data and to have this conversation.
But I think we need to be very cautious, and I am just
concerned we be very cautious that in having this discussion,
Senator, we're not suggesting that the brave men and women who
serve in law enforcement--and this is based on my 30 years--are
somehow scared, which is a word I have heard people say,
reluctant, or even suggested they are cowards and will not do
their job because they are afraid of public scrutiny. Public
scrutiny is not a negative. It is the foundation of policing in
a democratic society. The officers are not afraid of
accountability. They want what we want and everyone wants,
Senator, which is fairness, consistency, and they just want to
be able to recognize--people recognize the challenges of their
job.
And so, I--I reject any notion that would suggest the
officers are choosing not to do their job, that they are
reluctant to protect the American people. I think all evidence
is to the contrary.
Now, with that being said, Senator, we do have to
acknowledge this is a very tough time to be a cop. And with
intense scrutiny, with social media and videotaping, clearly it
is adding to the stress of being a cop. But these new stresses
are not an effect. They are going to be the challenge of
policing in the 21st century. And I think this field is up to
it. I think the chiefs that I know around the country and the
law enforcement officers are up to the challenge, and I think
they are working with the communities to do exactly that.
Senator Coons. Thank you, Chief. Thank you for your
testimony.
Chairman Cruz. Thank you. Senator Lee.
Senator Lee. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Ms. Gupta, I would like to ask you about an issue that is
likely to come up within your Division at the Department of
Justice, the Civil Rights Division. As you are probably aware,
earlier this month, the U.S. Department of Education concluded
that Township School District 211, located in Palatine,
Illinois, had violated Title IX when it prohibited a
transgender student identifying as a girl to change and shower
in the girls' locker room at the public school that she attends
without any restrictions.
Now, the school and the school district had permitted this
student to participate on the girls' sports teams and to use
the girls' restrooms at the school. However, to accommodate the
student's request to use the girls' locker room, the school had
sought to require the student to change behind privacy
curtains.
Now, according to the U.S. Department of Education, in this
letter that was dated November 2d of this year, just 2 weeks
ago yesterday, requiring the transgender student to use private
changing and showering facilities violated the student's rights
because it resulted in differential treatment of a transgender
student.
Even the plan to have the student change behind privacy
curtains in the girls' locker room would apparently not be
sufficient, according to the Department of Education in this
letter issued on November 2d, because requiring only
transgender students and not all students to change behind a
curtain, according to this letter, amounts to differential
treatment based on a sex-based consideration and would,
according to the Department of Education, therefore, constitute
a violation of Title IX.
So, I have got a question for you. Is this--is this also
the view of the Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Department of
Justice, is it the view of your Division, the Civil Rights
Division, that requiring a transgender student to change and
shower behind a curtain while they are in a locker room of the
opposite biological gender, that asking them to do even that
would amount to a violation of Title IX?
Ms. Gupta. Senator, thank you for the question, and I can
say at the moment that the Justice Department has not taken a
fixed position on this matter, and I can't get into internal
deliberations, but we are aware of the matter and are in
conversation about it.
Senator Lee. Okay. Well, as I am sure you are aware, if the
school district does not conform to this standard, the
Department of Education may well refer this case to your
Division. Have you or has anyone else within the Civil Rights
Division of the Department of Justice been in contact with the
U.S. Department of Education about this matter?
Ms. Gupta. We are aware that, of course, that could happen.
It is why we are right now in conversation about this issue.
But we haven't taken any position on it, and I am not aware of
direct communications with the Department of Education on this
right now. There are a lot of deliberations happening in the
building on the various issues.
Senator Lee. So, you have been consulted on it?
Ms. Gupta. We are aware that the Department of Education
filed that matter and that it very well could be headed over to
the Justice Department.
Senator Lee. Will the Department of Justice seek
enforcement of Title IX on this issue if the school district at
issue doesn't conform to the demands of the letter issued on
November 2d by the Department of Education?
Ms. Gupta. Unfortunately, I am not able to comment on that
as we have not made any decision.
Senator Lee. Based on my description of what happened and
based on what you know about this instance, do you think the
U.S. Department of Education correctly concluded that it is
against the law for the school district to say that a
transgender student who identifies as female but was born male
needs to shower and change behind a curtain? Do you agree with
that assessment that that would violate Federal law?
Ms. Gupta. Senator, it would be inappropriate for me to
comment on this given that the Justice Department has not yet
made its position known.
Senator Lee. Okay. I--I want to make clear that I find that
surprising, I find it a little stunning that you can't right
now sit here and tell me that it wouldn't be a problem. Now, I
have got a 14-year-old daughter. She is in junior high. And if
what you are telling me is that it is too close to call such
that if a transgender student at her school who identifies as
female but was born male would have to be able to shower and
use the locker room in the girls' locker room, just like any
other girl, without being asked to use a privacy curtain or
anything like that, if you cannot tell me that that does not
violate the law, then what you are telling me is that her
principal could and should be expected to be hauled into court
for making that determination on a local basis based on the
needs of that school. If you can't tell me that, I think you
are going to have a lot of parents who have a lot of questions.
A lot of parents of daughters, parents of sons, who are going
to wonder why it is that our Department of Justice has to get
so mired in the administration of a school that it is getting
into questions like who and under what circumstances someone
who was born male but is a transgender student identifying as
female must be given full, unfettered access to showers, locker
rooms, and changing facilities within the school.
I hope you will follow-up on that. The American people
certainly deserve clarity on that. And if we're going to start
taking way educational resources from local school districts to
fight battles like this in court, that's money that cannot be
spent on legitimate educational programs. And they need to be
given discretion so that they can run their school districts in
a manner that they deem fit. Thank you. I see my time has
expired.
Chairman Cruz. Thank you, Senator Lee. Senator Durbin.
Senator Durbin. Thanks, Mr. Chairman.
Now, the title of this hearing is ``The War on Police: How
the Federal Government Undermines State and Local Law
Enforcement.'' I know there was an effort to make this a
neutral title for this hearing, but I think it leans a little
bit in a provocative way.
So, I asked my staff, take a look at the actual
investigations initiated by the Obama administration of police
departments. They came up with the fact that there were some
17,000 departments. I heard Senator Coons say 18,000
departments in the United States. And under the Obama
administration, they have opened investigations on 23 police
departments, about one-tenth of 1 percent of the police
departments across the United States. And this is being
characterized by some as a ``war on police.''
I would like to ask you, Ms. Gupta and Chief Davis, isn't
it true that many investigations were requested by local
agencies?
Ms. Gupta. Thank you, Senator, for your question. That is
indeed the case. In many of the jurisdictions we ended up going
into, they were initially requested, and it was only after we
conducted a preliminary investigation to determine whether
there was enough evidence that would merit our involvement did
we get involved. But that is indeed the case.
Senator Durbin. And isn't it true that the vast majority of
these investigations, the 23 out of 18,000 police departments,
were conducted with the cooperation of the jurisdiction and
resolved on a voluntary basis?
Ms. Gupta. Yes, that is correct.
Senator Durbin. Some war.
Let me ask you a little bit about video cameras, if I can.
There is going to be testimony in the next panel, Chief Davis,
that video cameras inhibit police work and lessen their
determination to pursue crime. It's interesting, when we look
at the money that's given out by the Justice Department to help
local law enforcement pay for these video body cameras, in
September the Justice Department awarded $23 million in funding
for body cameras under a pilot program, $23 million. Seventy-
three law enforcement agencies in 32 states, including 3 in my
State--Chicago, Elgin, Lake County Sheriff--received funds
under this program. According to the Bureau of Justice
Assistance, 285 agencies from 42 States applied for these body-
worn camera funds. There wasn't enough money to serve them all.
It would have taken more than twice the total amount to pay for
all the body cameras that police departments across the United
States were asking for as part of their law enforcement.
So, what is your take, Chief Davis, from that statistic and
your experience in dealing with body cameras?
Mr. Davis. Thank you, Senator, for the question, and I
think the number is actually larger than that. That would be
the close to 300 that applied for this specific program versus
the thousands that are equipping their officers as we speak,
that are still looking for assistance to do so.
What made this program unique, the $23 million, Senator, is
that it was about working with law enforcement, working with
academia to identify the best practices, policy implications,
making sure we have policies regarding privacy, so these were
more demonstrations sites to help the field in using this
technology.
Now, what you will hear from most agencies, what I am
hearing from the field, is that--that the cameras, when part of
a larger accountability program, are very positive. We know
there are results from Rialto, California, for example, where
they see over 70-percent reductions in uses of force. We hear
stories all over the country where they are reducing use-of-
force complaints, and I think what the officers are starting to
see, even in one of my old agencies in Oakland, after decades
of using them, is that the cameras prove what I think everyone
in this hearing has said: It captures the overwhelmingly
outstanding job that the men and women are doing in law
enforcement, and it clears them more than it ever indicts them.
But when it is capturing misconduct, it is misconduct that
needs to be held to account, and it is the righteous thing to
do.
Senator Durbin. That is such an important point, because
cameras may capture misconduct, but they might also capture the
truth of the situation when charges are made against a person
in law enforcement that are just plain wrong and unfair. And, I
think, as we are dealing with this new world, with DNA
evidence, science behind police work, and this hard body of
evidence coming out of video cameras, that I would agree with
you, it would seem to me that most members of law enforcement
would feel that this body camera will tell a true story about
what actually happened when specious and wrongful charges are
brought against them. So, I thank you for that. Thank you, Mr.
Chairman.
Chairman Cruz. Thank you, Senator Durbin. Senator Sessions.
Senator Sessions. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. This is a
hearing that I think is important. We need to talk about some
of these issues, and there is a perception, not altogether
unjustified, that this Department, the Civil Rights Division,
goes beyond fair and balanced treatment but has an agenda.
That's been a troubling issue for a number of years, frankly.
Your predecessor nominee was rejected for this job, the
Civil Rights Division job, because, according to the Fraternal
Order of Police, they wrote a letter that noted that, ``Under
his leadership the Legal Defense Fund for the NAACP volunteered
their services to represent Wesley Cook, better known as Mumia
Abu-Jamal, our country's most notorious cop killer. This
nomination can be interpreted only one way: as a thumb in the
eye of our Nation's law enforcement officers. It demonstrates a
lack of regard or empathy for those who strive to serve you and
everyone in our Nation and keep them safe in their streets and
homes. We believe that law enforcement in minority communities
need to build even greater bonds of trust and respect, yet your
Civil Rights Division under the leadership of the prior
officers, Thomas Perez, and Roy Austin, has increasingly built
obstacles to this goal with this punitive approach toward local
law enforcement agencies.''
So, now your nomination. You have been named as Acting, is
that right, but have not yet been nominated?
Ms. Gupta. That is correct.
Senator Sessions. And prior to joining the Department of
Justice, you served as deputy legal director for the American
Civil Liberties Union and director for its Center for Justice.
And prior to that you were an attorney for the Racial Justice
Program, and prior to that you served as a lawyer for the NAACP
Legal Defense and Educational Fund. So, I would just say that
you come from a background that indicates an aggressiveness in
these cases.
The Civil Rights Division can fulfill an important role.
I've seen attorneys, I've worked with them in a grand jury
investigating police, and the goal is and must be to obtain
truth and find out what the real facts are.
So, let's talk about this a bit here. First, Mr. Davis, I
talked to an experienced law enforcement officer in Alabama,
and he said the kind of problems that we are seeing and the
legal actions that have been taken and the marches and protests
about police do have the tendency to cause people, as he said,
``to stay under the shade tree'' and not walk the streets like
community-based policing that you advocate and promote.
We will not go into the details about it, but I truly
believe community-based policing is a great thing. And police
are going to be in dangerous situations, I know you'll agree,
and sometimes they will confront people who are violent, and
they have to be able to defend themselves, do they not?
Mr. Davis. Yes, sir, they do.
Senator Sessions. And sometimes that can lead to
misunderstandings and false claims by the criminal against the
police officer sometimes.
