[House Hearing, 116 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
OVERSIGHT HEARING ON POLICING PRACTICES
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HEARING
BEFORE THE
COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED SIXTEENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
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THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 19, 2019
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Serial No. 116-48
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Printed for the use of the Committee on the Judiciary
[GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Available via: http://judiciary.house.gov
__________
U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
47-451 WASHINGTON : 2022
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COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY
JERROLD NADLER, New York, Chair
MARY GAY SCANLON, Pennsylvania, Vice-Chair
ZOE LOFGREN, California DOUG COLLINS, Georgia, Ranking
SHEILA JACKSON LEE, Texas Member
STEVE COHEN, Tennessee F. JAMES SENSENBRENNER, Jr.,
HENRY C. ``HANK'' JOHNSON, Jr., Wisconsin
Georgia STEVE CHABOT, Ohio
THEODORE E. DEUTCH, Florida LOUIE GOHMERT, Texas
KAREN BASS, California JIM JORDAN, Ohio
CEDRIC L. RICHMOND, Louisiana KEN BUCK, Colorado
HAKEEM S. JEFFRIES, New York JOHN RATCLIFFE, Texas
DAVID N. CICILLINE, Rhode Island MARTHA ROBY, Alabama
ERIC SWALWELL, California MATT GAETZ, Florida
TED LIEU, California MIKE JOHNSON, Louisiana
JAMIE RASKIN, Maryland ANDY BIGGS, Arizona
PRAMILA JAYAPAL, Washington TOM McCLINTOCK, California
VAL BUTLER DEMINGS, Florida DEBBIE LESKO, Arizona
J. LUIS CORREA, California GUY RESCHENTHALER, Pennsylvania
SYLVIA R. GARCIA, Texas BEN CLINE, Virginia
JOE NEGUSE, Colorado KELLY ARMSTRONG, North Dakota
LUCY McBATH, Georgia W. GREGORY STEUBE, Florida
GREG STANTON, Arizona
MADELEINE DEAN, Pennsylvania
DEBBIE MUCARSEL-POWELL, Florida
VERONICA ESCOBAR, Texas
PERRY APELBAUM, Majority Staff Director & Chief Counsel
BRENDAN BELAIR, Minority Staff Director
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C O N T E N T S
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Thursday, September 19, 2019
Page
OPENING STATEMENTS
The Honorable Jerrold Nadler, Chair of the Committee on the
Judiciary from the State of New York........................... 2
The Honorable Doug Collins, Ranking Member of the Committee on
the Judiciary from the State of Georgia........................ 5
WITNESSES
Gwen Carr, Mother of Eric Garner
Oral Testimony................................................. 25
Prepared Testimony............................................. 27
Ronald Davis, Former Director, Office of Community Oriented
Policing Services, U.S. Department of Justice
Oral Testimony................................................. 29
Prepared Testimony............................................. 32
Patrick Yoes, National President, Fraternal Order of Police
Oral Testimony................................................. 41
Prepared Testimony............................................. 43
Reverend Al Sharpton, Founder, National Action Network
Oral Testimony................................................. 63
Prepared Testimony............................................. 58
James Blake, Former Tennis Professional and Commentator
Oral Testimony................................................. 63
Prepared Testimony............................................. 65
Gina Hawkins, Chief of Police, Fayetteville Police Department,
National Organization of Black Law Enforcement Professionals
Oral Testimony................................................. 70
Prepared Testimony............................................. 72
Heather Mac Donald, Fellow, Manhattan Institute for Policy
Research
Oral Testimony................................................. 76
Prepared Testimony............................................. 78
Phillip Atiba Goff, Co-Founder and President, Center for Policing
Equity
Oral Testimony................................................. 81
Prepared Testimony............................................. 84
Lynda Garcia, Policing Campaign Director, The Leadership
Conference on Civil & Human Rights
Oral Testimony................................................. 88
Prepared Testimony............................................. 90
LETTERS, STATEMENTS, ETC., SUBMITTED FOR THE HEARING
Items submitted by the Honorable Doug Collins, Ranking Member of
the Committee on the Judiciary from the State of Georgia for
the record
A letter from Michael J. Palladino, President, Detectives'
Endowment Association, Inc................................... 8
A letter from William J. Johnson, Executive Director, National
Association of Police Organizations, Inc..................... 12
A letter from Hilary O. Shelton, Director & Senior Vice President
for Policy and Advocacy, NAACP Washington Bureau, submitted by
the Honorable Steve Cohen, a Member of the Committee on the
Judiciary from the State of Tennessee for the record........... 136
Items submitted by the Honorable Louie Gohmert, a Member of the
Committee on the Judiciary from the State of Texas for the
record
A study entitled, ``Officer characteristics and racial
disparities in fatal officer-involved shootings,''
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS)....... 140
An article entitled, ``Diallo Truth, Diallo Falsehood,'' City
Journal...................................................... 146
An article entitled, ``Al Sharpton Just Won't Let Racial Wounds
Heal,'' Manhattan Institute.................................. 168
A tweet by Joe Scarborough, July 29, 2019, submitted by the
Honorable Hakeem Jeffries, a Member of the Committee on the
Judiciary from the State of New York for the record............ 190
H. Con. Res. 270, 106th Congress, submitted by the Honorable Matt
Gaetz, a Member of the Committee on the Judiciary from the
State of Florida for the record................................ 204
APPENDIX
Items submitted by the Honorable Matt Gaetz, a Member of the
Committee on the Judiciary from the State of Florida for the
record
An article entitled, ``Flashback: Al Sharpton Screaming At A
Crowd To `Off The Pigs' And `Crackers,' '' The Daily Wire.... 216
An article entitled, ``Lessons From Rev. Al Sharpton's $4.5
Million Tax Bill,'' Forbes................................... 220
An article entitled, ``Al Sharpton Is Not a Civil-Rights
Hero,'' National Review...................................... 223
An article entitled, ``Al Sharpton sells his life story rights
for $531,000--to his own charity,'' New York Post............ 226
An article entitled, ``As Sharpton Rose, So Did His Unpaid
Taxes,'' The New York Times.................................. 230
An article entitled, ``Democrats' Embrace Of Al Sharpton
Exposes Their Hypocrisy,'' The Federalist.................... 241
An article entitled, ``Pols, Press Party with Sharpton and His
Corrupt Network,'' The Village Voice......................... 244
An article entitled, ``Here's who Democrats are praising when
they praise Al Sharpton,'' Washington Examiner............... 246
A report entitled, ``Re-imagining Public Safety: Prevent Harm and
Lead with the Truth,'' The Justice Collaboratory, Center for
Policing Equity, Yale Law School, submitted by Phillip Atiba
Goff, Co-Founder and President, Center for Policing Equity..... 249
Items submitted by Heather Mac Donald, Fellow, Manhattan
Institute for Policy Research for the record
A paper entitled, ``Reconciling Results on Racial Differences
in Police Shootings,'' Roland G. Fryer, Jr., American
Economic Review.............................................. 264
A statement from Heather Mac Donald, Fellow, Manhattan
Institute for Policy Research................................ 270
A study entitled, ``Officer characteristics and racial
disparities in fatal officer-involved shootings,'' David J.
Johnson et al., PNAS......................................... 276
A paper entitled, ``Reply to Knox and Mummolo: Critique of
Johnson et al. (2019),'' David J. Johnson and Joseph Cesario,
PNAS......................................................... 282
A paper entitled, ``Making inferences about racial disparities
in police violence,'' Dean Knox and Jonathan Mummolo......... 286
Items submitted by Reverend Al Sharpton, Founder, National Action
Network for the record
A statement from Kadiadou Diallo, Mother of Amadou Diallo...... 289
A statement from Lesley McSpadden, Mother of Michael Brown..... 291
A statement from Sequita Thompson, Grandmother of Stephon Clark 294
Items submitted by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) for
the record
A paper entitled, ``ACLU of Maryland 2015 Update Regarding
Deaths in Police Custody,'' ACLU of Maryland................. 295
A brief of amici curiae of Maryland and Chaz Slaughter, Jermaul
Rondell Robinson, Dexter Williams, Vernon Harvey Spriggs v.
State of Maryland............................................ 298
A press release entitled, ``ACLU Update: At Least 21 People
Died in Police Custody in Maryland in 2015,'' ACLU of
Maryland..................................................... 322
A statement from the American Civil Liberties Union............ 324
An article entitled, ``Frederick Residents Challenge
Unconstitutional Policing of Latinx People by Sheriff Chuck
Jenkins,'' ACLU of Maryland.................................. 331
An article entitled, ``Montgomery County Police Hold African-
American Family for an Hour to Conduct Illegal Search,'' ACLU
of Maryland.................................................. 335
Items submitted by Lambda Legal for the record
A report entitled, ``A Roadmap for Change: Federal Policy
Recommendations for Addressing the Criminalization of LGBT
People and People Living with HIV,'' Center for Gender &
Sexuality Law at Columbia Law School......................... 339
A report entitled, ``Failing to Protect and Serve: Police
Department Policies Towards Transgender People,'' National
Center for Transgender Equality.............................. 423
A paper entitled, ``Policing and the LGBTQ community,''
National LGBT/HIV Criminal Justice Working Group, Lambda
Legal, National Center for Transgender Equality.............. 531
A study entitled, ``Protected and Served?,'' Lambda Legal...... 535
An executive summary of a study entitled, ``Protected and
Served?,'' Lambda Legal...................................... 543
Items submitted by the National Urban League for the record
A statement from Marc H. Morial, President and CEO, National
Urban League................................................. 561
A paper entitled, ``10 Point Justice Plan,'' National Urban
League Washington Bureau..................................... 563
OVERSIGHT HEARING ON POLICING PRACTICES
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Thursday, September 19, 2019
House of Representatives
Committee on the Judiciary
Washington, DC
The Committee met, pursuant to call, at 10:18 a.m., in Room
2141, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Jerrold Nadler [Chair
of the Committee] presiding.
Present: Representatives Nadler, Jackson Lee, Cohen,
Johnson of Georgia, Bass, Richmond, Jeffries, Cicilline, Lieu,
Raskin, Jayapal, Demings, Correa, Scanlon, Garcia, Neguse,
McBath, Dean, Mucarsel-Powell, Escobar, Collins, Chabot,
Gohmert, Jordan, Roby, Gaetz, Johnson of Louisiana, Biggs,
McClintock, Lesko, Reschenthaler, Cline, and Steube.
Also Present: Representative Pressley.