Mr. Davis. That is correct, Senator, and I would say to
you--and I'm sure that your esteemed colleague in your State
will share this with you--when it comes to the evaluation of
those decisions, the officers are more concerned about the
decisions within their local department and local elected
leaders and how they are going to be treated for those
decisions. So, that's always a concern because the officers
just want fairness and want people to understand the nuance and
the difficulty of being police.
Senator Sessions. It is difficult. I keep thinking about
that Gilbert and Sullivan--I think it is ``Pirates of
Penzance.''--``When constabulary duty's are to be done-to be
done...A policeman's lot is not a happy one.'' So, it's not
easy to go out and arrest people and have to make these
decisions and put them in the slammer sometimes.
In your speech that you made to the United States Attorneys
in New Jersey, Ms. Gupta, you said there--you talk about the
charges made against police and what police say in their own
defense and conclude there is truth in both these perspectives,
presumably what both sides say about it, the criminal or
arrestee or not. And you also close by saying, ``If we would
take time to listen, really listen, why--why protesters take to
the streets, why police officers risk their lives every day, we
would find that while perspectives may differ, people's
aspirations and their values tend to be very similar. We all
want safe streets. We all want stronger communities. We all
believe in justice.''
This was an article written by Roger Clegg and Hans von
Spakovsky, both former members of the Civil Rights Division of
the Department of Justice, your Division. And they say, ``We
find it hard to imagine that, for example, Black Lives Matter
protesters in St. Louis chanting, `Pigs in a blanket, Fry `em
like bacon,' right after two New York police officers were
assassinated, have the same aspirations and values as law
enforcement officers who risk their lives every day.''
Do you see the concern that police officers might have
about those kind of comments?
Ms. Gupta. I find those kinds of comments abhorrent, and I
think that they do a disservice to the legions of peaceful
protesters that are raising attention to serious issues around
the country.
Senator Sessions. Well, I was really referring to your
comments. In 2013, while working for the ACLU, you wrote an op-
ed in the New York Times in which you stated you were elated
when you learned that Attorney General Holder had, quote,
``directed all Federal prosecutors to exercise their discretion
toward ending the relentless warehousing of inmates the vast
majority of whom are minorities in Federal prison for low-level
drug crimes.'' Do you think most of the prisoners are for low-
level drug crimes?
Ms. Gupta. Senator, at the helm in my job----
Senator Sessions. How would you define a low-level drug
crime? There are only 15 in the Federal penitentiary, I
understand, for simple possession of drugs.
Ms. Gupta. Senator, as the head of the Civil Rights
Division, I enforce the civil rights statutes that we are given
and do not have a say-so in our sentencing policies at the
Division.
Senator Sessions. Well, I am troubled by your comments.
That is all I am saying. You want to be the head of the Civil
Rights Division. I don't feel good about that comment.
How about this? In the Fordham Law Review in 2005, you
wrote, ``We do not have a criminal justice system whose
subjugation of people of color is contingent upon''--excuse me.
``We do have a criminal justice system whose subjugation of
people of color is contingent upon individualizing all cases.
It is how we have managed to rationalize racism in the criminal
justice system.''
Now, as I understand this theory--and it has been about for
some times--it says you should not evaluate individual cases
based on whether or not a person is guilty of that crime or
not, but some other theory involving racism. Do you think a
case should be evaluated simply on the facts whether a person
is guilty of the crime or not?
Ms. Gupta. Senator, at the Civil Rights Division, I oversee
career prosecutors and lawyers who are committed to
investigating the facts and the evidence and going where the
law takes them based on that, and that is what we are committed
to at the Civil Rights Division.
Senator Sessions. Well, I am very troubled by that radical
statement you made in that article. You go on to say in that
article, ``Critical race lawyering is about transforming
business as usual in the criminal justice system--a business
that is usually masked as being racially neutral, bias-free,
and a just-the-crime-facts-ma'am industry. We have to transform
that ``business as usual'' into a counter-narrative about
police practices, racial bias, and the irrationality of many of
our criminal justice policies.''
Do you still adhere to those views?
Ms. Gupta. Senator, that was an article that I wrote I
think over a decade ago, but at the Civil Rights Division, I,
as I said, enforce the statutes that Congress has given us to
enforce, and that is what I do, and that is what the career
lawyers and prosecutors do at the Civil Rights Division each
and every day.
Senator Sessions. Well, it is clear that police officers
all over America are concerned about the Department of Justice,
and I think based on those writings that the Acting head that
you now have, about law enforcement and police gives them a
basis to be concerned.
Chairman Cruz. Thank you, Senator Sessions. Senator
Klobuchar.
Senator Klobuchar. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman,
Senator Coons.
I served 8 years as a chief prosecutor in Hennepin County,
which is our State's biggest county, and our view was that we
took our role as ministers of justice seriously. That meant our
role was to convict the guilty and protect the innocent. And
one of the things I learned is that it is especially vital that
our law enforcement officers have the training that is
necessary to do their jobs, that they have the equipment, that
they have the information systems so that they can better
coordinated, and our judges can get information on those in
front of them. And I also saw how effective law enforcement
could be in reducing crime and working with the community
through the COPS Program, the Byrne Justice Program. And,
actually, since I have gotten to the Senate, I have championed
those programs and led the bills to increase funds for those
programs.
The COPS Program has put more than 100,000 cops on the beat
since 1994. In my home States, COPS grants funded 155
additional police officers and sheriff deputies. And I guess I
would start with you, Mr. Davis. You have an extensive law
enforcement background with the police departments of Oakland
and East Palo Alto. Thank you for your service. And how has
your personal experience as a career law enforcement officer
shaped your belief in the COPS Program? And do you think we
have sufficient resources for it now?
Mr. Davis. Thank you, Senator, for the question. As a
former chief, I was a very happy consumer of COPS grants and
the support for my agency, which was very challenged--a
beautiful city but very challenged with high crime and
violence. To be able add two or three officers made a
difference.
But what also made a difference, Senator, is that a lot of
the research and the publications that the COPS Office put out
is I used that information because I did not have a research
component. I was able to implement evidence-based programs that
actually worked, that were very effective, that reduced crime
in a very challenging neighborhood because of the research that
was done nationally.
Through the COPS Office and their convenings, I was able to
connect with my peers so that I could learn a lesson that was
valuable and, quite frankly, when reforming an organization,
the challenge I had as a chief was an organization in need of
reform, as I turned to the lessons learned from the consent
decrees from the Civil Rights Division which now shape the
lessons learned for the Collaborative Reform Agreement so that
we could not only reduce crime but do it in such a way,
Senator, that embraced the core values of this country, that
embraced the Constitution, to your point.
So, for me to then be appointed here was a dream come true
because I was a supporter, a consumer, and it really
contributed to the effectiveness of my cities.
Senator Klobuchar. And so, do you think there is--my second
question was just the funding. As we go into this budget, as we
go into next year, do you think that our police departments
could be helped in the pursuit of justice and fighting crime
with more COPS grant resources?
Mr. Davis. On behalf of the thousands of chiefs that call
me and speak to me, the same as you, Senator, they would--they
really drastically need, they want more resources, more
support. Policing today is not just local. I think recent
events will highlight the role that local police will play in
national security. So, they need the staffing, the resources,
and the support. That is why I think this hearing is critically
important. We do need to support them.
Senator Klobuchar. Yes.
Mr. Davis. But I think they need those additional
resources.
Senator Klobuchar. And, obviously, I invite my colleagues
to join me on this bill. We are going to be reintroducing it
again this year.
The other piece of this is just the protecting the innocent
piece. In my job for 8 years, we worked really hard on that
piece of it, with DNA reviews, with--we have videotape
interrogation in our State. We were one of the first States to
do that. At first, the police were not big fans of it, and then
I think they came to see instances where it actually helped
them to convict the guilty. How people appeared on a videotape
immediately after committing a crime was useful for the jurors
to see. And I also think that it obviously improved policing
because they could see if mistakes were made, and it certainly
did not limit their interrogation at all.
The issue we talk about in that vein right now is body
cameras, and I am just wondering what both of you are hearing
from the police when you go around and talk to them about that
issue. What are some of the concerns? And how would that be
helpful going forward?
Mr. Davis. I will start, Senator. So, thank you for the
question. I think the biggest challenge for many agencies
locally for the body cameras is the cost of storage is a
challenge, and then also navigating obviously privacy issues.
And so, in one sense we need them for enhanced accountability.
The officers are seeing the benefit. The communities are seeing
the benefit. But as you can imagine, there is a lot of privacy
concerns, and there is also cost.
And so, I think we can provide support by helping develop
best practices--and when we say ``help develop,'' it is not
that we do it as the Federal Government, but we help the field
advance the field. We bring the best and brightest to come up
with model policies, and then we can help them with issues of
storage, training, and even the ability to purchase, because
for some agencies even the cost of a camera is too much for
their general fund budget.
Senator Klobuchar. Ms. Gupta, do you want to add anything?
Ms. Gupta. Yes, I would just say that I think right now a
lot of jurisdictions are really engaged in a lot of thinking
around the policies that I think they haven't been set, and we
have a lot to learn at the Justice Department about the ways in
which local jurisdictions are managing the privacy issues, the
cost issues, and so we have been in a lot of conversation with
local jurisdictions about what their experiences are so that
those can actually--we can take back and it can inform the work
that we are putting out to support best practices and policies
around these issues right now.
Senator Klobuchar. All right. Thank you very much to both
of you.
Chairman Cruz. Thank you very much. I would like to thank
both of the witnesses for your public service and also for your
testimony today.
Chairman Cruz. With that, we will move on to the second
panel. I would like to ask the second panel of witnesses to
come forward, and as soon as everyone is seated, we will move
on to the second panel of witnesses.
[Pause.]
Chairman Cruz. I want to thank each of the witnesses from
the second panel for being here. I will briefly introduce them.
We have six witnesses.
We will begin with Ms. Heather Mac Donald, who is the
Thomas W. Smith Fellow at the Manhattan Institute and a
contributing editor of City Journal. A graduate of Yale,
Cambridge, and Stanford University Law School, Ms. Mac Donald's
writings on policing, profiling, criminal justice reform, and
race relations have appeared in a wide variety of respected
publications over the years.
Ms. Sherrilyn Ifill is the president and director-counsel
of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund. A graduate of
Vassar College and the NYU School of Law, Ms. Ifill has also
worked for the ACLU, served as a professor at the Maryland
School of Law, and published a book on the legacy of lynching
in the 21st century.
Mr. John P. Walters is the chief operating officer at the
Hudson Institute. A graduate of Michigan State and the
University of Toronto, Mr. Walters served for 7 years in the
George W. Bush administration as a Cabinet member and the
Director of the White House Office of National Drug Control
Policy. Before that, he worked in the Department of Education
during the Reagan administration.
Dr. Cedric Alexander currently serves as the chief of
police for DeKalb County, Georgia. Dr. Alexander obtained his
doctoral degree in clinical psychology, a Master's degree in
marriage and family, and a Bachelor's degree in sociology.
Prior to leading DeKalb County's Police Department, Dr.
Alexander worked as the TSA's Federal Security Director at the
Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport. I hope your time in
Texas was a pleasant one, Dr. Alexander.
Mr. Robert Driscoll leads the Washington, DC, office of the
law firm McGlinchey Stafford and serves as co-chair of the
firm's white-collar government investigations group. A graduate
of Georgetown School of Business and Law Center, Mr. Driscoll
previously served as the Deputy Assistant Attorney General and
Chief of Staff for the Department of Justice's Civil Rights
Division.
And, finally, Mr. Andrew McCarthy is a senior fellow at the
National Review Institute and a contributing editor to National
Review. A graduate of Columbia and the New York Law School, Mr.
McCarthy served as a Federal prosecutor for 18 years in the
United States Attorney's Office for the Southern District of
New York. Perhaps most notably, he was the lead prosecutor in
the terrorism case against the Blind Sheikh and 11 others
convicted in 1995 of conspiring to wage a war of urban
terrorism against the United States. Mr. McCarthy is the author
of several books on terrorism and national security.
I thank each of you for being here, and, Ms. Mac Donald, we
will begin with you.
STATEMENT OF HEATHER MAC DONALD, FELLOW,
MANHATTAN INSTITUTE, NEW YORK, NEW YORK
Ms. Mac Donald. Thank you so much. Esteemed Senators, my
name is Heather Mac Donald. I am a fellow at the Manhattan
Institute, a think tank in New York City. I am honored to
address you today.
For the last year, the Nation has been convulsed by a
protest movement known as ``Black Lives Matter.'' The movement
holds that police officers are the greatest threat facing young
men today and that the criminal justice system is racially
biased. Cops are now routinely called racists and murderers.
Policing in urban areas has become dangerously fraught.
President Barack Obama has done little to rebut the central
theses of the Black Lives Matter movement; indeed, he has
amplified them over the last year. Speaking in New York City
this May, for example, the President claimed, quote, ``[Young
Black men] experience being treated differently by law
enforcement--in stops and in arrests, and in charges and
incarcerations,'' end quote.
In fact, there is no Government agency more dedicated to
the proposition that Black Lives Matter than the police. Tens
of thousands of Black lives have been saved thanks to the data-
driven policing revolution that began in the 1990s in New York
City. The police could end all uses of lethal force tomorrow,
and it would have a negligible effect on the Black death-by-
homicide rate. Over 6,000 Blacks are murdered each year, more
than the number of whites and Hispanics combined, even though
Blacks are less than 13 percent of the Nation's population.
Their murderers are neither the police nor white civilians, but
other Blacks. The rate of police shootings of Blacks--less than
one-third of all police fatalities--is less than what the Black
crime rate would predict. Blacks commit over 60 percent of all
robberies and nearly 60 percent of all murders in the largest
U.S. counties, and they commit 40 percent of all cop lethal
shootings. I request permission to submit for the record the
relevant Justice Department documents.
Ms. Mac Donald. Countless law-abiding residents in inner-
city communities fervently support the police. At a police-
community meeting in New York City's South Bronx this June, an
elderly woman spontaneously exclaimed: ``Oh, how lovely when we
see the police; they are my friends!'' Residents begged for a
police surveillance tower to protect them against gang
shootings and asked the police to break up the crowds of teens
hanging out on corners and fighting. A routine request at
police-community meetings in urban areas is for more drug
enforcement, not less.
As for the broader claim that the criminal justice system
is biased, that, too, is false. The overrepresentation of
Blacks in prison is a function of their elevated crime rates. I
request permission to submit for the record ``Is the Criminal
Justice System Racist?,'' from the City Journal, which
addresses this question in depth.
Ms. Mac Donald. Crime is now spiking across the country.
FBI Director James Comey observed in October, quote, ``Most of
America's 50 largest cities have seen an increase in homicides
and shootings this year, and many of them have seen a huge
increase,'' end quote.
Director Comey also suggested that the cause of this crime
spike is what I and others have dubbed the Ferguson effect. For
the last year, activists have relentlessly denounced pedestrian
stops and public order enforcement as racist. In response,
officers are doing less of those activities. Rather than
getting out of their cars to question someone hanging out on a
known drug corner at 1 a.m., they increasingly now just drive
on by.
The available docu--data document this drop in proactive
discretionary policing, and the key here is this is
discretionary policing. Certainly the police are responding to
911 calls, but the whole realm of proactive policing is what is
under threat. In New York City, for example, summons for low-
level offenses like public urination and drinking were down 26
percent in the first half of 2015; arrests in every crime
category were down 15 percent as of late October, even as
homicides were up 8 percent. In Los Angeles, arrests were down
10 percent--even as violent crime is up 20 percent.
Despite evidence of the crime surge and the reason for it,
President Obama had the temerity this month to accuse Director
Comey of ``cherry-picking data'' and pursuing a ``political
agenda.''
To be sure, police departments must work relentlessly on
improving officer courtesy and making sure that officers use
lethal force only as a last resort. But the President's
delegitimation of law enforcement is irresponsible. It puts
officers' lives at risk since suspects are more likely to
resist arrest with force if they believe that the cops are
racist. It puts the lives of law-abiding residents at risk
since, when the cops back off, crime shoots up. But it also
threatens the very legitimacy of law and order itself, which
puts our very civilization at risk. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Mac Donald appears as a
submission for the record.]
Chairman Cruz. Thank you, Ms. Mac Donald. Ms. Ifill.
STATEMENT OF SHERRILYN IFILL, PRESIDENT
AND DIRECTOR-COUNSEL, NATIONAL ASSOCIATION
FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF COLORED PEOPLE'S
LEGAL DEFENSE AND EDUCATIONAL FUND, INC.,
WASHINGTON, D.C.
Ms. Ifill. Good afternoon, Chairman Cruz, Ranking Member
Coons, and Members of the Subcommittee. On behalf of the NAACP
Legal Defense and Educational Fund, I want to thank you for the
opportunity to testify about the crucial role that the
Department of Justice has played in investigating and
supporting this country's law enforcement agencies.
While I am grateful to appear before you today, I regret
that the name of this hearing so inaccurately describes the
relationship between law enforcement and the communities they
serve. There is no ``war on police.'' What has been called a
war is an admittedly painful but necessary national
conversation about the police use of excessive, sometimes
fatally excessive force against unarmed citizens. A
disproportionate number of these victims are African American.
The protests that have erupted around the country are in
response not to just what the entire Nation has seen in graphic
and disturbing videos over the last year. Instead, they reflect
the decades-long reality of the relationship between police and
many communities of color. Our painful confrontation with this
long simmering issue has compelled us to confront what FBI
Director James Comey has described as ``hard truths'' about
race and law enforcement. The conversation we are having is
long overdue, but I am confident that it will result in better
policing, stronger and more trusting relationships between the
police and the communities they serve, and a safer America.
It's not only appropriate but we believe that Americans
expect our Federal Government to bring its resources and
leadership to bear when we find ourselves confronting an issue
of national magnitude that threatens public confidence in our
justice system. The Department of Justice is a resource to
local law enforcement and communities throughout this country,
and as you heard earlier, the linchpin of their process has
been collaboration.
The Department has through the COPS Program provided an
array of technical assistance to local police departments,
including training at critical moments as unrest developed in
communities around this country over the last year. Where
necessary, they have used their enforcement powers to ensure
that local police departments are not violating the law. This
goes to the heart of the function of the Justice Department.
Some have raised concerns about the cost of the
Department's pattern and practice reviews, but, in fact, the
cost to local jurisdictions of police misconduct is
astronomical. The Wall Street Journal reported this summer that
between 2010 and 2015, the 10 cities with the largest police
departments paid out a total of over a $1 billion in
settlements and court judgments in private police misconduct
cases. The entire annual budget of the Department of Justice
Division overseeing pattern and practice investigations is but
a fraction of that amount.
I would like to address comments made today and recently
about the so-called Ferguson effect. There is no credible
evidence that increased scrutiny of policing has led to an
uptick in violent crime. What we do know, however, is that a
lack of confidence in police does exacerbate crime because good
and effective policing depends on vigilant citizens who not
only know what is going on in their communities, but are
willing to share vital information with law enforcement. A
collaborative relationship between the police and the
communities they serve produces this result.
The question is not whether citizens should closely
scrutinize the professional practices of public servants. In a
democracy, this is precisely what citizens should do. You are
doing it today on behalf of those you represent with this
hearing. The fact that citizens are more closely observing
police and taking videos of police encounters is not the
problem. The real questions, Senator, on what that increased
scrutiny reveals, and, sadly, what the public has witnessed
over the past year is a disturbing pattern of policing that has
resulted in the lowest level of public confidence in the police
in 23 years.
If there is a Ferguson effect, I would describe it quite
differently. The effect of the protests and increased scrutiny
of law enforcement has provoked a conversation that includes
law enforcement leaders, lawmakers, citizens, and members of
the general public. We should be encouraged by the widespread
consensus about the need for several critical reforms. These
include the need for body-worn cameras and better and more
effective training. Twenty-first century police officers need
training in managing encounters with persons with mental
illness, with young people, and with members of the LGBT
community, as well as training in implicit bias, which the FBI
Director recognizes also as critically important.
Finally, almost all agree that we lack reliable data on
police-involved killings and assaults. In our view, this
Committee should applaud the extraordinary work of the
Department of Justice over the past year. They have carefully
deployed their resources and expertise to support much needed
reforms and policing. Where they have used their enforcement
powers, they are fulfilling a key aspect of their core mission
to ensure that the rule of law is followed by State and local
law enforcement and to promote public confidence in our justice
system. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Ifill appears as a
submission for the record.]
Chairman Cruz. Thank you, Ms. Ifill. Mr. Walters.
STATEMENT OF JOHN P. WALTERS, CHIEF
OPERATING OFFICER, AND DIRECTOR, CENTER
FOR SUBSTANCE ABUSE POLICY RESEARCH,
HUDSON INSTITUTE, WASHINGTON, DC
Mr. Walters. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Members of the
Committee. Is that better? I am sorry. I would ask that my
written statement be submitted to the record. I am just going
to make a couple of comments to try to get to the points that
have been covered before.
I am here as an individual. I served in the past in the
administration of both George W. Bush, George Bush's father,
and President Reagan. I got started at the Department of
Education working on the drug issue when crack and cocaine were
sweeping our country and a problem even for our schools.
I think the hearing has shown that in some sense there is
not a disagreement about the courage and the dedication of
people in law enforcement. There is not, it seems to me,
although I am somewhat unclear from the testimony, that there
are not more instances of misconduct by anybody, that they're
minor, and they're wrong when they're wrong, but there is still
an amazing amount of professionalism and courage in our law
enforcement agencies every day, and we all support that.
The big difference now, it seems to me, is the indictment
of the criminal justice system without substance, especially by
senior Federal officials, past and current in this
administration, and the indictment of the criminal justice
system as punishing people wrongly in our prison system. We
have had a remarkable decline in crime. Most of that crime is
focused in neighborhoods where people have a lesser voice. We
have saved thousands, if not tens of thousands of lives through
reductions in murders, especially among young Black males,
which have been a particularly concern for every administration
and every American citizen who cares about the safety of our
fellow citizens.
The difference seems to be that the President and past
Attorney General Holder, at any rate, led the impression that
our jails and prisons are somehow an example of injustice, that
people have not been--that even though they have been
apparently convicted through due process and fairly, there has
been no massive indictment of unjust convictions, that somehow
the sheer number of people and the racial composition of our
criminal justice system is somehow an indictment of the people
in it, especially the police, who are the ones with direct
contact with members of the community.
Now, we know, because the Federal Government has created
this data, that the victimization of individuals matches the
results in our criminal justice system, that we are protecting
the very people of color who are more frequently,
unfortunately, victims of crime. We are protecting the very
people who have less money and less resources who are very
frequently the victims of crime. We know from the very data the
Federal Government has been collecting that we've been able to
reduce things like drug crime and addiction in communities in
the past.
Nonetheless, the administration has made it a priority to
indict the criminal justice system, and not just the Federal
system but the State and local system. And the danger of that,
of course, is to make everybody in the criminal justice system
and the institution of Government seen as aggressors,
perpetrators of wrongdoing, if not victimizers of citizens, the
very citizens they're sworn to protect.
This corruption--and I agree with the earlier statement,
and I think we all know trust is the basis of our Government as
well as law enforcement. This is the fundamental corrosion of
the institution of justice and the relationship between
citizens and communities and the criminal justice system to see
these acts of protection as acts of wrongdoing. That is what is
really going on here, and it is unfortunate, and it is wrong,
and it is false. And it is a situation that has led to reducing
penalties. You are going to consider reducing mandatory minimum
sentences that have protected many people from crime, have
broken down drug organizations, that have victimized the least
powerful in our communities.