Staff Present: David Greengrass, Senior Counsel; John Doty,
Senior Advisor; Madeline Strasser, Chief Clerk; Moh Sharma,
Member Services and Outreach Advisor; Susan Jensen,
Parliamentarian/Senior Counsel; Charlie Gayle, Oversight
Counsel; James Park, Chief Counsel; Keenan Keller, Senior
Counsel; Milagros Cisners, Detailee; Brendan Belair, Minority
Staff Director; Bobby Parmiter, Minority Deputy Staff Director/
Counsel; Jon Ferro, Minority Parliamentarian/General Counsel;
Jason Cervenak, Minority Chief Counsel, Crime Subcommittee;
Erica Barker, Minority Chief Legislative Clerk; and Anthony
Angeli, Minority DEA Detailee.
Chair Nadler. The House Committee on the Judiciary will
come to order.
Without objection, the Chair is authorized to declare
recesses of the Committee at any time.
We welcome everyone to this morning's oversight hearing on
police practices. Before we begin, I want to briefly recognize
Susan Jensen whose last day on the Committee after more than 20
years of service is tomorrow. Susan is highly respected on both
sides of the aisle as one of the preeminent experts on
bankruptcy, administrative law, and the Federal court system.
It is a testament to her knowledge and fairness that she worked
as a counsel and later senior counsel for both Republican and
Democratic Chairs of this Committee. First hired by former
Chair Henry Hyde for her expertise in bankruptcy law, Susan
later moved to the Democratic staff under former Chair and
Ranking Member John Conyers, where she expanded her portfolio
to include administrative law, the Federal courts, and ethics
issues.
When I was elected to serve as Chair, I also asked Susan to
serve as the Committee Parliamentarian in addition to her other
duties. In that capacity, she has worked on nearly every facet
of Judiciary Committee operations, including preparing
Committee reports and working across the aisle to develop
procedures for hearings, markups, and other Committee
activities.
Regular viewers of this Committee will recognize her as the
person sitting behind me, providing me wise counsel.
Susan has been essential to the operations of this
Committee, and she has been involved in nearly every piece of
Committee business over the last year. Although she will be
leaving the Committee, she will continue in public service as
she transitions to a position with the Administrative Office of
the U.S. Courts.
I wish her well, and I thank her for all her years of
service to this Committee.
I now recognize the Ranking Member for any comments he may
have.
Mr. Collins. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I am glad we start off--
again, there are so many things we do agree, and this is one.
As you just mentioned a minute ago, the two of our faces are on
the screens of America a great deal. The greatest part about it
is Susan being behind us to soften the blow and to make sure
that I behave. Sometimes she will disagree. She can do that and
make you and I work together. She has been amazing to work
with. Sometimes people don't know--they know our faces. They
know the Members, but they see these folks behind us. These
folks behind us on both sides are amazing. The staffs of
Democratic and Republican Members have to put up with us, which
is amazing to start with, but in a Committee role like this,
Susan, you have been a friend. You are probably the one that I
hear the name most often. When I say ``John,'' he says, ``Well,
Susan called.'' I said, ``Was I in trouble?'' She said, ``No.''
Susan, you are going to be missed, and it will be hard to
turn around and not see you here. I am so happy for you. The
beneficiary here is what you have done for the Committee, but
also what the Administrative Office of the Courts is going to
do. They are gaining, we are losing, and we acknowledge that.
With that, I yield back to the Chair.
Chair Nadler. I thank the gentleman.
[Applause.]
Chair Nadler. I thank the gentleman for his comments. I
will now recognize myself for an opening statement.
Today's hearing furthers our Committee's longstanding
commitment to conducting meaningful oversight of State and
Federal law enforcement, as initiated by former Chair Goodlatte
and his establishment of the bipartisan Policing Strategies
Working Group. Together, we have had productive conversations
about improving relations between law enforcement officers and
the communities they serve, and today we continue that
important discussion.
Without question, the vast majority of law enforcement
officers serve honorably under difficult conditions, often
risking and sometimes losing their lives to protect us.
There have been, however, a disturbing number of incidents
of excessive force used by police against civilians--many of
whom were unarmed, most of whom were people of color, and many
of which resulted in tragic death--that have put incredible
strain on the relationships between law enforcement and their
local communities.
For example, on July 17, 2014, five New York City Police
Department officers attempted to arrest Eric Garner, a 42-year-
old father of six, for allegedly selling loose cigarettes by
tackling him to the ground and placing him in an illegal
chokehold. He repeatedly told the officers, ``I can't
breathe.'' The officers ignored his pleas as he slipped into
unconsciousness and death.
No one was held criminally responsible for Mr. Garner's
death. We are fortunate to be joined by Mr. Garner's mother,
Gwen Carr, and I say to you that the criminal justice system
and the justice system failed you, your son, and your entire
family.
Shockingly, the officer responsible for placing Mr. Garner
in a departmentally banned chokehold remained on the force for
5 years before being finally fired this past August.
On September 9, 2015, James Blake, an African American
professional tennis player, was standing outside the Grand
Hyatt Hotel in Midtown Manhattan when Officer James Frascatore,
for no apparent reason, charged him, wrestled him to the
ground, and placed him in handcuffs.
New York's Civilian Complaint Review Board, an independent
agency that reviews complaints of police misconduct, determined
that Frascatore used excessive force and recommended that the
officer be punished with departmental disciplinary charges that
could lead to suspension or dismissal. Instead, his only
punishment was to lose 5 vacation days.
Mr. Garner's death and the assault on Mr. Blake, both at
the hands of police officers sworn to preserve and protect--to
protect and serve, I should say, should alarm all Americans
regardless of party, regardless of political ideology,
regardless of race, religion, or gender. This is not a partisan
issue. There are no ``sides.''
Too often, the discourse on police misconduct descends into
a false dichotomy of us versus them, Black lives versus--blue
lives versus Black lives. This is a false and dangerous
dichotomy.
The United States stands as the world's greatest experiment
in self-government. The legitimacy and authority of our
Nation's Government rests upon the consent of its people--we,
the people. This principle particularly applies to law
enforcement, which has been given the authority to use deadly
force under color of law.
There can be no doubt, unfortunately, that communities of
color perceive law enforcement as a threat to their everyday
freedoms. These perceptions go back decades, predating both the
1994 Los Angeles riots and the 1965 Watts riots, both of which
were sparked by a lack of accountability for incidents of
police brutality. These perceptions are reality for African
Americans. According to the Center for Policing Equity, African
Americans are two to four times more likely than White
Americans to have force used against them. For far too long,
however, pleas for more just and humane treatment from law
enforcement have often fallen on deaf ears. Claims of police
misconduct coming from communities of color have often been
ignored or not believed.
Mr. Garner's killing and a series of other examples of
police misconduct against African Americans, many of which were
caught on video, make it unmistakably clear that claims of
police misconduct are all too often real. To list just a few:
On August 5, 2014, John Crawford was shot and killed by a
police officer in a Walmart store in Beavercreek, Ohio, for
holding a toy BB gun.
On August 9, 2014, Michael Brown, who was unarmed, was shot
and killed by police in Ferguson, Missouri.
On November 22, 2014, 12-year-old Tamir Rice, who was
unarmed, was shot and killed by police in Cleveland, Ohio.
On April 2, 2015, Eric Harris, who was unarmed, was shot and
killed by police in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
On April 4, 2015, Walter Scott, who was unarmed, was shot and
killed by police in North Charleston, South Carolina.
On April 19, 2015, Freddie Gray, who was unarmed, died in
police custody in Baltimore, Maryland.
On July 6, 2016, Samuel DuBose, who was unarmed, was shot and
killed by police in Cincinnati, Ohio.
The frequency of these killings and the absence of full
accountability for those responsible sent a message to Members
of the African American community that Black Lives Do Not
Matter. Well, let me State clearly for the record that Black
Lives Matter.
Our criminal justice system, including our police
departments, cannot function without African Americans knowing
that their lives matter equally, and that the system works to
protect them, just as it does every other citizen.
We must also be able to put ourselves in the shoes of our
law enforcement officers. We must be able to celebrate the
service and sacrifices of our men and women in law enforcement,
who put their lives on the line day in and day out. We must
recognize the psychological toll that serving in such an
inherently dangerous job can take on individual law enforcement
officers and their families.
It is also critical that we not paint law enforcement with
a broad brush. The vast majority of officers execute their jobs
with dignity, honor, and respect for the citizens they serve
and protect. Every American should take pride in that. Research
shows that a small percentage of repeat offenders are
responsible for the majority of incidents of misconduct.
Today's hearing presents a unique opportunity for us to
hear from some of the individuals and families affected by
police misconduct. So, I want to personally thank Ms. Carr, for
speaking at this hearing on behalf of her son, and Mr. Blake,
for sharing his personal story with us.
Today presents an opportunity for us to explore bipartisan
solutions to make policing a safer, more fulfilling job for law
enforcement officers by restoring the trust and goodwill
between police and the communities they serve. We can reexamine
the efficacy of reforms advanced by President Obama's Task
Force on 21st Century Policing and determine what further
solutions are warranted.
For example, we should examine whether the incentives
created by the doctrine of qualified immunity remain useful in
today's environment. We should consider legislative proposals
to end racial profiling and to restore trust between law
enforcement and the community. We should explore ways to
strengthen data collection on use of force and racial profiling
so that police departments can measure the practices they
manage.
Most important, we can all agree that too many lives are
put at risk and have been lost in police/citizen encounters,
and that it is incumbent upon each of us to work together as
fellow Americans to solve this problem.
I thank all our Witnesses for appearing, and I look forward
to their testimony.
I now recognize the Ranking Member of the Judiciary
Committee, the gentleman from Georgia, Mr. Collins, for his
opening statement.
Mr. Collins. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I appreciate that.
Before I get started, I would like to add to the record a
letter from the Detectives Endowment Association of New York
and the National Association of Police Organizations, a letter
for the record.
Chair Nadler. Without objection.
Mr. Collins. Thank you.
[The information follows:]
MR. COLLINS FOR THE RECORD
=======================================================================
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Mr. Collins. I appreciate the Chair's opening, and I think
you covered a great deal of stuff. For me--and I have a lot of
notes here in listening--I think one of the things to start out
this is it is very important that excessive force where used
ought to be punished. It should not be thought about. It should
be punished, and it should be put before a proper due process
procedure and then acted upon quickly. It shouldn't be drug
out. It should not be--if it is in a minority community, in
particular, or any other community, it needs to be looked at,
it needs to be processed, and it needs to be done so in a fair
way to all involved so that there is justice, there is
plausibility, so that people do trust.
The one thing that I do want to focus on--and the Chair did
a good job, because it is very fair that there is a lot of
things that have happened in communities that raise a lot of
concerns. We on this Committee have a job to look over and say,
``How do we fix this?'' There are actually officers on this
Committee and I served with, and Ms. Demings is one of those
who have done this, put on a uniform and been out there.
I come at it a different position, though, and I do want to
emphasize--and I think this is why we have this hearing today,
because I am going to take it from a perspective that I don't
think anybody wants to see justice go unserved. I think the
interesting perspective here is my perspective that there is no
one that wants the bad actors out of law enforcement more than
law enforcement itself.
I am the son of a Georgia State trooper. I have made the
joke before that I fought the law, and the law won every time.
Okay? Six-foot-two, 250 pounds, and a blue-and-gray uniform
with a .357 on his hip. I was a scrawny kid from Gainesville.
Daddy loved us, but he was in Georgia, he understood that, and
he would come home. I am the little kid that would watch Dad go
out to work, and when he would come home at night, he would
come in with his uniform torn, blood on his collar. How does
that affect an 8-9-year-old kid? That is my Daddy. That is the
man that to this day--he is 80 years old. He is a big teddy
bear now because of grandchildren. That is the big factor. This
is the man that I admire to this day. I am who I am because of
him.
What would happen, my Dad was a strong man and is a strong
man, and one of the interesting things that I always found was
when something would go wrong with an officer--and we had an
officer in Georgia who--it was a Georgia State trooper who I
knew personally who--and I am tempted to call it a mistake. It
is not. He committed a crime. He had a sexual encounter with
someone in his custody, and he is in jail. It was rape. He was
punished for it.
What is even more amazing to me was my Dad's reaction to
that. My Dad came home and didn't--he was upset. He was mad. I
could tell it because--the Chair talked about how this plays
out in the police force. It played out at home. It played out
because my dad came home and didn't talk about it. My dad was
mad as he could be about somebody tarnishing the badge and the
uniform that he wore. There is no one, I believe honestly, in
this country who wants bad actors who do bad things out of the
police force more than the police themselves. As someone who
understands this and watched my father live it every day when
he was painted with that broad brush the Chair spoke of that I
am glad we are not going to use, when he was painted because of
others, then it affects everybody in a high-risk, many times
low-reward area.
Some of the things I would love to see us talk about, the
blue line--the thin blue line denotes a separation from order
and chaos. It should always be there. No one in our country
should not look at our police force and know this is what keeps
us all safe, no matter who we are or what our beliefs or what
our color of our skin. It is what keeps us different than the
rest of the world, a safe orderly police force that carries out
our laws faithfully and executes them to the best of their
ability.
I served on that Police Working Group, and I have been all
over the country, in Georgia and other places, and we have
problems in our police force because there is too many folks
who are bad actors who get pushed from one job to another. Let
us talk honestly. Let us talk honestly. You have got bad actors
who can't make it at one job, they go to another police force,
and it is sort of like, yeah, do you know him? Yeah, okay,
yeah, he got another job. One police chief is saying, ``Thank
God,'' the other police chief is saying, ``I don't know what I
got into.''
You know why? Because pay, benefits, the issues of
communities. I live in a rural community in North Georgia. My
North Georgia kids who live in some of my smaller counties,
they are going to go to work if they can with the sheriff's
department, but they are making an amount that they can 40
miles down the road and double their salary. Or if they can't
make it in one of those, they know they can go somewhere else
and get another job, no matter what their record is.
So, as we come to this hearing today, it does need to be a
hearing of what I will call the ``terrible acts.'' We need to
acknowledge them, and we need to admit that justice needs to be
served. There is nothing about this hearing that all should
think--that the 98 or 99, whatever percent you want to do, of
those men and women who wake up every day with only one
responsibility: Taking care of their communities and taking
care of the lives that they have. They want nothing more than
these bad actors to go away so that they can do their job. When
they lay their head down at night, they know they have done
their best. They want to be respected because they have done
their job, and not because somebody else has acted badly. When
that happens, then our law enforcement understands that we
respect them, we love them, and we are going to help them where
they need help. For every other 10-year-old kid who watched
their Dad go out, not knowing if they are going to come home,
or when they do come home, they are beat up and battered
because they were out helping others. When they see their Dad,
or their Mom, upset because their profession--their calling is
tarnished by those who would tarnish it, justice must be swift,
it must be firm, and it must be fairly applied, because if not,
we lose who we are. We would not be who we are without our
police force. We now need to help them make it better.
With that, I yield back.
Chair Nadler. I thank the gentleman.
Without objection, all other opening statements will be
included in the record.
I want to note that the gentlelady from Massachusetts, Ms.
Pressley, is here with us, and we thank her for attending.
I will now introduce today's Witnesses.
Gwen Carr is the mother of Eric Garner, who died during the
course of his arrest by police officers. As a result of this
tragic event, she became a leading advocate for improving
policing practices and currently facilitates the This Stops
Today Program through the nonprofit ERIC, Eliminating Racism
and Inequality Collectively. She is here today to share her
personal experience.
Ron Davis served as Director of the U.S. Department of
Justice's Community Oriented Policing Services Office from
2013-2017. In December 2014, he was appointed to serve as
Executive Director of the President's Task Force on 21st
Century Policing. Prior to serving as COPS Director, he was the
Chief of Police of East Palo Alto, California, for more than 8
years and previously served 20 years with the Oakland Police
Department. Director Davis received his B.A. from Southern
Illinois University and completed the Senior Executives in
State and Local Government Program at Harvard University
Kennedy School of Government.
Patrick Yoes--I hope I pronounced that right--Captain
Patrick Yoes is the National President of the Fraternal Order
of Police. Since 1984, he has served in a variety of roles in
the St. Charles Sheriff's Office in St. Charles Parish,
Louisiana, and currently is the Commander of the Special
Services Department. He earned a Bachelor of Science from
Mountain State University and an Associate of Science from
Nichols State University. He is also a graduate of the FBI
National Academy.
The Reverend Al Sharpton is the founder and President of
the National Action Network, a national civil rights advocacy
organization. He attended Brooklyn College and received an
honorary Doctorate of Divinity from Bethune-Cookman University,
Virginia University--Virginia Union University, as well as an
honorary degree from AP Bible College.
James Blake is a former tennis professional and currently
is a correspondent and host for the Tennis Channel. He is also
the tournament director for the Miami Open, so I suppose we can
get good tickets. Mr. Blake is here today to speak about his
personal experiences with law enforcement.
Gina Hawkins has served more than 30 years in law
enforcement and is currently the Chief of Police for the
Fayetteville, North Carolina, Police Department. She also
serves as an Executive Board Member of the National
Organization of Black Law Enforcement Executives. Chief Hawkins
received her Bachelor of Science from Georgia State University
and a Master of Science from Johns Hopkins University. She is
also a graduate of the FBI National Associates Academy.
Heather Mac Donald is the Thomas W. Smith Fellow at the
Manhattan Institute for Policy Research. She has written
numerous books on the criminal justice system and previously
clerked for Judge Stephen Reinhardt on the U.S. Court of
Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. Ms. Mac Donald received her B.A.
from Yale University, her M.A. from Clair College, and her J.D.
from Stanford University Law School.
Philip Atiba Goff is the co-founder and President of the
Center for Policing Equity. He also serves as a professor of
police equity at John Jay College of Criminal Justice.
Professor Goff has written extensively on policing issues. He
received his A.B. from Harvard University and his M.A. and
Ph.D. from Stanford University.
Finally, Lynda Garcia is the Policing Campaign Director at
the Leadership Conference on Civil & Human Rights. Before
joining the Leadership Conference, Ms. Garcia served as a trial
attorney in the Special Litigation section of the Civil Rights
Division of the Department of Justice. She also served as a law
clerk to Judge John Gleeson of the Eastern District of New
York. Ms. Clark received her B.A. from Hunter College and her
J.D. from Fordham Law School, my alma mater.
We welcome all our distinguished Witnesses, and we thank
them for participating in today's hearing. Now, if you would
please rise, I will begin by swearing you in.
Raise your hand, please. Do you swear or affirm under
penalty of perjury that the testimony you are about to give is
true and correct to the best of your knowledge, information,
and belief, so help you God?
[Response.]
Chair Nadler. You may be seated. Let the record show the
witnesses answered in the affirmative.
Please note that each of your written statements will be
entered into the record in its entirety. Accordingly, I ask
that you summarize your testimony in 5 minutes. To help you
stay within that time, there is a timing light on your table.
When the light switches from green to yellow, you have 1 minute
to conclude your testimony. When the light turns red, it
signals your 5 minutes have expired.
Ms. Carr, you may begin. Good morning. Turn the mic on and
speak closely into it.
TESTIMONY OF GWEN CARR
Ms. Carr. Okay. Yes, Chair Nadler and the Members of the
Judiciary Committee, I thank you for having me this morning. My
name is Gwen Carr. I am the mother of Eric Garner.
Five years ago, my beloved son, Eric, was murdered by
people who were supposed to serve and protect. On July 17th,
the NYPD police officers approached my son. One of them put him
in an illegal chokehold. Eric cried out 11 times, ``I can't
breathe.'' Eleven times he said, ``I can't breathe.'' Those
officers who were on the scene that day, they didn't seem to
care.
Eric died that day. There was a video that captured the
incident, including the chokehold and my son's cry saying that
he couldn't breathe. This went viral around the world.
So, my thought is today, how come no one was held
accountable, no one was held--and charged for my son's death?
Not only the officer that murdered my son, but all the
officers who were on the scene need to stand accountable for
his death that day. I will never forget that day in July. I got
up that morning. I spoke to Eric. I spoke to him for about 10
minutes. Afterwards, we said our good-byes. He said, ``I love
you, Mom.'' I said, ``I love you, too, Eric.'' Never knowing
that would be our last and final conversation.
My entire life was uprooted on that July day. I felt
helpless, in a dark place, scattered in millions of pieces. It
is impossible to describe the pain that I felt that day. Losing
a child is just indescribable, having the burden of finding out
exactly what happened to your child by the police who was
responsible for his demise. How is a person supposed to get
answers? Who do she go to for help?
Most people can't even comprehend how difficult it is to
suddenly lose a child and to fight for 5 years and just get an
ounce of accountability. It has impacted our lives in many
devastating ways.
Almost 2 months ago, I lost my husband. He was my partner
in every sense of the word. He fought the long fight with me.
Even though he wasn't in front of the cameras, he supported me,
and he really supported the cause.
My granddaughter, Erica, she died December 17th of a heart
attack. She was only 27 years old. When my son was murdered,
she fought the good fight. She found until she became ill. I
say she died of a broken heart.