You are going to be asked to look at changing the structure
of relationships between the Federal and State government. As
the Justice Department witnesses earlier testified and as you
heard, the sentiments that those people presented when they
were in private life that Senator Sessions raised that are then
seen in positions of power lead people to believe that people
that are supposedly fair are unfair, are perpetrating
falsehoods, are suggesting the criminal justice system is the
criminals. That's what is wrong here. And that's something that
needs a voice, and I am pleased that you have been able to get
people here together for a hearing like this. It has taken--far
too few people have had the courage to do that.
So, thank you for doing this, and thank you for giving us
an opportunity to state what I think most Americans know and
wonder why they do not hear.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Walters appears as a
submission for the record.]
Chairman Cruz. Thank you, Mr. Walters. Dr. Alexander.
STATEMENT OF CEDRIC L. ALEXANDER, PH.D.,
CHIEF OF POLICE, DEKALB COUNTY POLICE
DEPARTMENT, TUCKER, GEORGIA
Dr. Alexander. Thank you, Chairman Cruz and Ranking Member
Coons and the Subcommittee, for an opportunity to be here with
you today. I have been looking forward to this.
It is an honor to be here today to participate as a witness
in the Senate hearing on, ``The War on Police: How the Federal
Government Undermines State and Local Law Enforcement.'' I
would like to acknowledge and thank you very much, Senator
Cruz, for holding this hearing because I think it is very
important, and I think it is very timely as well, too.
I speak to you from the perspective of a law enforcement
officer for over the last 39 years. And I have been through
several generations of the profession going back to 1977 to
today. I've seen law enforcement change tremendously over the
years. Growing up in Pensacola, Florida, and spending some of
my early years of life in the great State of Alabama, I've
learned that, for me, law enforcement and public safety is one
of the most valued opportunities that we all must have and
share in order to have safe communities and have a safe country
as well, too.
I have also had the opportunity to most recently serve as
Immediate Past President of NOBLE, the National Organization of
Black Law Enforcement Executives, whose mission is to ensure
equity in administration of justice and the provision of public
service to all communities, and to serve as the conscience of
law enforcement by being committed to justice by action.
It is my position that this country has a unique
opportunity today to address the lack of trust and
understanding of law enforcement in any cust--communities
across this country. It is imperative that every citizen that
we collectively deploy solutions in the areas of training,
community policing, and technology to ensure that America is
secure both domestically and internationally.
Second, through these solutions, we are able to further the
hopes and dreams of many of our forefathers in realizing,
excuse me, in realizing the true civil rights and human rights,
as stated in the Declaration of Independence: ``We hold these
truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal,
they--that they are endowed by their Creator with certain
unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the
pursuit of Happiness.''
The most recent events that we all are very familiar with--
Ferguson, Missouri; Staten Island, New York; and other cities
across this great Nation--when combined with real or perceived
attacks on civil rights, legislation have created an
environment where many people--across this country--feel
disenfranchised by their national and local governments.
So, what are some of the solutions we can talk about here,
solutions to building bridges of understanding and partnership
between law enforcement and communities they are to protect and
serve?
Training is a very important element. Cultural competency,
a word we often hear a lot of, is a critical component to
bridging this gap among law enforcement and communities of
color. We know, too, as this country as great as ours, as
diverse as it is, we all must be sensitive to the variety of
cultures and attitudes that exist among us. And I think it's
important that we all have some sense of cultural competency,
understanding, too, at the end of it all we all are Americans
at the end of the day.
It is important to note, too--and I am not going to bore
you with that, but when I think about community-oriented
policing, it is a recommendation that law enforcement and
communities adopt community policing as a philosophy of
policing in this country. When I started out in law enforcement
39 years ago in South Florida, Dade County, Florida, it was one
of those very troubling times in America and a time where we
had just come off a very major riot, the MacDuffie riots of
1980, the loss of a lot of lives, a lot of property, a lot of
civil unrest, and racial issues that extended out of that
particular event. But we overcame that because we understood
the importance that that community at that particular time that
police and community had to find a way to work together. And we
did, and community-oriented policing is, as you have said,
Senator Sessions, very important to public safety across this
Nation.
And if I could very quickly before my time runs out, I want
to talk just one moment about advancing policing under the idea
of this whole war on policing. As a veteran officer and as a
conservative senior law enforcement administrator, I feel the
issues deserve much further discussion, and I certainly look
forward to having that discussion and answering any questions
that you may have, because I think I would like to share, if
given the opportunity, some of my thoughts about this whole
idea, this whole notion of war on police in this country and
what it means to some as being true and what it means to others
as being a misperception.
Thank you very much for this opportunity.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Alexander appears as a
submission for the record.]
Chairman Cruz. Thank you, Dr. Alexander. Mr. Driscoll.
STATEMENT OF ROBERT N. DRISCOLL, MEMBER,
MCGLINCHEY STAFFORD PLLC, WASHINGTON, D.C.
Mr. Driscoll. Thank you, Chairman Cruz, Ranking Member
Coons, and Members of the Committee. I appreciate the
opportunity to discuss the role of the Department of Justice in
enforcing its pattern and practice statute--I will refer to it
as ``Section 14141''--in the context of law enforcement. I had
the privilege of serving as a Deputy Assistant Attorney General
in the Civil Rights Division for 2 years under Attorney General
Ashcroft and Assistant Attorney General Ralph Boyd, and I was
active in supervising the Special Litigation Section's
investigations of and resolutions of consent decrees or
agreements with law enforcement agencies in Cincinnati,
Columbus, Miami, and PG County, as was mentioned earlier, and
others.
The work of the Section is important, and it is difficult,
and the men and women who do it deserve our respect. But I
think that the DOJ leadership and those who have oversight over
DOJ should more carefully analyze the appropriate use of this
pattern and practice statute to ensure that it's not used as a
tool to manipulate political outcomes but, rather, is used to
fulfill its purpose of enforcing constitutional standards where
there has been a pattern of violations by State and local law
enforcement.
Just to add a little bit of law here to put some context
into this, the statute was passed in the wake of the Rodney
King beating and trial, and it was essentially patterned under
an unsuccessful bill that was brought up in 1991. The
legislative history of the provision made clear that 14141 is a
``gap-filler'' statute. It was designed to fill a gap that
exists in Section 1983, the long-standing civil rights law by
which private citizens can sue for violations of their
constitutional rights. The gap in 1983 is that if your
constitutional rights are violated, if you are beaten by an
officer, you can recover money damages, but there is no
mechanism by which to enforce any change in the police
department. So, you could have success of 1983 actions that
wouldn't be successful in reforming the police department. But
14141 was passed to fill that gap, and thus, if there is a
proven pattern of constitutional violations, the Attorney
General has authority to get an injunction against a police
department and say fix that policy or fix that practice or fix
that procedure and get a Federal court order to do that.
However, Section 14141--and important if you go back and
look at the legislative history--did nothing to change the
constitutional standard of proof for a violation of the
Constitution, and it didn't make the Civil Rights Division a
roving police practices review board, with the ability to
require best practices all around the country.
But over time, the pattern and practice statute has been
used much more broadly by DOJ. For example, recently the
Department will find a pattern or practice of constitutional
violations without ever proving any individual underlying
violation of the Constitution. This happened recently in
Alamance County, North Carolina, where the Division went to
trial and lost against the sheriff's department down there,
alleging a pattern and practice of racial profiling, and the
Federal district court judge found there wasn't proof of any
constitutional violations, never mind a pattern and practice.
So, oftentimes the pattern and practice statute is used for
unsuccessful attempts to prove any individual violation.
Of more concern, remedies under these consent decrees often
go well beyond enjoining the specific pattern and practices of
unconstitutional conduct, but overflow into what appear to be
explicitly political or regulatory decisions that would and
should otherwise be handled locally or legislatively. For
example, if you read the Cleveland Consent Order, which is one
of the big consent orders the Department has highlighted this
past summer, it establishes a Community Policing Commission; it
has specific provisions in the order to ensure diversity of the
commission and how often it is going to meet and how often it
is going to issue reports. And the order is 100 pages long, and
if you read the order, I submit to you it is downright
statutory in nature. It is as though the Department of Justice
drafted a new statute under which this Department is going to
operate.
Committees like this may or may not be a good idea. I tend
to think community policing, like everyone else, is a good idea
and community involvement is good. But the city of Cleveland
can decide whether or not it wants to create a committee
through the local political process, and requiring
establishment of a committee in a Federal consent decree is far
beyond any remedy necessary to correct a specific pattern of
constitutional violations. Rather, such provisions use the
consent decree negotiation as a process through which DOJ and
local municipalities can obtain political outcomes--such as
creation of a new committee--through a Federal court order
rather than the political process.
If insufficient attention is paid to limiting the pattern
and practice statute to this use to enjoin specific practices,
the Civil Rights Division becomes a roving best practices unit,
appearing periodically to tell a local law enforcement agency
that it must collect certain racial data, it must use a
particular discipline system, it must report uses or force in a
certain way, regardless of the underlying facts. When the
Division functions in this manner, it operates as a regulatory
and not as an enforcer. And the regulations in question then
are not reviewable, are not subject to comment, and are not
authorized by Congress.
And, for example, to use raw racial disparities, as the
Department did in Ferguson, to accuse the Ferguson Police
Department of racially biased policing, that said as the panel
has pointed out, those same disparities exist in all law
enforcement agencies in the country. And so, that is
essentially letting every law enforcement agency know you had
better be doing data collection because if we show up, we will
find a disparity and we will require you to do this kind of
data collection as a remedy.
So, this type of broader imposition of policy and political
structures on local governments breeds resentment by law
enforcement, who feel they have been accused and convicted of a
pattern of civil rights violations without proof whenever they
have agreed to ``settle'' a pattern and practice case, rather
than simply having the Department enforce constitutional
standards and target policies and training directed at proven
constitutional violations. I welcome any questions you have.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Driscoll appears as a
submission for the record.]
Chairman Cruz. Thank you, Mr. Driscoll. Finally, Mr.
McCarthy.
STATEMENT OF ANDREW C. McCARTHY, FORMER
CHIEF ASSISTANT UNITED STATES ATTORNEY,
SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF NEW YORK, U.S.
DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE, NEW YORK, NEW YORK
Mr. McCarthy. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Senator Coons,
Members of the Committee. It is an honor to be here. Apart from
my submitted testimony, Mr. Chairman, I feel compelled to say
something about the title of the hearing since it has been the
subject of such debate back and forth.
I don't see that there could be any conceivable question
that there is a war on the police. Police have been threatened,
police have been assaulted, and police have been killed. That's
not a national conversation. That's a war on the police.
I took the question of the hearing not to be whether the
Justice Department was the totality of the war on the police. I
took the question presented by the hearing to be that there is
a war on police and has the Justice Department created the
impression among the police that it is on the wrong side.
What I would like to direct my limited time to is the ethos
or culture of police departments and law enforcement. When an
agency ethos informs police that taking enforcement action can
at a minimum expose an officer to internal forms of discipline
and derail the possibility of career advancement; and, in
addition, may expose the officer to criminal and civil
liability, entailing all the hardships of the criminal justice
process, including the need to retain legal counsel, the public
stigma of being suspected of wrongdoing, and the anxiety of
worrying about the financial and social well being of the
officer's family, then inevitably there will be a reduction in
law enforcement activity. And there is ere is abundant reason
to believe that this is exactly what is happening in our
country at the present time.
My submitted testimony outlines three reasons or rationales
for this police passivity. First, the Obama administration has
powerfully signaled in various ways that it is sympathetic to a
demagogic narrative that depicts the Nation's police as
systematic violators of the Federal civil rights laws.
This narrative essentially proceeds on a disparate impact
theory, which holds that statistical disparities in racial and
ethnic make-up of people who are subjected to police
investigative tactics are the result of police bias. This
simplistic and deceptive method of statistical inference is
itself systematically skewed: It fails to account for criminal
behavior--as it occurs and as it is reported by crime victims,
witnesses, and criminals who confess. When criminal behavior is
accounted for, the fact is that employment of police
investigative tactics by police--such as stop-and-frisk
techniques--to minority suspects actually underrepresents their
portion in the criminal population even if it overrepresents
their portion in the general population. Since a great deal of
crime involves minority offenders preying on minority
communities, it is those communities that bear the brunt of
police passivity.
The second rationale for police passivity involves a
pattern of extremely destructive--rather extremely destructive
of effective law enforcement that the Justice Department has
followed over the past several years.
A tragic event occurs with racial overtones, whether real
or manufactured. It will be patent that there is insufficient
evidence of intentional killing or intentional deprivation of
civil rights by the police. Yet minority community activists
will demand prosecution.
Rather than help the communities understand that not all
tragic events constitute Federal criminal wrongs, the Justice
Department and its Civil Rights Division convey the opposite
message, appearing to confirm the activists' claims that
violations have occurred--even pressuring State law enforcement
agencies to embark on prosecutions based on insufficient
evidence. Naturally, this fans the flames of community discord.
Inevitably, it becomes obvious that no civil rights or
other prosecutable violation occurred. Yet while unable to
bring a case in connection with the tragedy that drew its
attention, the Justice Department exploits the controversy to
commence a large-scale civil rights investigation--a so-called
pattern or practice investigation--not just of the individual
police officers involved in the tragedy but of the entire
police department. These investigations and the threat of civil
suits have been used by the Justice Department to obtain
effective control over several police departments, as we have
heard already today in the testimony. While there can be little
doubt that some real abuses should be addressed and these do
turn up in these investigations--just as a thoroughgoing
investigation of the Justice Department itself would turn up
abuses--the claim that these departments are systematically
violating people's rights is absurd.
I would also stress, in light of some of the testimony
already, it is not the use--number of cases against the police
department that the Department of Justice has brought that is
the material thing. It is that these cases are used as a proxy
for cases the Justice Department can't bring because it lacks
evidence. It appears under the circumstances in which these
cases are brought to validate the anti-cop narrative. Thank
you, Mr. Chairman.
[The prepared statement of Mr. McCarthy appears as a
submission for the record.]
Chairman Cruz. Thank you very much, Mr. McCarthy.
I want to note at the outset that I, like many Members of
this Committee, served a number of years in law enforcement,
both at the United States Department of Justice and as the
Solicitor General of the State of Texas. We have seen many
aspersions cast in recent months and years directed at the men
and women in law enforcement. I want to start, Mr. Walters,
with you. In your long experience in the world of law
enforcement, are you aware of any evidence that there is a
widespread pattern of racism among police officers?
Mr. Walters. No. To the contrary, they are devoting
themselves to try to save young people even when other
institutions fail--the family, education, the care of young
people--to get them the care they need. They see themselves as
trying to make--again, there are mixtures of rare people who
are obviously bad actors in any institution, but the pattern
that is talked about now way too commonly is not only false,
but it is an insult to the many people who have dedicated their
lives to making people who are on the wrong track back on the
right track.
Chairman Cruz. Well, Mr. Walters, I will say your
experience precisely mirrors mine, that in the years I have
served in law enforcement, I have seen dedicated professionals,
both police officers and prosecutors, who care passionately
about following the law. And, indeed, in a very large
percentage of the cases where you are prosecuting criminals,
the victims are members of the minority community. The victims
are African American. The victims are Hispanic. They are the
ones that are being preyed upon.
Ms. Mac Donald, there has been considerable discussion in
this hearing about whether there is a pattern of increased
crime nationwide. The New York Times, that famed right-wing
outlet, in August described the murder rates in a number of
large cities. The city of Milwaukee has seen, from 2014 to
2015, an increase of 17 percent in the homicide rate as of
August of this year; New Orleans, an increase of 18 percent;
Baltimore, an increase of 35 percent; DC, an increase of 30
percent; St. Louis, an increase of 37 percent; New York, an
increase of 9 percent; Chicago, an increase of 20 percent.
Ms. Mac Donald, how do you explain the number of people at
this hearing and, for that matter, Democratic politicians
nationwide that keep insisting pay no attention to your lying
eyes, we have no evidence that crime is increasing?
Ms. Mac Donald. Senator Cruz, I think it is because the
rise in crime is seen as a block to their preferred narrative.
So, the thinking is because we don't like the facts, the facts
must not be true.
I find it astonishing that President Obama apparently
thinks he knows more about crime patterns in this country than
his own FBI Director, who is the source of the place where
crime statistics are kept.
When Director Comey confirms what not only the New York
Times but the liberal blog 538 has said, which is that when you
look at all of the 60 largest cities, you have a crime and
murder increase of 16 percent, which is a huge increase. If
there was a drop of 16 percent in homicides, we would all be
high-fiving each other. It is simply preposterous that--that
Obama thinks he knows more about the crime patterns in this
country than FBI Director Comey.
And to pick up on the question about whether the cops are
racist, the very fact that we are dependent on what Mr.
McCarthy talks about, the disparate impact theory of racism, is
because we have so little evidence of intentional
discrimination. And so, instead we have to fall back upon the
fact that, sadly, most any enforcement of the criminal law is
going to have a disparate impact on Blacks because of the
elevated rates of crime and the breakdown of the Black family.
But that is because officers are there to protect lives, not
because they are racist.
Chairman Cruz. And I want to underscore the point you just
made. Mr. Comey is the Director of the FBI. He was appointed to
that position by President Barack Obama. He was confirmed by
the United States Senate into that position. What do you make
of the President of the United States impugning the integrity
and the veracity of the Director of the FBI that he appointed
simply for having the temerity to speak the truth about the
rising murder rates and crime rates we are seeing in large
cities across this country?
Ms. Mac Donald. I think it is sadly a demonstration of the
extent to which ideology rules this White House. It is of the
piece with President Obama claiming that the criminal justice
system is racist. When the Justice Department's own statistics
show that the relationship between crime and incarceration,
when the President can go around claiming that the prison
population is driven by drug enforcement, when the Justice
Department statistics show that nationally only 16 percent of
State prisoners are in for drug crimes and less than 4 percent
are there for drug possession, and yet our very President is
going around stating an untruth. That is because this is an
administration, I think, that is ruled by an ideology that
claims that law enforcement is somehow racist, and that, as you
say, is a disservice to officers of all colors who are there to
help the good people in the community.
Chairman Cruz. You know, Mr. McCarthy, you rightly observe
that the title of this hearing, ``The War on Police,'' is
directed far more broadly than simply the Department of
Justice. But it is, rather, what I see as a pervasive, to use a
term of art, ``pattern and practice'' across the Federal
Government in this administration. And, indeed, I think no one
bears more direct responsibility than the President of the
United States.
As Ms. Mac Donald just noted, President Obama has directly
tried to attack his own FBI Director for observing that violent
crime and homicides are increasing. And we saw at the very
beginning of the Obama administration where the President chose
in a confrontation in Cambridge, Massachusetts, to immediately
assume that the police were in the wrong and were demonstrating
racism.
There was a time back in the 1968 Democratic convention
where the radicals and anarchists outside protesting against
the cops, describing the cops as ``oppressive,'' that used to
be a fringe view. We now see that vilification coming from the
very top, from the President of the United States, echoed by
the Attorney General of the United States, manifested in things
like appointing as the head of the Civil Rights Division an
attorney who voluntarily for free represented and lionized an
admitted cop killer.
In your view, Mr. McCarthy, does having a President who at
every turn--in Ferguson, in Baltimore--assumes the police are
guilty until proven innocent, assumes the police are bad actors
and blames police officers and holds them up for vilification?
Mr. McCarthy. I think, Senator, it is a terrible
development for the country, because in our previous
experience--and I had the privilege of working in the Justice
Department under administrations of both parties. The
Government took it to be, as I understood at least, and
certainly in the traditions of the Justice Department, its duty
to clarify narratives that were fraudulent and certainly
narratives that were evil. And what we are seeing today is a
Government that puts its thumb on the scale, and it has had a
terrible effect on the country.
The one silver lining I would point out from your remarks
and from also Ms. Mac Donald's, I actually had the pleasure of
serving in the U.S. Attorney's Office with Director Comey under
then-U.S. Attorney Giuliani, more years ago than either of us
would want to admit to. He is a very straight shooter, and I
imagine he is going to make a lot of people around here pretty
uncomfortable.
Chairman Cruz. Thank you, Mr. McCarthy.
The final line of questions I want to ask, I want to go
back to you, Ms. Mac Donald. In April, in Baltimore, we saw the
death of Mr. Gray. There were protests. The police were held up
for vilification and demonization. In the court of public
opinion, the police officers were convicted at the outset
before one shred of evidence was gathered.
The very next month, the month of May, there were 42
homicides in the city of Baltimore. Two months later, in July,
there were 45 homicides in Baltimore, which matches the monthly
record last set in 1972. The most murders the city of Baltimore
has ever seen since 1972 occurred in July of this year
following the protests and vilification of the police officers.
Forty-five people were murdered. Of those 45 people, 43 of them
were African American. In the context of protests, talking
about Black Lives Matter, who pays the price when police
officers are not able to do their jobs and crime rates and
murder rates go up and 43 Black lives are taken by violent
criminals and are murdered? Who pays the price when the police
officers cannot protect our inner cities?
Ms. Mac Donald. The people who pay the price when the cops
back off are the people that the Black Lives Matter movement
purports to be speaking for, but is inevitably silent about,
which are law-abiding and sometimes, let us be honest, criminal
residents of poor inner-city neighborhoods. But those are the
people who I hear again and again saying, ``We support the
cops. I need the cops.'' I think about Mrs. Sweeper, an elderly
cancer amputee in the Mount Hope section of the Bronx, who said
the only time she feels safe to go down to her lobby and pick
up the mail is when the police are there. She said, ``Please,
Jesus, send more police.'' They do not have a problem with the
cops, and I have spoken to a lot of young Black men who have
been stopped and frisked by the police. And they'll say the
police were doing their jobs, because in these communities
informal social control has broken down. The family has broken
down. And when that happens, the police are the only thing that
stands between law-abiding residents and anarchy.
So, if we want to save Black lives, we have to stop this
vilification, because the data is clear. The police are not
engaged in precisely the type of policing that was key to the
50-percent crime drop that this Nation has experienced over the
last two decades. It's now reversing because cops are not
making proactive pedestrian stops. They are not enforcing
quality-of-life laws, and the people who are going to be hurt
are going to be residents of inner-city communities.
Chairman Cruz. And, Ms. Mac Donald, when in July of this
year 45 people were murdered in Baltimore, the most since 1972,
when 43 of them were African American, were there any protests
from left-wing groups about the Black lives that were lost to
the skyrocketing murder rates? Did President Obama speak out
about the Black lives that had been taken from skyrocketing
homicide rates?
Ms. Mac Donald. It would seem that that crime is taken as a
matter of course. I have not heard the Black Lives Matter
movement protest against criminal murderers. No cop starts out
with criminal intent. That is the difference. We've been
hearing that somehow it is a miscarriage of justice that grand
juries do not routinely convict cops of murder. The reason for
that fact is that grand juries understand the difference
between a murderer with criminal intent and an officer who in a
split second of pressure and confusion may make the wrong call
in retrospect.
Chairman Cruz. Thank you, Ms. Mac Donald. Senator Coons.
Senator Coons. Thank you, Chairman Cruz, and I appreciate
the opportunity to speak to exactly the issue now raised
repeatedly. Do minority communities plagued by crime welcome
policing? Absolutely. So, let's review the record of what
happened in the appropriations process earlier this year. We
just heard paraphrased a cry, ``Please, God, send more
police.''
I'll note that in the appropriations process it was the
Democrats, led by Senator Mikulski, who offered an amendment to
the appropriations bill for Commerce, Justice, Science that
would have added $60 million for U.S. Attorneys, $35 million
for the U.S. Marshals Service, $58 million for the DEA, $153
million for assistance to State and local law enforcement, and
$95 million for the COPS Hiring Program. This amendment was,
sadly, rejected on a party-line vote.