These are the wounds of the seen and unseen from the police
brutality. The loss of loved ones and no recourse, no
accountability. The entire family is traumatized, each and
every time we enter the courtroom or watch the officer
responsible for my son's death get a pay raise or hear the
Department of Justice saying they are not going to seek charges
or when the officer who is the commanding officer of the person
who was on the scene when my son was murdered said it was not a
big deal that Eric laid on the ground DOA.
I come before you today not only to share my son's story or
the long quest of justice that we have been seeking for 5
years, but I urge you to take immediate action to imply the
national changes and standards towards policing. In 2015, I
stood with Representative Hakeem Jeffries as we introduced the
bill that would make chokeholds illegal under the Federal Civil
Rights Law. Once the bill is reintroduced this season, I call
for you to support and vote for legislation.
The Excessive Force Use--the Excessive Use of Force
Prevention Act of 2019, please vote for it. Violent police have
no place in this society, so like you said, Mr. Nadler, let's
get them out of there. No officer who is not there to do his
job should be on the police force.
So, again, I ask you to please, please vote on this bill.
[The statement of Ms. Carr follows:]
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Chair Nadler. Ms. Carr, thank you for your moving
testimony. The Committee understands how difficult this was for
you and has agreed not to subject you to questions out of
respect. We now invite you to join us for the remainder of the
hearing in the front row if you so desire.
Mr. Davis?
TESTIMONY OF RONALD DAVIS
Chief Davis. Good morning, Mr. Chair, Ranking Member
Collins, and distinguished Committee Members. My name is Ronald
Davis, and I had the distinct honor of serving as Director of
the United States Department of Justice Office of Community
Oriented Policing Services in the Obama Administration. I also
served as the Executive Director of President Obama's Task
Force on 21st Century Policing. Before my service in the
Administration, I spent close to 30 years in local policing--20
years in the great city of Oakland, California, and 8 years as
police chief in the great city of East Palo Alto. My testimony
is based on these perspectives as well as my perspective as a
Black man and the father of Black children.
First, as a 20-year police veteran, I know firsthand the
complex, challenging, and dangerous nature of being a police
officer. As a police chief, I had to tell a wife that her
husband, one of my brave police officers, was shot and killed
in the line of duty. I have personally seen the toll being a
police officer takes on so many. I have lost friends and
colleagues to suicide, a threat which is now growing at an
exponential rate. I have also seen a lot of positive changes in
policing in areas such as technology, crime reduction,
diversity training, and in community policing.
However, as a Black man, I know that despite these efforts,
significant racial disparities still exist in our policing and
criminal justice system. I do not believe these disparities
exist because the profession is full of racists. I believe they
exist because of structural racism. Many of the systems and
practices in policing that exist today were designed for the
1950s and 1960s to enforce discriminatory laws and to impress
Black Americans. We must acknowledge the history of policing in
this country and the role that police have played in enforcing
discriminatory laws and continue to play through draconian
discriminatory policing practices.
With that being said, I think it is fair to say that
positive changes have started, especially through the seminal
work of President Obama's Task Force on 21st Century Policing.
So, as I testify today here, Mr. Chair, my concern is not that
we haven't made progress. My concern is that this Department of
Justice is attempting to stop this progress by returning to the
failed policies and practices of the 1980s and 1990s, policies
that resulted in unequal justice.
I was a street cop in Oakland during the 1980s and 1990s,
and I can tell you firsthand that this nostalgia for the
policing practices of those years is dangerously misplaced. I
worked in units that made thousands of arrests of mostly young
men of color while simultaneously watching the homicide rate
climb to record levels. I also witnessed these practices
destroy the future of thousands of young men of color without
unfair sentencing practices. We now know that these practices
caused significant collateral damage and they did not work.
What did work in Oakland and some of the other communities was
community policing and the use of evidence-based programs such
as Operation Ceasefire and focused deterrent strategies.
Now, there will be those that will argue that the tactics
of the 1990s did work, and I guess if taking a lot of people to
jail and having statistical crime numbers go up and down for a
couple of months is success, then it worked. In our democracy,
public safety is not just the absence of crime. It must include
the presence of justice. This idea, taken from Dr. King's
quotable piece, must serve as the foundation for how we
evaluate all policing practices in our criminal justice system.
As most of you know, the American policing system is by
design decentralized and controlled locally so that policing
practices are accountable to local community values and their
priorities. So, it is especially disheartening to hear the
Attorney General of the United States attack local mayors and
prosecutors for their efforts to respond to their local
community.
It is also disheartening to hear people, including those in
this Administration, talk about how they support the men and
women of law enforcement, yet their actions do not back this
rhetoric. Don't tell me you support law enforcement and local
control of police and then threaten to take away grant funding
if local police refused to enforce Federal immigration laws.
Don't talk about cops having the resources necessary to do
their job and then vote against funding for their COPS office
to hire and train more cops. Do not demand community respect
for law enforcement while advocating for those very policies
that you know will destroy their trust.
I remind you that in New York it was first the officers and
their union that was against Stop, Question, and Frisk, but it
was implemented, nonetheless. When it went bad, the officers
were blamed.
Now, the Justice Department is advocating for a return to
those same types of policies. They are ignoring the lessons of
the past while ignoring the voices from the field, once again
placing officers and the community in untenable positions. This
is why this hearing is so important. Through its grant
programs, technical assistance, and civil rights enforcement,
the Justice Department can play a role to help the 16,000-
18,000 police agencies in the United States, to make sure that
whether a department has 4 cops or 40,000 cops, that they have
access to the best policies and training and practices in the
country.
There is much the Federal Government can do to help police,
and since my time is winding down, let us give you a couple of
the recommendations.
The first recommendation is that we rescind the Sessions
memo and restore the ability for the Civil Rights Department to
conduct pattern and practice investigations; that we work
collaboratively with local law enforcement and communities to
develop and implement new and innovative strategies to enhance
public safety; that we restore funding to train officers and
deputies in implicit bias and procedural justice; that we
increase funding to the National Institute of Justice to expand
its capacity to conduct research and evaluate crime strategies;
that we work with local prosecutors instead of criticizing them
to reform the criminal justice system; that we expand the
efforts to develop strategies to enhance officer safety and
wellness; and that we support the End Racial Profiling Act to
make sure that that accountability is in every department in
this country.
As a Black man and as a former cop, I should be able to
drive anywhere in this country and expect the same
constitutional treatment, and it should not be depending on how
big the department is or how much money that they have.
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
[The statement of Mr. Davis follows:]
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Chair Nadler. Thank you.
Mr. Yoes?
TESTIMONY OF PATRICK YOES
Mr. Yoes. Good morning, Chair Nadler, Ranking Member
Collins, and distinguished Members of the Committee. I thank
you for the opportunity to appear here today and speak on
behalf of the nearly 350,000 members of the Fraternal Order of
Police. My name is Patrick Yoes, and just over a month ago, I
was elected President of the National Fraternal Order of
Police. We are the Nation's oldest and largest law enforcement
organization. My full testimony has been submitted for the
record, and with the Chair's permission, I would like to
summarize it at this point.
My profession is evolving. Some of these changes are driven
by technology, others by society, and, of course, by our
internal efforts to improve public safety and the services we
provide to our communities.
As a law enforcement officer, I have spent 35 years of my
career answering calls for help, and I am here today to let you
know that the Fraternal Order of Police is ready to sit with
anyone who genuinely wants to work collectively to help improve
policing in this country. Today we are calling on you for your
help.
Law enforcement officers were once universally respected.
Parents would tell their children, ``If you need help, find a
police officer.'' This may no longer be true. Recent events
indicate that a growing percentage of the general public view
officers with suspicion and disdain. In far too many cases, it
has escalated into physical hostility.
We are public servants. We are not public enemies. We live
and raise our families in the same communities, and we are
vested in the success of these communities.
Our jobs are becoming increasingly dangerous. Ambush
attacks on law enforcement officers have been increasing over
the last 8 years, and a recent study by the FBI concluded that
many of these cases were motivated by the desire to hurt or
kill a police officer.
Congress needs to Act to reduce this type of targeted
violence by once again passing H.R. 1325, the Protect and Serve
Act, introduced by Representatives Rutherford and Demings.
Chief, thank you. Thank you for your steadfast support for law
enforcement.
This would not make every attack on an officer a Federal
crime. What it will do is give the U.S. Department of Justice a
tool in certain limited circumstances to fight back against
targeted attacks like those that occurred in Dallas, Texas, and
Baton Rouge, Louisiana, my home State.
Last year, this Committee passed this legislation
unanimously, and the House passed it overwhelmingly on a vote
of 382-35. Passing this legislation again would demonstrate
that this House supports the men and women in law enforcement
because right now we are feeling abandoned.
These changes in attitudes are having an impact on our
ability of our profession to retain and recruit the very best
and brightest. Applications for positions in law enforcement
have decreased this year by as much as 66 percent, leaving too
many agencies short-shifted and overworked.
My organization is also working to improve. We have engaged
with many of the organizations here today, represented here
today on issues of body cameras and improving law enforcement
transparency while still protecting privacy rights.
We have participated in each and every public meeting of
the President's Task Force on 21st Century Policing, and we
have supported the majority of that body's findings, and we
have worked with this Committee to implement many of them. We
have engaged with the Administration and many of the groups
represented here today to support the historic FIRST STEP Act.
While many of our fellow law enforcement organizations chose to
withhold their support, the FOP was able to support it because
we were engaged in the conversation and we're committed to
improving not just our profession, but the criminal justice
system as a whole. I think everyone can be proud of the results
because we achieved it by working together.
Another issue of which there is bipartisan support is
addressing the issue of mental health and wellness among the
men and women in law enforcement. Being a police officer is not
an easy job. It has evolved into including the role of
therapist, marriage counselor, addiction specialist, and
spiritual adviser. Some statistics suggest that a police
officer will experience more traumatic events in a 6-month
period than an average person will experience in a lifetime. It
can take a tremendous toll on a person's physical and mental
well-being. First responders have five times more PTSD and
depression than a civilian, yet there is little that has been
done to address this, and the number of police suicides seem to
be grossly underreported.
In 2017, there were 140 officers that took their own lives.
In contrast, in that year 46 officers were fatally shot and
killed in the line of duty. Police officers run towards danger
while most runaway. Rather than cast them aside, we have a
moral and a fiduciary responsibility to fix that which has been
broken in the service of our communities. The passage of
legislation like the Law Enforcement Mental Health and Wellness
Act and the Supporting and Treating of Officers in Crisis Act,
also known as ``STOIC,'' will certainly help us grapple with
this issue.
Finally, my profession must continue to work hard to build
trust and respect for the communities we protect. There must be
an open dialogue and a willingness to build consensus. We
cannot do it alone, and I promise you the Fraternal Order of
Police will do its part.
I thank you again for the opportunity to speak here today,
and I will be available for questions.
[The statement of Mr. Yoes follows:]
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Chair Nadler. Thank you.
Reverend Sharpton?
TESTIMONY OF REVEREND AL SHARPTON
Rev. Sharpton. Thank you, Chair Nadler and Ranking Member
Collins. As President of National Action Network, I have
submitted my testimony. I would like to summarize it by saying
that what we really seek is this Committee to begin moving
toward Federal law and Federal standards that would define
clearly where the line is in terms of excessive force and take
this argument from a State and local level to where there is a
Federal standard that all must abide by.
What we have seen in the last several years is that in
different cities where we are called in, in every case we have
fought, including the Eric Garner case and the cases that we
have submitted this morning, the mother of Michael Brown has
submitted a testimony from Ferguson, Missouri, the mother of
Stephon Clark has submitted testimony, we have seen different
counties react different ways.
It reminds me of my studying the early stages of the 1960s
of the movement for civil rights. Until the Federal Government
stepped in, they would have to fight State by State, county by
county, against segregation. So, it was the judgment of Martin
Luther King, Jr., and others to appeal for Federal Government
intervention rather than fight in Alabama, then have to fight
in Georgia, et cetera, et cetera. Unless the Federal Government
steps in and deals with Federal standards and Federal laws, we
will be subjected to the local politics and at the whims of
local back and forward that could differ in another State.
We need to have Federal law that sets various unimpugned
standards that will be followed. What do I mean by that? The
Federal Government determined in several States, several
counties, several cities that they were going to place certain
police departments in where the Justice Department would be
over and supervise them because there was a pattern and
practice that demonstrated excessive force.
When this present Administration came in, they immediately
suspended that in several of those cities. They had not been in
long enough to make an investigation. So, what was the
determination that made them decide that they would stop what
had been determined by the Justice Department before them after
an investigation? This Committee needs to investigate why
incoming Attorney General Sessions, upheld now by Barr,
withheld and removed this designation because it really sends
the signal that we will allow patterns and practice to continue
even though a Justice Department--not National Action Network,
not activists, not Black Lives Matter--the Justice Department
said there was a pattern.
I think that we also must have certain standards in terms
of when we talk about body cameras that they must be regulated
where they cannot cut the body camera off. We must define--when
we look at Gwen Carr, 5 years waiting on a decision from the
Federal Government on whether charges would be brought, and we
read public notices that the Civil Rights Division wanted to
charge, but the locals didn't want to charge, for families to
have to go through this, it shows again how nebulous and
undefined the Federal laws are. Just as civil rights activists
had to appeal to the Federal Government 50 years ago to
intervene and save us from States rights mentality, we need to
rise above States rights mentality in law enforcement and set
Federal law.
I am heartened to hear the head of FOP said that they are
willing to be at the table in these discussions to see where
there can be consensus, because we do need consensus. Let me
repeat: When police are killed, we are standing firmly against
that. Ms. Carr and I led a march when two policemen were killed
in New York. Another was killed. The family had invited me to
see them. Some of the unions got angry. We gave $5,000 for a
fund with that. We are not anti-police. We are anti-police
brutality. Even when we stand up when police are killed, we
have yet to see police unions stand up one time when one of
their officers killed someone in the community unjustifiably.
I am not saying every policeman is wrong. The majority of
them go out with many reasons to wonder whether they will come
home, and they protect all of us. Those that step outside the
law must be punished, and the Federal Government must make that
happen. This is not about anti-police. This is about upholding
the law. No one should want bad cops punished more than good
cops whose names are smeared because people get to choke people
on tape, hearing 11 times, ``I can't breathe,'' and you have
got to go through 5 years of torment and finally be turned down
and got to beg, pray, and march to just take his job.
This is not what America should be about. The President and
others can excuse it. I think it is on the Congress to act. The
President says I hate cops. No, I just dislike the President. I
don't hate cops.
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
[Applause.]
[The statement of Rev. Sharpton follows:]
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Chair Nadler. Mr. Blake?
TESTIMONY OF JAMES BLAKE
Mr. Blake. Chair Nadler and the Members of the Judiciary
Committee, thank you all for this opportunity to speak here.
In 2015, I was standing and waiting for a car at 42nd
Street in Manhattan outside the Grand Hyatt Hotel, when--I
believe we have the video--this happened.
[Video presentation.]
Video presentation is provided at the following link: https://
www.dropbox.com/s/k0pmz6cvjj3wbgy/
Blake%20Video%20Presentation.mp4?dl=0.
Mr. Blake. This was an extremely vulnerable and infuriating
situation when I knew I had done nothing wrong, and this is
entirely an abuse of power and intimidation.
Luckily for me, I made it out alive. What happened to me
was unfortunate, but it could have easily been tragic with only
minor changes. I was aware of that as a possibility as the news
prior to this had been peppered with cases from Alton Sterling,
Terence Crutcher, Laquan McDonald, Tamir Rice, and the list
goes on and on. Those are tragedies that didn't need to happen.
When I realized how common these occurrences were and still
are, it forced me into action. I had to speak up to give a
voice to those that didn't have that option.
It was amazing to me as I was in New York after this
incident occurred how many people came up to me with similar
stories, worse stories, or repeated instances. They didn't have
the benefit of being able to raise awareness or talk about the
case on ``Good Morning America'' the next day or meet with the
mayor and police chief personally. I got those benefits because
of my previous career as an athlete, and I am fully aware that
the video showing the attack clear as day made all the
difference.
Before anyone was aware of the video, the police department
was already in damage control and stated that they were
investigating whether force was used and that I was only in
cuffs for less than a minute. Had there been no video, it would
have been my word against the police. I think we all know how
that goes, no matter how credible the victim is. Because there
is a video and it entirely backed my account of the incident,
there was a public apology and meeting with the mayor and
police chief. That gave me more responsibility to find a way to
hold the city accountable. Not all are able to have the benefit
of video evidence when these abuses happen. Even with video
evidence, too often families of the deceased are undermined and
not believed.
As we have tragically seen with clear-cut cases, including
Eric Garner and Delrawn Small, our police have raised questions
and alternate theories in spite of what our own eyes see on the
tape.
Accountability is an issue that strikes a nerve with me for
this case. The State that this country is in right now is in a
crisis with regard to the lack of police accountability. I am
confident there will be plenty of statistics and data to
support the lack of accountability many police officers face,
but I feel compelled just to give my personal experience.
I was attacked in broad daylight, without even raising a
hand or making any move to run. This was done by an officer who
already had numerous complaints and even settlements for
excessive force. This information was leaked to the press when,
in my opinion, there should be a national database that is
public information for all officer abuse and brutality cases.
So, this led me to believe that the solution should be
termination from the NYPD. Instead, the hearings for discipline
were dragged out over nearly 2 years and he lost 5 vacation
days, one week of work, which I would have lost far more had I
still been on tour at this time from the injuries sustained.
All the while he was still collecting his paychecks from the
city of New York.
This gets at one of the serious problems I have seen. All
the consequences are based on past precedent. Past precedent
has been set from the times when the police were policing
themselves, so the punishments were far too lenient. When I
asked the Civilian Complaint Review Board to suggest firing,
they clearly let me know that they could not and would not do
that. My status, they feared, would hinder any hope of getting
that as it would look like preferential treatment for a
celebrity. I didn't want preferential treatment. I wanted
justice and what was best for the city.
I couldn't think of a more appropriate case to set a new
precedent with. If this is what is supposed to be a deterrent,
I cannot imagine this would slow anyone with the attitude of
abusing power and authority. Worse still, it may embolden
someone to do much worse and feel like they can again get away
with this behavior. To me, this leaves blood on the hands of
those in power that can do something to stop these abuses
before they escalate.
I am just one example of the harm suffered by countless
people at the hands of police in this country. There are
numerous stories that remain untold. Until we know these
stories, it will be difficult to obtain police reform. The
Congress must require that States collect data on all police-
community encounters and must ensure that the death in custody
reporting law, which requires an accounting of deaths in police
custody, is enforced by the Department of Justice. Congress
must also advance legislation like the End Racial Profiling
Act, sponsored by Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee, and the
PRIDE Act, sponsored by Congressman Joaquin Castro. These bills
require reporting on law enforcement stops, searches, use of
force, and other interactions.
I think about my encounter with the NYPD, and I think how
lucky I was that I had no fight-or-flight response. I think
about those who weren't so lucky. Eric Garner was put in a
chokehold by an officer. That chokehold had been banned decades
earlier but was still used and led to his death. The Congress
must take up the Excessive Use of Force Prevention Act,
sponsored by Hakeem Jeffries, which designates the chokehold as
excessive and prohibited use of for in law enforcement.
These acts cannot change what happened to me. They can't
bring back Walter Scott or Ramarley Graham, but they can
hopefully make a difference in thwarting those types of
situations before they happen and adding a level of
accountability if they do happen.
Thank you all for allowing me to use my voice here to bring
attention to some possible solutions, to save future lives and
improve community and police relations.
[The statement of Mr. Blake follows:]
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Chair Nadler. Thank you very much.
Chief Hawkins?
TESTIMONY OF GINA HAWKINS
Chief Hawkins. Committee Chair Nadler, Ranking Member
Collins, and the Members of the U.S. House of Representatives,
Committee on the Judiciary, I bring you greetings on behalf of
the executive board and Members of the National Organization of
Black Law Enforcement Executives, NOBLE. My name is Gina
Hawkins, and I am the national treasurer of NOBLE and the Chief
of Police for the Fayetteville Police Department in
Fayetteville, North Carolina. It is an honor to be here for
NOBLE to provide written testimony on the topic of policing
oversight.
NOBLE has been at the forefront of promoting police
accountability since the organization's inception in 1976. Our
mission is to ensure equity in the Administration of justice
and the provisions of public service to all communities and to
serve as the conscience of law enforcement by being committed
to justice by action. Law enforcement agencies and their
leaders have a responsibility to ensure that justice is
administered fairly in all communities.
NOBLE Member Chiefs and Sheriffs hold ourselves and our
agencies to a high professional standard, ensuring that
officers and committees--communities we serve and protect are
aligned with a priority for everyone's safety. Police are not
perfect, and we recognize the need to take steps to improve
service, build trust in our communities, and increase
operational transparency.
NOBLE has been actively involved in national-level
discussions on the key areas of police accountability, use of
force, and reducing gun violence. There has been universal
recognition expressed by NOBLE to the United States Department
of Justice on the importance of maintaining a level of police
accountability in the form of the previous model of the
collaborative reform initiatives or similar style Federal
resources.