This hearing has tolerated a wide range of sloppy,
unfounded, and unscientific insults to the law enforcement
community that has suggested somehow that it is citizens
protesting civil rights violations that are causing increases
in crime.
Allow me to read again from the statement from the national
president of the Fraternal Order of Police, Chuck Canterbury,
who, in part, in responding to what he views as the offensive
comments of FBI Director James Comey in suggesting in February
that police officers need to acknowledge, quote, ``the
widespread existence of unconscious bias,'' unquote, FOP
President Canterbury later in his letter says, ``To blame the
rise in crime on officers' behavior is just not grounded in
fact and is wrong.''
I think the sloppy suggestion that there is a so-called
Ferguson effect in which cops back off because they are afraid
of accountability was directly addressed by Chief Davis earlier
who said in a democracy law enforcement officers welcome
accountability, and in the earlier testimony of Ms. Gupta that
detailed how successful partnerships between the Civil Rights
Division and a series of police departments has actually
improved policing through investments in equipment, training,
staffing, and accountability.
I would be interested, Chief Alexander, if you have any
comments on the valuable program that NOBLE led, in part under
your leadership, called ``The Law and Your Community,'' to
improve the relationships between 13- to 18-year-old young men
of color and minority communities and the law enforcement
profession, why that is valuable, and the role of the COPS
Office in helping support proactive policing.
And, Ms. Ifill, I would just like to invite you to expand
on a comment that was in your written testimony, and I will
just remind you: quote, ``This has been referred to as a
Ferguson Effect....,'' unquote. ``Even if Comey's speculation
proves to be supported by data, it reveals the need to engage
even more intensely with police departments and with
communities to build trust, to promote reforms, and to
facilitate a culture of collaboration...,'' although earlier
you say there is no data to support it whatsoever.
So, if you would first, Chief, and then Ms. Ifill, tell us
about the investments that are valuable and that NOBLE has
helped lead to try and restore relations between police and
community. And, Ms. Ifill, what do you think we should be doing
to deal with the rise in crime and with some of the assertions
made today about whether there is or is not a so-called war on
police. Chief Alexander.
Dr. Alexander. Yes, sir. If you would also oblige me just
for a moment or two to give a little backdrop. We keep
referring to the comments made by Director Comey certainly that
may across this country see in a variety of different ways. But
here is what I also need to note as well, too. Back in
February, I think it was, Director Comey at Georgetown
University also stated that this country's law enforcement need
to acknowledge the fact that we have done some things wrong
over the years, and that is absolutely true. We have to go back
through this Nation's history and take a look at policing and
the things that have been done to people across this country,
particularly people of color and particularly people that may
have well been white as well, too, but did not have the ways
and means to do better for themselves.
The whole notion here is that somehow we just got here
today. We did not just get here today. This has been a long
haul. And since the Michael Brown event of last year, which
really brought all of this pretty much to bear and everything
that followed, there have been a number of incidents that
follow one just behind the other.
But let me say this: I am a 38-year veteran. I am the only
38-year veteran active-duty police administrator that is
sitting at this table. So, I am going to talk to you about this
from a realistic point of view--not a Black point of view, not
a white point of view, or Republican or conservative point of
view, but from a police point of view.
This is a very complex issue. When we start talking about
engaging in community policing. There is a lot of history, a
lot of feelings, and a lot of legacy that is still to be lived
down and moved through. That's what we are in the process of
doing. That's what this administration, the President, the COPS
Office, the Department of Justice have made attempts to do.
They have afforded the opportunities of financing and helping
departments across this country to be better. Most of the
police departments across this country that have reached out
and asked for help, even organizations such as NOBLE, have had
somewhere to go in order to be able to say what can I do to
better my police department in my community. And there are a
number of agencies across this country, a number of them, that
are reaching out to the COPS Office every day.
So, I think it is important to note that this is not as
simple as I am quite sure as a lot of people would like for it
to be, because this is rooted in the fact that there are men
and women out there every day. They are not racist. They are
not sexist. They are dedicated men and women who want to do a
fantastic job, but you have 800,000 police officers in this
country. Are you going to have one or two or several here that
go off the rail? Yes, we are upon occasion. You are going to
find that in any profession anywhere, and we see it from the
top of Government to the last individual born on the face of
this Earth or leaves the face of this Earth. We all have fault.
But much of what we see as it relates to crime in this country,
as it relates to this so-called Ferguson effect, which has
become a term that somehow has gotten coined to be of some real
significance. Well, I suggest to you today here it is of no
real significance, Senator, because my thought of it is this:
We have issues right now in this country that we have some
relationship issues in this country, as relates to policing.
And it is all not about white policing on Black subjects. I
hear it the other way as well, too. I hear Black police
officers violating people's rights. I hear Hispanic police
officers violating people's rights, women violating other
women's rights, police officers.
So, this is a broad issue. This is not just a racial issue.
This is a human rights issue, a civil rights issue. But I will
contend and I will confess to you today as a long-term law
enforcement official that we need all the help that we can get
out here, and that help, of course, is contingent upon the fact
that the facts are reported to you, not the notions of friends
that we all have who sometimes talk about how bad it is,
because we are in a place where policing is changing in this
country, and we have to accept that.
I am almost 4--40 years at this, and this is a long time, a
very long time. And I hate that at some time in the near future
I am going to leave this profession pretty much like I found it
40 years ago. But, I think the work that the Justice Department
is doing, I think the work that this administration is doing,
in all fairness to both, is they are doing their best to change
policing across this country. And I think we have to continue
to demand that policing change. And I think that there needs to
be continued funding for programs such as NOBLE, to your
question, Senator, as it relates to the law in your community.
We got funding from the Justice Department--to do what? To go
out and teach these young men and women across this country
between the ages of 13 and 14--between the ages of 13 and 18,
I'm sorry, to tell them what the law is. How do you respect the
law? How is it important for you that when you are stopped,
what are you supposed to do? Basic fundamental things that you
and I may have had the opportunity to learn, but that many of
these youngsters in these urban communities might not have had
that opportunity. And it is meaningful for them. It helps them
better understand how to respect authority, because we are
expecting sometimes for them to do things in which they have no
prior training. Not no fault of their own, but we know that to
exist.
So, these programs have proved to be quite successful, and
if I would just close by adding to this as well, too. We talk
about uptick of homicides across this Nation. For every city
there is an uptick that we are seeing, we are also seeing
cities where there are declines in homicides as well, too. We
do not know what's driving this.
Now, we can take Ferguson--I am sorry, we can take
Baltimore. That was an anomaly. That was a clear, noted voiced
slowdown of work following the death of Freddie Gray. We know
that. But if I talk to my colleague tomorrow in Chicago, which
I did on yesterday, McCarthy, superintendent there, his men and
women are not slowing down. A department of over 10,000 police
officers, they recovered over 25 percent more guns this year
than they did last year. But the raise and the rise in
homicides are not just based on the fact of this administration
as some--some vendetta on police. The issues are far bigger and
far greater.
And I would also say to the rest of my colleagues out there
in the law enforcement community as well, too, they know--
because I talk to them every day, as many of you say you do. I
talk to them every day, in large cities to moderate-size to
small cities across this country. Nobody is telling me that
their men and women are slowing down. Are they a little bit
more cautious? Do they have a little bit more pause as a result
of the negative comments and the things that might be being
said to them or about them in communities? Yes. It is a tough
time to be a police officer. But it is these tough times that
police officers across this Nation always at the end of the day
get it done for us. And they are getting it done. They are
fighting every day. They are getting shot at every day. And I
can attest to that coming from a community of 750,000 residents
and 1,000 police officers. I know what they are doing every
day. And they haven't slowed down one bit. And that's not based
on something I heard from someone else. That's based on what I
see every day in metro Atlanta and other cities across this
country.
Thank you, sir.
Senator Coons. Thank you, Chief.
Ms. Ifill, would you just speak to the Ferguson effect and
whether there is any support for it and the role of private
litigants and the Office of Civil Rights in terms of addressing
challenges and the complex discussion you raised earlier.
Ms. Ifill. I am in the unusual position, Senator, of
feeling as though I have to be counsel for the FBI Director,
which is quite unusual for me. But let me just be sure to
clarify Mr. Comey's remarks.
There is no question that there are many communities in
which there has been an uptick in violent crime, and he did say
that. The controversial part of the statement was that he
opined--he opined that this might be a Ferguson effect. He
never claimed that he had any data to support that there was a
correlation between the uptick in violent crime and the
increased scrutiny of police departments. And, I think, it's
critically important that we be very careful that we not make
these leaps, because it can really move into the realm of
irresponsibility.
I and many others in this country have a higher ambition
and believe that it is possible for us to have safer
communities, sound policing, respect for police officers, and
policing that is constitutional and that adheres to the rules
of law and that also upholds the dignity of the people who live
in those communities.
It's important for this Committee to recognize that we are
sitting here at a snapshot moment in which the Nation's
consciousness has been heightened to an issue that has been
discussed in African American communities for many decades. We
did not have this hearing the year before last when Anthony
Anderson was killed by the Baltimore police. We did not have
this hearing the year before that when Tyrone West was killed
by the Baltimore police. Those matters were managed by the
community in Baltimore and by the police chief who conducted
his own investigation. These issues have been percolating to
the surface over time.
We did not think that there was a war on policing in June
2014, a month before Eric Garner was killed in New York, and
several months before Mike Brown was killed in Ferguson, when
two police officers, Igor Soldo and Alyn Beck, were ambushed
and executed in Las Vegas by a husband and wife who then threw
a Nazi flag over them and screamed, ``Don't tread on me,'' as
they were taken away. But they were killed in June 2014.
So, depending on how far back we take our lens tells us
what the story is. And I want to caution this Committee from
taking this very narrow lens and suggesting that what we see
today is the product of what has happened over the last year.
As the letter that you read at the beginning of this hearing
demonstrates, we are seeing the product of decades of policies
and practices that have produced the conditions that we see in
many of our Nation's cities. And now we have an opportunity to
address a problem.
I would suggest to this Committee that we cannot look at a
video of Walter Scott being shot in that park in North
Charleston and a police officer appear to go back and drop a
Taser next to him, we cannot watch Samuel DuBose killed as he
was in Cincinnati, we cannot watch a police officer--police
officer barrel into a pool party of teens and do what they did,
and suggest that we do not have a problem. So, we have an
opportunity.
We also know what the police report said and what the video
showed. We know that if we didn't have that video, we would
have all believed the police report, because we are hard-wired
to believe the police, because we do understand the difficult
job that they do and the challenges that they face. But now
America has been able to see a different reality, and it's a
reality that has existed in the communities that I represent
over decades. And it's incumbent upon us in this democracy to
get our hands around this problem and to recognize that when
the State--when agents of the State whom we have empowered and
we have given a gun and a shield and pepper spray and a Taser
and we have authorized them to take life on our behalf where
necessary, when they violate the law, it has a particularly
pernicious effect in the community.
And the last thing I would say is once again the snapshot
that we take is very important. There are regular protests
about violence in the African American community, including in
May--I have had the advantage of living in Baltimore for 20
years--including in May and June, when there were continuous
protests about the uptick in the murder rate. And it has
continued unabated. There have been protests in Chicago and
cities all over this country.
I admit they do not get the media attention of other kinds
of protests, but I think this kind of anecdotal sense of what
is happening really has to be challenged because we are at such
a critical and delicate moment.
Senator Coons. Thank you very much for your testimony.
Thank you, Chief.
Senator Whitehouse. Thank you--Chairman, can I ask
unanimous consent that I be allowed to put a statement in the
record? I have been at the hearing, and I have to leave now. My
time has run out on me, unfortunately. So, if I would be able
to do that----
Senator Sessions. I would yield, Senator, if you wanted to
ask----
Chairman Cruz. If Senator Sessions would yield his time to
Senator Whitehouse----
Senator Whitehouse. That is kind of you, Senator. I
appreciate it. He is a good friend and a good man, and that is
just another expression of that.
I just wanted to say this: The politics is now a big part
theater, and some of the groups that are represented here are
part of the theater of politics. So, it's not surprising to me
how some of the testimony has come out.
But I do want to say, having been the United States
attorney in my State and having been the Attorney General of my
State, which in Rhode Island also means you are the D.A., that
there is nothing that I see in Rhode Island that communicates
to me anything like a Federal war on police.
I just had a meeting this past week with the head of the
Rhode Island State Police, Colonel O'Donnell, and with the head
of the Provident Police Department, Colonel Clements. They have
both been friends for decades. They get along very well. The
United States Attorney Peter Neronha was there as well. It was
a meeting that was with the community. We had local NAACP
leaders present. It was at a community group called ``Open
Doors,'' and it was to help advise me on what we can do to keep
the criminal sentencing bill that we have worked on in this
Committee moving forward. And nobody was concerned, not for a
second, that there was anything like a war on the police
happening.
The U.S. attorney has led joint investigations in which our
local police departments have participated. One of them was
against Google and led to a massive settlement that rewarded
those police departments and their municipalities enormously.
So, if anything, if there is a war on police in Rhode Island,
it is a very lucrative one for the local communities, and it is
one that the local police don't seem to notice.
Community Relations Service has come to Rhode Island on
several occasion. They've been helpful. I have not seen them do
any harm. And not too long ago, I left an awards ceremony in
which the State police, the Providence police, and a number of
community organizations all share awards for having gotten
together and formed a commission, a police community
commission, to look at the question of profiling. And that
community and police together effort was so effective that they
actually have come up with a bill that has passed in the Rhode
Island General Assembly as a result of their work.
So, the notion that one witness suggested, which is that
for the Department of Justice to force a police department to
enter into some kind of a community commission relationship, in
Rhode Island nobody had to force us. We did that on our own,
and everybody thought it was great, and the outcome was very
positive for the police departments. They were there receiving
their awards with great pride and great satisfaction in the
work that had been accomplished.
So, I think Chief Alexander hit the nail on the head. This
is more complicated than it seems. I don't think it is
appropriate for theater. And throughout local law enforcement,
there are innumerable efforts to make policing better. And in
those efforts, we find, at least in Rhode Island, that the
support of our Federal law enforcement community has been very
beneficial to those efforts.
So, that has just been our experience, and I just wanted to
share it for the record, and I thank the Chairman for indulging
me, and I thank my good friend Senator Sessions for letting me
take that time. Thank you, sir.
Chairman Cruz. Thank you, Senator Whitehouse, and I thank
Senator Sessions as well for graciously yielding his time. I
recognize Senator Sessions.
Senator Sessions. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I thank all
of you. It is a very, very important panel today. And, Ms.
Ifill, you did a good job kind of by yourself there. You made
some very valid points.
And I would just say this: All of us in--I say ``in law
enforcement.'' I used to be that for a long time. We know how
sensitive these issues are, how careful we need to be, how
people can misinterpret things. But I do think it is a real
problem when we have Black Lives Matter making statements that
are really radical, that are absolutely false, and then being
invited to the White House to meet with Valerie Jarrett, and
never, to my knowledge, have the head of the Civil Rights
Division criticize some of the statements like ``Pigs in a
blanket, Fry 'em like bacon,'' talking about the police.
So, I just think we do have to--have to be careful how we
handle these issues, but I would expect that the leadership in
this country would be effective in defending the legitimate
day-to-day work of police.
Mr. McCarthy, you have prosecuted a long time. You have
thought about these issues. What about the acting head of the
Civil Rights Division in 2005, not too long ago, wrote a
Fordham Law Review article, which ought to be carefully
considered, saying, quote, ``We do have a criminal justice
system whose subjugation of people of color is contingent upon
individualizing all cases. It is how we have managed to
rationalize racism in the criminal justice system,'' close
quote. In other words, it is wrong to treat cases individually,
that we should see them in some sort of pattern, I suppose.
Does that trouble you that we have the head of the Civil Rights
Division taking that view? And do you think it is an extreme
view?
Mr. McCarthy. Senator, it really--it certainly troubles me
that she took that view at a time that she was thinking deeply
about this. I would note that in every single joint trial in
America, Federal judges and State judges tell the juries that
they are supposed to consider each defendant individually and
not allow the evidence that only is pertinent to one defendant
to taint the other. And that's because our tradition--and I
think it's a worthy one--is that guilt is, in fact, individual.
And I would say that, having--having been a prosecutor for
a very long time and having worked with law enforcement even
before that, there's nothing that makes prosecutors' jobs more
difficult than corrupt prosecutors. And there's nothing that
makes good cops' jobs more difficult than corrupt cops. And
when we find them, there's probably nothing more important to
the administration of justice than that we come at them with
the full force of the law, which means prosecuting them with
vigor.
But the point is that you can have a credible justice
system, you can have the rule of law the way we have always had
it, which is that guilt is individual and that people who have
public positions, positions of public trust, know that if they
walk outside the lines, the system has a powerful incentive to
go after them double what they--what the incentive is with
respect to other actors.
Senator Sessions. I think you are right about that. I don't
think there is any other system that can claim justice to its
name that doesn't individually determine whether the individual
did wrong or not. Goodness gracious.
I just--this doesn't answer the question we have talked
about, but I see an article here back from a few weeks ago,
Rahm Emanuel, mayor of Chicago, President Obama's Chief of
Staff for a number of years, says, ``Intense media and public
criticism is making police officers too passive--`going fetal,'
'' close quote.
``All of us want officers to be proactive [but] to be able
to do community policing in a proactive way, we have to
encourage them so it's not their job on the line or that
judgment call all the time that, if they stop, this could be a
career-ender.''
``If that happens, it's going to have an impact, and we are
seeing it. That's why every other police chief and mayor and
U.S. attorney applauded what I said [that],'' close quote. So,
my best judgment, having been at this business for a long time,
starting in the mid-1970s as a prosecutor, it is having an
impact. Maybe I am wrong, but my judgment is it is.
Now, Mr. Walters, I have a sense, having been appointed by
Reagan in 1981, when drug use among high school students was at
50 percent by their own admission, the authoritative University
of Michigan Study--under a series of Presidents and over a
period of time, isn't it correct that drug use dropped to under
25 percent among high school students?
Mr. Walters. It dropped 25 percent in the last
administration, during those 7 years. It dropped more than 25
percent between the peak at roughly 1978 through to 1992. It
went up from 1992 to 19--2000. Then it went down again. It has
now----
Senator Sessions. But at one point----
Mr. Walters. It has now rebounded.
Senator Sessions. But what--you get the numbers correct.
The Michigan study showed 50 percent use around 1980.
Mr. Walters. Right.
Senator Sessions. And it dropped steadily until it got
below--to 25 percent, I believe it was.
Mr. Walters. Yeah. I do not think it ever got as low as 25
percent. The 25 percent is the reduction from 2000 to 2008.
That's the reduction in the numbers. I just want to make----
Senator Sessions. All right.
Mr. Walters. I know too much----
Senator Sessions. I have been corrected by the drug czar
here, so why should I----
Mr. Walters. I know.
Senator Sessions. But great progress was made.
Mr. Walters. Yes.
Senator Sessions. Substantial progress. Do you see that the
difficulties we are having in the streets, the increase in the
murder rate, the increase in drug use, the President's own
statement--goodness gracious, I have to ask you about that
because I know how hard you have worked on trying to reduce
crime and drug use. Well, I have lost it, but the President
himself said it's not much different than alcohol or smoking.
And so, we are now seeing--one study I saw recently--that drug
use among high school seniors admittedly by them was 49
percent. So, that has gone back up.
Will, in your opinion, all of this result in more crimes of
all kinds? Will it result in more drug use? Will it result in
more addiction? And is this a very bad trend that we are on?
Could we be starting on a very bad trend?
Mr. Walters. Yes, I don't think there is any question those
of us that have worked on this problem, those in law
enforcement, know the--the catalytic effect substance abuse has
on crime, on child endangerment, on addiction, and on the
survivability of young people that are in at-risk situations
over time.
Look, the real shame here is--and I say this without any
kind of partisanism or theater--President Obama had--has a
unique connection to young people, a younger President, the
example he sets is very powerful. All Presidents have an
important example that they are to young people and to the
American people. But he had a particularly strong one. He could
have talked about substance abuse in his generation, his own
experience. He could have been the most--more powerful than
Nancy Reagan in terms of being a leader in prevention and
changing attitudes of young people.
Instead what we have is a downplaying of the seriousness of
substance abuse in the comments you have quoted, a suppression
of Federal law to allow the legalization of marijuana in
States, which has been horrific and created forms and
concentrates of marijuana we have never seen before, bringing
suits in the Supreme Court from surrounding States who are
affected by Colorado. The growth of heroin in this country that
has been devastating is not--it is partly a result of what we
have talked about in terms of opioid pharmaceuticals and
transmission. What it's really about--and I have done some
analysis of this--it's really about the explosion of supply out
of Mexico. And we have not worked effectively with our
international partners on these. And, by the way, the biggest
single source of heroin is, of course, Afghanistan. That heroin
is already in Canada. We can have--this could be the prelude to
the worst explosion of substance abuse we've ever seen. The
growth of marijuana, the potential for spreading marijuana into
communities, first under the guise of medicine, which is false,
and, second, under just free flow sale and then the kinds and
concentrates of this will be devastating. And it will not just
be one generation. We now know not only does the marijuana use
heavily as young people cause permanent IQ loss that we did not
know years ago, but it also changes the chemistry of the brain
to make people more susceptible to substance abuse for the rest
of their lives. Baby Boomers have higher rates--you may have
seen the recent study of death from substance abuse and
overdose and suicide by Baby Boomers as they reach older age.
So, there is--there is such a catalytic effect of
destruction in this phenomenon that for us to turn our backs,
for us to say that we shouldn't enforce the law, for us to lie
about who is in jail--the criminal justice system has sorted
people into treatment through drug courts who need treatment,
you in the Senate have passed--bypassed this to make sure low-
level offenders do not go into Federal prison. To change--to
suggest these laws are unjust, to break the tools that have
been a key for State, Federal, and local governments, to break
criminal organizations, to bring people to justice, to protect
communities, to cause declines in substance abuse and
addiction, to turn all that around when we know what works, we
have made these achievements, and to throw them away--I mean,
look, I don't have to do this. I could go back to my private
life. I was pleased to serve. I'm here--and I recognize this is
controversial. I've been called as some others of you have been
called all kinds of names for what I do, the drug czar is not a
hip guy in parties or on campus. But the reason I've gone and
continued to say these things is I've also sat with the parents
who say, ``You have got to do something. You have to be my
voice.''
And I went and spoke at the funeral--the funeral of Angela
Dawson in Baltimore in 2002. Angela Dawson, as you may recall,
stood up to drug dealers in her community of Baltimore. She
said, ``You are not going to take my kids. You are not going to
take my community.'' They tried to kill her with a firebomb.
They offered to move her out and put her into witness
protection, and she said, ``No. I will not give up.''
They came back, an individual who was supposedly under
supervision and wasn't, and firebombed her house, killed her,
her husband, and her five children. I spoke at that funeral. I
looked at those small coffins. She is an example of the kind of
victims whose voices don't get heard until it's too late.
I know what is going to happen if we do not stand up and
speak. And maybe I am too passionate. Maybe it seems like
theater to some of the Members of the Committee. But the fact
of the matter is this is going to be worse than we have seen
before if we do not turn around. And we need the support of
national leaders. We need the large and vocal support. And
that's why I congratulate you on having this hearing. And I
think, you know, to argue about whether or not we have data
about the effects of criticism and attacks on police, I think
that's a diversion. I think we really all know--I mean,
Director Comey is an expert witness if there ever was one on
this. And, second, I think we all see what the numbers are
happening in terms of crime. And, third, while it can be
anecdotal, I would say randomly just start asking police
officers you see whether they feel they are under attack, and I
would say you will--you will not find it a close call.