Law enforcement agencies that seek to improve their
operations use the nationally adopted blueprint for 21st
century policing and build trust and legitimacy with their
communities should be afforded the technical assistance
resources available for improvement without any punitive
Federal-level recourse.
Agency leaders should also have access to high-quality
policing professionals who can assist that agency with
assessing areas for improvement and developing strategies to
modernize their police operations and culture to best meet the
needs of the 21st century policing as already outlined by the
Department of Justice.
As Chief of the Fayetteville Police Department, my
predecessor used the technical assistance resources provided
through the Collaborative Forum to help the agency develop a
strategy to improve engagement at all levels of the department,
and particularly with communities of color. Our department did
not shy away from taking a close look at our training, traffic
and pedestrian stop data, and our citizen engagement to
identify areas of improvement.
Today we are a better informed and engaged department
because of the leadership that I and other NOBLE leaders
provide to their agency, because we recognize the need to
measure up to the expectation of our communities and ensure
policing is a credible profession, respected in our communities
for being honest, trustworthy, fair to everyone we serve and
protect.
The Federal Government can play an important role in
influencing local municipalities and their police agencies to
address systemic issues that are adversely impacting their
ability to protect and serve their communities.
A key assumption that has been challenged by NOBLE is that
policing organizations can easily police themselves without the
best practices and following the nationally adopted blueprint
for 21st century policing.
As the data shows, it is very rare for the Federal
Government to enforce a consent decree. Since 1997, there have
only been 21 court-enforced consent decrees on law enforcement
agencies compared to the over 18,000 agencies that serve our
communities. Most law enforcement agencies are filled with
committed, fair, and honest men and women who put our police
uniforms on every day with the sole intent of keeping everyone
safe.
In the instance where deadly force is used, a third-party
intervention could be beneficial, and many States and even
agencies have adopted policies that already implement this
critical public trust component. The ultimate goal in police
accountability is to strengthen trust and legitimacy between
law enforcement and the community. A strong, trustworthy,
legitimate agency can create a safer environment for law
enforcement officers and the citizens of that community.
NOBLE police chiefs and sheriffs provide law enforcement
agencies leadership to over half of the largest cities in the
nation. We are committed to effective community policing and
holding our agencies and officers to the highest standards in
the policing profession.
On behalf of the law enforcement leaders of NOBLE, thank
you for supporting law enforcement and our ability to maintain
public safety while continuing to build strong relationships
with our communities. Our Members stand ready to meet the needs
of our diverse communities.
Thank you again for this opportunity to provide testimony.
[The statement of Chief Hawkins follows:]
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Chair Nadler. Thank you.
Ms. Mac Donald?
TESTIMONY OF HEATHER MAC DONALD
Ms. Mac Donald. Thank you, Chair Nadler, Ranking Member
Collins, and the Committee Members, for the opportunity to
speak today. My name is Heather Mac Donald. I am a fellow at
the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research.
Since the 1990s, felony crime in the United States has
dropped 50 percent. 10s of thousands of lives, the majority
Black and Hispanic, have been saved, closing the life
expectancy gap between whites and blacks by 17 percent. This
crime drop was the result of a policing revolution that began
in New York City in 1994 and spread nationwide.
Upon taking office, New York Police Commissioner William
Bratton dared something that few police chiefs had ever risked.
He publicly set himself a target for crime reduction. Bratton
not only met his 1-year goal of 10 percent; he beat it with a
crime decline of 12 percent. The next year, he upped the ante,
declaring that the New York Police Department would lower crime
by 15 percent. That year's crime drop locked in at 16 percent.
The idea that the police would take measurable
responsibility for public safety was transformative. Bratton
accomplished his crime rout with three main strategies: Timely
information, accountability, and proactive policing.
Deputy Commissioners started demanding crime information in
real time so that crime patterns could be addressed as they
first broke out. Top brass held precinct commanders ruthlessly
accountable for crime in their jurisdictions, and officers on
the beat were asked to intervene proactively when they observed
suspicious behavior.
Broken windows policing was a crucial aspect of this
policing revolution. It addresses low-level social disorders
such as loitering, unruly conduct, and public drinking and drug
use. Broken windows policing is not just a crime strategy,
however. It is a moral imperative. It is the hardworking, law-
abiding residents of high-crime neighborhoods who beseech the
police to address street disorder. Go to any police community
meeting in a high-risk community, and you will hear the good
people there beg the police to get the drug dealers off the
streets, to clear the corners of rowdy youth, and to crack down
on loud music and illegal street parties. The residents know
that it is out of such unchecked social disorder that more
serious crime emerges.
A 2015 Quinnipiac poll found that 61 percent of Black
voters in New York City wanted the police to issue summonses or
make arrests in their neighborhood for quality-of-life offenses
compared to 59 percent of White voters. Should the police
ignore their voices because the activists say that broken
windows policing is racist?
We are also told that we are living through an epidemic of
racially biased police shootings of Black men. This, too, is
false. A study published this August in the proceedings of the
National Academy of Sciences is just the latest research
undercutting the media narrative about race and police
shootings. It is the rate of violent crime that determines
police shootings, the study found. The more frequently officers
encounter violent suspects from any given racial group, the
greater the chance that Members of that group will be shot by a
police officer. In fact, Black civilians are shot less compared
to whites than their rates of violent crime would predict, the
study found. If there is a bias on police shootings, it is
against White civilians.
The anti-police narrative deflects attention away from
solving the real criminal justice problem, which is high rates
of Black victimization. Blacks die of homicide at eight times
the rate of Whites. The homicide death rate for Black males
between the ages of 15 and 24 is 16 times higher than that of
young White men. That is the civil rights problem that should
most concern us. Those Black victims are killed not by cops,
not by whites, but by other Blacks. Blacks commit homicide
nationally at eight times the rate of whites and Hispanics
combined. In 2017, there were nearly 8,000 Black homicide
victims, more than all White and homicide victims combined.
Only 2.8 percent of those Black casualties, the vast majority
armed with a gun or otherwise dangerous, were killed by a cop.
The best solution to urban crime is to reconstruct the
family. That is a long-term project, however. In the meantime,
the policing revolution that began in New York in the 1990s and
spread nationwide has given law-abiding residents of high-crime
communities greater freedom to take their children to school or
to go to the grocery store without fear, an expectation that is
the Government's most fundamental obligation to meet.
Policing today is more professional and restrained than at
any time in its history, and there is no Government agency more
dedicated to the proposition that Black lives matter than the
police. Thank you for your attention, and I look forward to
your questions.
[The statement of Ms. Mac Donald follows:]
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Chair Nadler. Thank you.
Dr. Goff?
TESTIMONY OF PHILLIP ATIBA GOFF
Mr. Goff. Thank you, Chair Nadler, distinguished Members of
the Judiciary Committee. My name is Phillip Atiba Goff. I am a
professional nerd. I am also by disposition a relatively
conflict-averse person. My love of country and my respect for
this body and mostly my vocation as a scientists will not allow
me to move to my prepared remarks just yet. I feel I must at
least correct the record on some statistical elements.
The fall of crime over the course of the last quarter
century is just abjectly not in response to police behavior
alone. If the Members would like further reading on this, I can
highly recommend Pat Sharkey's book, ``Uneasy Peace,'' which
identifies quite clearly that community-based anti-violence
work is a large and underappreciated component of reductions in
crime, not just police behavior.
I should say that I believe that a 2015 Quinnipiac poll was
just cited as evidence perhaps implying that Black people
actually liked broken windows policing. If memory serves, that
exact same Quinnipiac poll showed that Black people were
concerned about racial bias within law enforcement, a trend
that has escalated over the period of time since 2015. To
suggest that Black people enjoyed the treatment in New York or
anyplace else of broken windows policing is what scholars Vesla
Weaver and Elizabeth Hinton refer to as ``selective hearing''--
hearing only what is convenient to an ideological narrative and
not the fullness of what those communities are calling for,
which is safety and justice at the same time, surely not too a
high a bar for law enforcement.
Last, in terms of clarification, a study of the proceedings
of the National Academy of Sciences was just cited, and I have
to say, first of all, no, that is not what it said. Most
importantly, the authors of that study have recently
acknowledged to the rest of the scientific community--or, I
should say, to some Members of the scientific community that
their central causal claim is unsupported by the data and
factually wrong. This Committee hearing should not be a dumping
ground--
Chair Nadler. Dr. Goff, we have heard a lot of Witnesses,
and you are testifying now about a central causal claim. Could
you just tell us which causal claim you are refuting, I mean,
what you are talking about?
Mr. Goff. The study just cited by Ms. Mac Donald in the
proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences does not show
that White officers are less or more likely to be involved in
deadly shootings. It simply does not. It is a correlational
study, and the authors themselves have admitted to others in
the scientific community that the central causal claim that
they make, which is that there is no bias in this, is
unsupported by the data that have been made public and having
publicly analyzed by scholars like Jonathan Mummolo at
Princeton University.
I do not like to be part of anything that becomes a
laundromat for junk science, and so I apologize for stepping
out of my character to say so.
I would like to thank you for the privilege of being
invited to testify. May I return to my prepare remarks?
In my day job, I am a professor--as I said, I am a nerd--at
John Jay College of Criminal Justice, a position I accepted
after receiving tenure at UCLA in the psych department. I was a
witness for the President's Task Force on 21st Century
Policing, a member of the National Academy of Sciences
Committee that issued a consensus report on proactive policing,
and I was one of three leads on the recently concluded
Department of Justice National Initiative for Building
Community Trust and Justice. I am likely best known for my work
with the Center for Policing Equity.
For the past decade, I have had the pleasure of being the
President of the Center for Policing Equity, CPE, which is the
largest research and action organization focused on equity in
policing, and my testimony today is in that capacity.
CPE is host to what is, to our knowledge, the largest
collection of police behavioral data, the National Justice
Database funded by the U.S. National Science Foundation. Today
I have been asked to talk about what science has to say about
public safety.
So, what does it have to say? Well, first, as with all
science, it is important that we define the problem correctly.
If we speak only about the role that law enforcement has in
keeping communities safe, our conversations will never elevate
above blaming people or communities for crime rates, public
mistrust, or violence. Framing should be public safety, not
just law enforcement, and I cannot echo the comments of Mr.
Yoes strongly enough. If we are talking about public safety,
both communities and law enforcement understand the officers
that patrol these neighborhoods need to be of sound mind; they
need to have the resources to make sure that mental health and
officer wellness are central.
Now, having defined the problem as public safety, what are
some of the solutions? My colleagues at CPE and at the Yale
Justice Collaboratory recently articulated five policies rooted
in science and practice, called for by the large majority of
our law enforcement partners, that we believe have the best
chance to produce the biggest returns on law enforcement
reform.