Senator Sessions. Well, thank you. You know, we are having
120 deaths a day from drug overdose in America. That is just a
stunning figure. It has monumental impacts throughout our
entire culture.
I gave up many times, I often regret, being with my family,
meeting with drug--anti-drug groups in the `80s when I was
United States Attorney, and it worked. Drug use went down
substantially, and fewer people became addicted, and the crime
rate began to go down after a time. And we--to me, I can just
see us letting it slip away. The gains, the lessons we learned,
as you said, Mr. Walters, we are ignoring, and the culture and
the Nation will pay a price for it. Thank you.
Chairman Cruz. Thank you, Senator Sessions, and thank you,
Mr. Walters, for that powerful testimony a moment ago.
You know, I will say something Mr. Walters said a minute
ago I think is powerfully correct. As I travel both the State
of Texas and the country, I am stopped by police officers
almost on a daily basis who express to me one after the other
that they feel they are under assault. I cannot tell you the
frequency with which individual officers in cities all over the
country say, ``Thank you for standing up for me.'' That
sentiment is being felt, and it is being felt powerfully.
You know, there's been some suggestion that there has not
been a vilification of law enforcement, and I think that
suggestion is counter to the facts and counter to the evidence.
Indeed, if you go back to 2009, President Obama was newly
elected, and you had an incident with a Harvard professor. And
President Obama, who, I might note, was not there in Cambridge,
Massachusetts, did not know what the facts were. But even not
knowing what the facts were, the President saw fit to say,
quote, ``The Cambridge police acted stupidly.'' Now, I for one
don't think the President of the United States ought to be
insulting police officers for, quote, ``acting stupidly,'' when
the President by his own admission doesn't know the facts of
what occurred.
That started to set the stage for beginning with the
assumption police officers are guilty until proven innocent.
President Obama in 2014 at the United Nations stood in front of
the world and held up law enforcement in a negative way. He
said, ``I realize that Americans' critics will be quick to
point out that at times we, too, have failed to live up to our
ideals, that America has plenty of problems within its own
borders.'' This President has made a pattern of describing what
he thinks are America's problems and doing it in front of
foreign nations.
He continued: ``This is true. In a summer marked by
instability in the Middle East and Eastern Europe, I know that
the world also took notice of the small American city of
Ferguson, Missouri, where a young man was killed and a
community was divided.'' President Obama, in front of the
United Nations, comparing the police officers to terrorists in
the Middle East.
And let's be clear. He is giving his opinion on that. A
young man was killed. ``We have failed to live up to our
ideals.'' Those are President Obama's words. ``This is true. We
have failed to live up to our ideals. This is true.'' He is
rendering judgment and verdict. I would note the grand jury in
Ferguson disagreed with President Obama, the actual people our
Justice Department charges with reviewing the evidence,
something that doesn't seem to trouble President Obama when he
is opining law enforcement must be in the wrong. The grand jury
that reviewed the evidence concluded to the contrary, but
President Obama goes in front of the United Nations and
lambastes police officers. You do not think that message is
heard by police officers throughout the country?
In 2015, President Obama said, ``There are some police who
aren't doing the right thing. Rather than close ranks,'' he
said, ``some police chiefs recognize they have got to get their
arms around the problem.'' But President Obama continued: ``We
can't just leave this to the police.''
It is important to understand he does not think the police
can govern themselves. Instead, President Obama is saying, ``I
think there are police departments that have to do some soul
searching. I think there are some communities that have to do
some soul searching. But I think as a country, we have to do
some soul searching. This is not new. It has been going on for
decades.'' The President is standing as judge and jury,
convicting police officers.
In response to his own FBI Director, Mr. Comey, President
Obama, speaking right after Mr. Comey, stands up and says, ``We
do have to stick with the facts. What we can't do is cherry--
cherry-pick or use anecdotal evidence to drive policy or feed
political agendas.''
How about what we can't do is have the President of the
United States impugning the integrity--is he suggesting the
Director of the FBI is cherry-picking data? It is not an
implicit suggestion. It is an explicit suggestion.
In the summer of 2014, the Department of Justice, targeting
the Seattle Police Department, said in writing that the
officers were engaged in, quote, ``discriminatory practices
subconsciously.'' I'm very pleased to know that the U.S.
Department of Justice have now become psychiatrists, have now
become mystics, delving into the subconscious. How about the
Department of Justice enforce the laws instead of worrying
about the deep subconscious of police officers, which the
President has already told us apparently they are acting
stupidly, anyway.
We have talked about the President nominating for a senior
Department of Justice position a lawyer who not only
voluntarily and for free represented an admitted cop killer but
lionized him, held him out as a cause celebre. But, you know,
that is not the only cop killer that the administration has
turned a blind eye to.
We should all remember Joanne Chesimard. Now, who is Joanne
Chesimard? Joanne Chesimard is on the FBI's Most Wanted List.
She is wanted for escaping from prison in Clinton, New Jersey,
while serving a life sentence for murder. On May 2, 1973,
Chesimard, who was part of the revolutionary extremist
organization known as the ``Black Liberation Army,'' and two
accomplices were stopped for a motor vehicle violation on the
New Jersey Turnpike by two troopers with the New Jersey State
Police. At the time, Ms. Chesimard was wanted for her
involvement in several felonies, including bank robbery.
Chesimard and her accomplices opened fire on the troopers. One
trooper was wounded and another was shot and killed execution
style at point-blank range.
Chesimard fled the scene but was subsequently apprehended.
One of her accomplices was killed in the shootout, and the
other was also apprehended and remains in jail. In 1977,
Chesimard was found guilty of first-degree murder, assault and
battery of a police officer, assault with a dangerous weapon,
assault with intent to kill, illegal possession of a weapon,
and armed robbery. She was sentenced to life in prison.
On November 2, 1979, Chesimard escaped from prison and
lived underguard--underground before being located in Cuba in
1984. She is still living in Cuba. We were all given the
pleasing situation of seeing President Obama and John Kerry and
the Obama administration embracing apparently our new-found
friends Raul Castro and Fidel Castro, cruel communist
dictators. You know, in the whole course of opening this
rapprochement with Cuba, and the whole course of opening an
American embassy in Cuba, in the whole course of opening a
Cuban embassy in Washington, DC, in the whole course of the
State Department silencing Cuban dissidents in Washington, DC.
Did the Obama administration ever once say of their new
communist buddies, ``How about you hand over the cop killer
living in Cuba?''
If you are going to be part of this community of Nations,
if we're going to embrace Cuba in a way that will make every
leftist faculty lounge in America cheer, how about as the tiny
price of that you hand over a cop killer instead of shielding
someone who murdered a New Jersey State trooper in cold blood
execution style?
Does anyone in their right mind think that the Obama
administration ever even once mentioned that? You want to know
why the cops feel thrown overboard? Because nobody would
suggest they would even think to say, ``Hand over the cop
killer.''
You know, it's not an accident that at Deputy Goforth's
funeral President Obama was nowhere to be found. It is not an
accident that at funeral after funeral of police officers who
have been murdered, targeted, singled out for defending their
communities, that President Obama is nowhere to be found?
There is a consequence when you vilify, when you demonize,
when you hold out for contempt the good men and women who
protect our communities.
Of course, there can be individuals who violate the law,
and we have a justice system--if there is an individual in law
enforcement who violates the law, we have a justice system to
handle that. But this President, this Department of Justice,
has not approached it saying, ``Let us enforce the law.'' They
have started with the assumption that law enforcement is, as
they said to the Seattle Police Department, subconsciously
discriminating they're guilty. And we've seen the consequences.
We've seen crime rising. We have seen homicides rising. We've
seen Black lives being lost over and over and over again being
murdered. It is wrong. And I believe it should end.
Senator Coons.
Senator Coons. Mr. Chairman, as we come to the close of
what has been a very long afternoon, I simply want to thank the
two police chiefs who have actually testified today, both Chief
Davis and Chief Alexander, and the many other witnesses who
have testified from a wide range of backgrounds and
perspectives, but have helped us focus on the fact that
increases in crime are the result of very complex issues and
require us to pay attention to knowing the facts.
There has been a great deal of opining today on a wide
range of issues. I will simply close by suggesting two things
that I think are worth reflecting on.
One, as I said at the outset, is a very pointed comment by
the national president of the Fraternal Order of Police who
takes some umbrage at those, including witnesses today, who
suggest that it is the fault of police officers who are
refusing to actively police that there is an increase in crime.
He said, ``To blame the rise in crime on officers' behavior is
just not grounded in fact and is wrong.'' And as we search the
many complex possible sources for why there might be an
increase in crime, I'll suggest one thing that was not
addressed in any meaningful way in today's hearing, which is
the hundreds of millions of dollars of additional support for
local law enforcement requested and denied in this year's
appropriations process. There are 18,000 law enforcement
agencies across this country, hundreds and hundreds of them
applying to the COPS Office for increased resources, training,
equipment, and support, which they will not receive this year
because of appropriations priorities and decisions of a
Republican-controlled Congress, and it is to my regret that we
have not yet achieved a bipartisan consensus on how to
responsibly work together to support local law enforcement.
It is my hope, Mr. Chairman, that we can find a path toward
doing more of cooperating to support law enforcement and less
of vilifying the very officers who we rely on to secure order
and enforce our Constitution. Thank you.
Chairman Cruz. Thank you, Senator Coons.
I will briefly make an observation that I would note that
it's not just FBI Director Comey who has observed about the
Ferguson effect, but also the DEA Administrator Chuck
Rosenberg, who said Comey was, quote, ``spot on,'' regarding
his comments on the Ferguson effect. And he said, quote, ``I
have heard the same things from police. I think it is worth
talking about.''
I want to thank each of the witnesses for coming today. I
want to thank you for your learned testimony. I think this has
been a valuable conversation and one that I hope will continue
well beyond this hearing.
We will be keeping the hearing record open for an
additional five business days, which means the record will
close on the end of the business day on Tuesday, November 24,
2015.
Ms. Mac Donald in her opening statement asked for a number
of things to be submitted to the record. They will be, without
objection.
[The information was submitted as a submission for the
record.]
I will also note that the Dr. Alexander mentioned in his
testimony that for every large city and jurisdiction where
crime rates and murder rates have gone down that there are an
equal number that have gone up--that there are an equal number
that have gone down. This Committee would certainly welcome any
data to that effect, and I would encourage you to submit that
data so that we might have a full and complete record. That is
at a minimum not what the reporting of the New York Times and
other news establishments have indicated, and so we certainly
want to invite any and all data that the witnesses have access
to.
And, with that, I want to thank each of you for being here
and wish you a good evening. The hearing is adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 5:18 p.m., the hearing was adjourned.]
[Additional material submitted for the record follows.]
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A P P E N D I X
to
THE WAR ON POLICE: HOW THE
FEDERAL GOVERNMENT UNDERMINES
STATE AND LOCAL LAW ENFORCEMENT
The following submissions are available at:
https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/CHRG-114shrg52542/pdf/CHRG-
114shrg
52542-add1.pdf
Miscellanous submissions:
Baltimore City For Immediate Release............................. 2
BAM Additive Report - Title VI................................... 3
Byrne JAG Appropriations FY16.................................... 12
Civil Rights Investigations of Local Police...................... 17
Court Appointed Special Advocates (CASA)......................... 77
FBI Director Comey............................................... 79
Is the Criminal Justice System Racist............................ 81
Justice and Mental Health Collaboration.......................... 92
Justice, John R., Funding Letter................................. 96
Justice, Police Unions Finding Common Ground..................... 100
Law Enforcement Officers Feloniously Killed Race, chart.......... 102
Major Cities Chief Association, letter........................... 103
Regional Information Sharing System (RISS)....................... 104
Second Chance Act, letter........................................ 109
Smith, Debbie, support letter.................................... 114
Victims of Child Abuse Act, letter............................... 118
Victims of Crime Act, letter..................................... 121
Violence Against Women Act, letter............................... 124
Viz, Mikulski.................................................... 129
Walsh, Adam, letter.............................................. 137