They are from the front to the back end of accountability,
a national model policy for use of force similar to the one
recently articulated by the Camden Police Department. Previous
research demonstrates this can reduce harm both by communities
and officers without elevating risk.
I see I am out of time because of my impromptu remarks at
the beginning. Those five policies are also introduced into the
record, and I would encourage the Members to look at it.
One last word. Within this, we have heard a lot of talk
about data. I think it is important that we move the
conversation from data to analysis. My recently released TED
talk this past September 9th, we talked about an issue called
``COMPSTAT for Justice,'' because it is possible to measure
crime, and Ms. Mac Donald was quite right that COMPSTAT was a
revolution in policing and helped to reduce crime across the
country. You can measure not just racial disparities but the
portion of those disparities for which law enforcement is
responsible. Importantly, this initiative at CPE and similar
initiatives elsewhere is at the request of law enforcement.
They want to know, and they want to lead on that.
I would be remiss if I got out of here without saying that
there--or leaving you with the impression there wasn't already
legislation that has been introduced that moves us forward.
Obviously, the End Racial Profiling Act sets up the
infrastructure for that.
I apologize for going over my time. I thank you for the
invitation, and I absolutely look forward to your questions.
[The statement of Mr. Goff follows:]
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Chair Nadler. Thank you very much.
Ms. Garcia?
TESTIMONY OF LYNDA GARCIA
Ms. Garcia. Chair Nadler, Ranking Member Collins, and the
Members of the Committee, my name is Lynda Garcia. I am the
Director of the Policing Campaign at the Leadership Conference
Education Fund and the Leadership Conference on Civil & Human
Rights. Thank you for the opportunity to testify today, and
thank you, Chair Nadler, for your leadership in calling this
hearing to discuss policing best practices.
Safety is a civil and human right without which society
cannot thrive and democracy cannot function. Yet. in recent
years, tragic incidents of police violence have deepened
distrust in law enforcement and made people feel less safe,
especially within communities of color.
It is time to rethink antiquated approaches to public
safety that rely on criminalization, and which
disproportionately affect Black and brown people and fail to
address public health issues. When police practices harm
communities, it sows mistrust and hinders community engagement,
both of which are critical for realizing public safety.
The Federal Government has a role and, indeed, a
responsibility to promote the values of fairness, equity,
procedural justice, transparency, and accountability within law
enforcement agencies. However, the current Administration has
severely curtailed the Department of Justice's use of consent
decrees to address police civil rights abuses. It has also
abandoned collaborative reform efforts of the Office of
Community Oriented Policing Services under which police
departments voluntarily sought audits and recommendations to
improve trust between the public and police. This does a
disservice both to the communities suffering from systemic
misconduct and police officers who are left without the tools
to police safely.
High-profile police shootings of unarmed Black men and
other incidents of police misconduct, coupled with the heavy
enforcement of low-level offenses, have eroded trust in law
enforcement in many communities, including those that are
discriminated against on the basis of race, ethnicity, national
origin, religion, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation,
age, disability, proficiency with the English language,
immigration status, and housing status. Where people perceive
the criminal legal system to be arbitrary, biased, and unfair,
they are less likely to cooperate with police, making us all
less safe.
In March of 2019, the Education Fund launched the New Era
of Public Safety initiative and report to help build trust
between communities and police departments, restore confidence,
and reimagine a new paradigm of public safety. While much of
the reform has happened at the State and local levels, success
will require the leadership, support, and commitment of the
Federal Government, including you, Members of Congress. Every
year Congress provides millions of dollars to law enforcement
agencies through Federal grant programs to support police. This
creates a duty for Congress to conduct oversight to ensure that
funds are not supporting police practices that harm public
safety and erode community trust. Additionally, this
responsibility empowers Congress to incentivize police
departments to adopt 21st century best practices in community
policing.
To promote transparency, accountability, and public safety,
the Leadership Conference offers the following recommendations
to the Committee:
Reduce the use of excessive force by passing the Police
Exercising Absolute Care with Everyone Act of 2019;
Prohibit discriminatory policing by passing the End Racial
and Religious Profiling Act;
Mandate robust data collection;
End the militarization of law enforcement agencies by passing
the Stop Militarizing Law Enforcement Act;
Promote officer health and well-being by redirecting grant
monies towards officer support programs and services;
Invest in non-police responses to crises by expanding
community-based mental health and substance use services;
Strengthen accountability systems and hold officers
accountable for constitutional violations for criminal conduct.
Congress has the power to bring about transformative
policing that benefits communities and officers. You can
provide the support and funding to jurisdictions to implement
21st century policies and practices that are fair, safe, and
effective. To realize this vision of public safety, communities
and police departments must rebuild trust. This new era of
public safety will require community-driven solutions and
investment in community services, including education, housing,
employment, and health care. Our coalition is committed to
ensuring policing practices that respect the dignity and
humanity of all people.
We look forward to working with you until the day these
reforms are signed into law.
Thank you.
[The statement of Ms. Garcia follows:]
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Chair Nadler. Thank you very much.
Since one of our Witnesses has specifically commented on
the testimony of another Witnesses, we have been asked by the
minority if she can comment, and I will grant 1\1/2\ minutes to
Ms. Mac Donald for that purpose.
Ms. Mac Donald. I think it is ironic to call a study in the
Proceedings in the National Academy of Sciences ``junk
science.'' The fact that it is correlational means it is not a
regression analysis1; nevertheless, the findings remain
accurate; that they found no bias in police shootings. This is
a finding that has been supported by numerous other studies. In
a paper from 2017, Harvard economist Roland Fryer found no
evidence of racial discrimination in shootings. The most
sophisticated lab study of police shoot/don't shoot decisions
to date from the University of Washington found that officers
were three times less likely to shoot unarmed Black suspects
than unarmed White suspects and took significantly longer to
decide to shoot unarmed Black suspects than armed White
suspects.
Other shoot/don't shoot studies by the University of
Chicago's Josh Correll have also found no police bias against
Black civilians.
I submit that the belief that we are living through an
epidemic of racially biased police shootings is a creation of
selective reporting. In 2015, the same year from which the
Academy of National Sciences report data came from, the White
victims of fatal police shootings included a 50-year-old
suspect in a domestic assault in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, who ran
at the officer with a spoon; a 28-year-old driver in Des
Moines, Iowa, who exited his car and walked quickly towards an
officer after a car chase; and a 21-year-old suspect in a
grocery store robbery in Akron, Ohio, who had escaped on a bike
and who did not remove his hand from his waistband when ordered
to do so.
Had any of these victims been black, the media and
activists would have jumped on those stories--
Mr. Johnson of Georgia. Regular order, Mr. Chair.
Chair Nadler. Finish the sentence. Your time has expired.
Ms. Mac Donald. Thank you. --and added their names to the
roster of victims of police racism. Instead, because they are
white, they are unknown. Thank you for the opportunity.
Chair Nadler. Thank you very much. I thank the victim--I am
sorry. I thank the Witnesses for their testimony, and we will
now proceed under the 5-minute rule. I will begin by
recognizing myself for 5 minutes.
Dr. Goff, my first question is: Dr. Goff, would you comment
on what we have heard on the evidence, et cetera?
Mr. Goff. I think I can stay under my time. None of that is
true. If you would like me to elaborate, I can.
Chair Nadler. Please do.
Mr. Goff. The citing of the Roland Fryer study is a study
that he has confessed to being embarrassed about. It has been
roundly debunked. To say that--I should also clarify that I
believe the study you are talking about in terms of the shoot/
don't shoot, Ms. Mac Donald, is not from the University of
Washington but from Washington State. I believe you are talking
about Lois James. Everybody who studies that research commented
on the fact that there was actually no time pressure in the
simulation. So, with an infinite amount of time when you know
you are being studied for racial bias, it turns out you can
correct for it. When you are under time pressure, you have a
harder time. That is why it didn't replicate the literally
thousands of other research.
To say that Josh Correll's research revealed no racial bias
is simply inaccurate. It absolutely did. There are two forms of
racial bias that you can see in these studies. One is in the
error rate, and the other is in terms of the length of time it
takes. Black suspects were shot more quickly; White armed
suspects were shot more slowly. It was only the case that there
was a zero error rate for officers who had been well trained
and were not in specialty units like the gang and SWAt unit.
Newer officers had a rate of error that was as high, if not
higher than regular civilians.
All of this is beside the point. The idea that there is not
bias is a--it is just not a serious position when you look at
the corpus of the science. Where there is bias, why there is
bias, and what the definition of bias is, that is a worthy
discussion. We have defined the problems of racism in terms of
defective hearts and minds, and when you are looking at just
the hearts and minds of officers, you often do not see it.
I am not saying that because there are disparities out
there on the street that officers hold in their heart defective
character. In fact, it is frequently not that, but situations
that produce disparate outcomes. So, we need to have a way to
identify what those situations are and then keep officers out
of it.
The incident of Tamir Rice was noted by the Chair earlier.
The officers were very close to an individual who might have
had a weapon, but that is, in the words of my chief that I deal
with, often a situation that can be avoided. The way that you
avoid that is you don't put your car up next to someone you
think is armed. You maintain a safe distance.
Now, the officers don't need to be bigoted in their hearts
to have engaged in something that was detrimental and a pattern
of detrimental of findings towards Black communities. So, if we
define that narrowly as the only problem, again, we cannot
elevate to solving it.
So, the question of the science, none of that was right. To
the question of how we move forward, we should define the
problem more precisely so that we are not debating whether or
not officers are good or bad people. That is not scientifically
nor useful from a policy perspective.
Chair Nadler. Thank you very much.
Reverend Sharpton, you have--
[Applause.]
Chair Nadler. Reverend Sharpton, you have had experience
representing multiple victims of police misconduct. Can you
describe your experience navigating the process for filing and
pursuing misconduct complaints?
Rev. Sharpton. I think that the process begins--first,
National Action Network never gets involved unless we are
asked, as I said earlier. The first part is to try and pursue
with the local authorities to convene a grand jury and to deal
with the possible criminality of the Act and to support the
family. National Action Network at the same time will provide,
as Ms. Carr and others will tell you, whatever resources we can
and whatever help we can because they have been traumatized.
Even when there are settlements, some of them large, we do not
even ask for reimbursement. There is nothing in this for us.
I think that the premise of fighting, though, is, one,
against those that may discriminate, but also against excessive
force if it is not a person of color. As I listened to the
exchange between the nerds on the panel, we are willing to
fight for whites that are victims of excessive force. There was
an Orthodox Jewish young man killed by police in New York named
Gidone Busch. We went out and supported him.
I am here for White people and Black people and any other
people that are victims of excessive force. When we talk about
consent decrees, when we talk about body cameras, when we talk
about the things that we have said today, Mr. Chair, we are not
talking about for blacks only. Police ought not violate
anybody's civil rights, and I think that that is what is
important.
[Applause.]
Chair Nadler. Thank you.
Chief Davis, before my time expires, in your testimony you
recommended the Sessions memo be rescinded. Could you describe
the Sessions memo and describe its effects on policing
practices and why it should be rescinded?
Chief Davis. Yes, Mr. Chair. Shortly after taking office as
the Attorney General, Attorney General Sessions put out a memo
that curtailed the activities of the Civil Rights Division in
conducting pattern or practice investigations. That memo also
stopped the volunteer organizational assessments that Chief
Hawkins talked about in Fayetteville. The impact of not having
pattern or practice investigations, not having organizational
assessment means that departments cannot learn what is
happening in their own organizations. There is no transparency.
You can't do an internal review or assessment. In many cases,
the agencies ask for this review. In fact, Mr. Chair, not only
was that memo signed that curtailed that activity, there were
at least four or five reports that were completed as I ended my
Administration with President Obama that they failed to release
with communities begging for their release--North Charleston
with Walter Scott, Fayetteville with Chief Hawkins, a few other
places, Milwaukee.
So, this idea that we heard from the Department of Justice
that we will not author any report that is critical of law
enforcement is, quite frankly, a disservice to law enforcement.
When you talk to chiefs around the country, they want to know
what is inside the organization, what is working, what is not
working, and to do so.
My last point I would make about the consent decrees.
People think about the consent decrees, in my opinion, as
somehow a detriment to policing or an attack on the officers.
Consent decrees are usually signed with the city, not the
police department, because in many cases it is dysfunctional
city government that also needs oversight, to make sure
officers have the training, have the equipment, are held
accountable, that there is a strong disciplinary process. It is
not just about the police. It is about doing so. Those 20 or 27
consent decrees, when I was in the Justice Department, have
served as the foundation for thousands of agencies to
voluntarily make the changes and implement the best practices.
As you mentioned, as was mentioned, 16,000 agencies in the
United States, Mr. Chair, and the average is smaller than 100
officers. They do not have the capacity to do research and
development to identify best practices and to understand what
is happening in the industry. This profession must become a
profession, and we need to have national coherence, national
best practices, and the kind of accountability that comes with
consent decrees.
Chair Nadler. Thank you very much. My time has expired.
The gentleman from Georgia, Mr. Collins?
Mr. Collins. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
The last conversation, I want to pick up some of this.
There are a lot of ways we can go with this question, but I am
one especially serving on this Committee, having the background
that I do, and I think what you just said was vitally
important. Community policing is actions that actually work. I
think they just need to be--in fact, we had to put money back
in this year because it was getting stripped out. We actually
put that money back in in the accounting process. So, we
believe it works. We believe it works on a lot of levels. I
think this is the part--I am considered, crazily enough, a nerd
on the panel up here, Mr. Sharpton, because I believe facts
matter and I believe that we can deal in emotion all day long
but let us hit some things. Chief, I want to talk--you are in
Fayetteville, North Carolina, a military community. It is an
interesting place that is a very nice place. I have been there.
I am from the Air Force, Pope, of course. The one thing that I
am seeing a lot of this and we hear this from our smaller
forces, and you represent the national organization. How do we
come to grips without a national here is how you do it? Again,
leaving it to States--how do we come up with a system where we
are better reporting, as I said in my opening statement, the
bad actors? Because I am sure that you as chief want the bad
ones out now. Put them in jail. The Government--how do we do
that to give the smaller forces, the four-man forces, the five-
man forces--and, again, the big ones always get--New York City
always--we talk about--but there is an underlying current here
that we don't talk about because, frankly, they don't have the
news coverage. How can we do this through the national
organizations, through others, to help police chiefs, police
commissioners, others, and just share, get a better quality
there? It can't be just all money because we are all dealing
with budgets. You have got to deal in the budget. How do we do
that? I would love to hear your comments on it.
Chief Hawkins. Thank you. So, as I mentioned in the
testimony, all agencies and all departments need to have the
ability to ask for assistance in examples like the
Collaborative Forum or any other type of method, to be able to
ask that question or to be able to ask another professional who
has figured out some things and provide those resources. That
is NOBLE's stance in regard to how we can go make those
requests to do best practices. A small agency may not have the
resources, but they may have the ability to make a phone call
to a national organization, saying, ``Can you send someone that
is near your area?'' Anyone can call me and my agency, and we
do it all the time. We share information consistently. What did
you do? What else are you doing? We don't have to reinvent the
wheel, but we can get some guidelines, and that is what we need
resources--
Mr. Collins. Shouldn't there be--and, Patrick, I want you
to engage in this because I think the two of you is where I
am--this is where the rubber hits the road kind of thing
because you are having to deal with it. I am concerned that not
only they can call and ask questions, but how much are we
seeing this, I need a new officer, I want to get rid of this
one, and say, ``Oh, how did he do?'' ``Oh, he is a good guy. I
have known him awhile.'' Click. So, we are missing this sort
of--is there any way that we can look at that a little bit
farther?
Chief Hawkins. So, I will share a little bit because I am
from Georgia, actually, and did most of my law enforcement
career.
Mr. Collins. What part?
Chief Hawkins. What Georgia did and what North Carolina
does as well is the certification. Whenever someone leaves the
organization, both certifications outline why they left and
what is going on, so the next organization is well aware of
what the--any issues going on and why they have been released
from the organization.
Mr. Collins. Because in Georgia we have actually seen--it
has been amazing--they are saying it is the hip-hop. They hip-
hop from one job to the next, the ones that is in trouble,
they--and it is a consistent pattern.
Chief Hawkins. It is less and less--
Mr. Collins. It is getting there. Yes, I agree.
Patrick, just your thoughts on this?
Mr. Yoes. Well, I agree with her comments. I can tell you
my experience is in law enforcement, and when officers leave
from agency to agency, every agency does an extensive
background to determine their liability and everything else
associated with it. So, there are standards in given States
that determine, that follow that officer, and that
certification with their State. Everyone for the most part,
even though every State has its own standards, police
standards, they are all based on the same criteria. So, they
are--
Mr. Collins. Let me stop you because I agree with what you
said, but I want to take it--let us peel the onion back a
little bit. That is the way it is supposed to happen. We also
know if you are down two officers, you have got a five-person
force, and this person--it is harder sometimes, and you are
tempted to hire that person in who is already certified. I
don't have to send him to school. I don't have to pay for their
schooling. I can get them in now. Yeah, they may have had a
little bit--he told me that it was a problem with the police
chief, and I agree the certification in Georgia, we have seen
this. How do we--I know what the national--the story is. The
question is, though: How does that seep down to the departments
that, frankly, don't have the resources to do that and are
under pressure to keep up their force?
Chief Hawkins. I can only speak as a leader, as leader of
NOBLE, as a police chief, that there is no standard that I am
going to--that is going to weigh out the need to have someone
qualified and someone who will represent me, because basically
when I hire someone and all the background investigation is
done, that is what I--
Mr. Collins. You and Mr. Yoes, you are the standard, you
are the gold standards here, and that is why we are asking
these questions. I think in the bigger picture, I think it
helps that we don't just look at the bigger picture and we
don't just discuss the problem. Those are all there. These are
the real nuts and bolts issue. I think it was Mr. Goff who said
you have got to find their mentality. There is a temperament to
being on a police--there is a temperament to a police officer.
I call it the ``state patrol face.'' They never smile. There is
a temperament to this because you have got to take it into
account. You have got to sort of eat everything and go for it
and still divert it fairly.
There is a lot more stuff we can discuss here. I am glad we
are here with it. One quick question. Does your department use
body cameras?
Chief Hawkins. Yes, sir.
Mr. Collins. Have you all had a cost issue, especially with
storage and other things with that?
Chief Hawkins. Of course, sir.
Mr. Collins. That is the biggest one, I think. Again,
standard practice, we could put out best practices all
together, but if you have got a small community, that is a
tough, tough issue right there. I do appreciate the Chair's
indulgence over time, and I yield back.
Chair Nadler. The gentleman yields back.
The gentlelady from Texas.
Ms. Jackson Lee. Let me thank the Chair and Ranking Member
for this hearing, and let me say to all the Witnesses, every
aspect of your testimony is vital to a construct that we in the
Judiciary Committee now feel is long overdue, which is a
policing agenda that acknowledges the basic facts that every
human being deserves to go home to their family. I hope that
that is the most striking point that comes. To our friends in
law enforcement, you are no more diminished than Tamir Rice;
you are no more diminished than Eric Garner, who, as his loving
mother said, was her son but he was a father of six and a
grandfather. Maybe there is a grandchild now that he has missed
who has been added to this wonderful family.
I hope that we don't have to take a litmus test to tell you
all our friends in law enforcement, all our neighbors, all the
prayers, the time I flew to Dallas when those officers fell in
their duty, or the many funerals that I have gone to of the men
and women in blue.
We won't get together if we fall into the divide of the
emerging White nationalism and White supremacy and begin to be
the sea parted and separated from each other.
So, I want to just ask these questions that would hopefully
get us to the point that we can resolve this. President Yoes,
your predecessor, Chuck Canterbury, committed to working with
the Congress to ensure data collection and reporting on police-
community encounters. Can you make the same commitment by
ensuring that States and police departments will comply with
the death in custody reporting law? Will you work with us in
Congress to advance legislation, really a law enforcement
agenda that would require data collection, reporting, and other
police-community encounters and also to end racial profiling?
Mr. Yoes. Ma'am, we are very much committed to data
collection. Data collection has some valuable information for
us to know how to move forward and how to police properly.
There are a number of agencies that have the ability--they
collect that data, and it is available now, and it is usable.
It is something that we can readily put our hands on and help
us move in the right direction.
The one concern that we do have is the smaller agencies and
their capacity to be able to collect that data. Our concern
would be that agencies that are small having to collect that
data may in essence affect their ability to be able to police.
Ms. Jackson Lee. We are going to respond--
Mr. Yoes. So, to respond to that, I think the important
thing is the collection of data needs to not be tied to any
type of grant funding or anything like that because agencies--
that is counterproductive.
Ms. Jackson Lee. Do you believe that law enforcement,
however, should not engage in racial profiling?
Mr. Yoes. It is unconstitutional. I absolutely agree.
Ms. Jackson Lee. So, any legislation that would make that
simple point you could take back and support?
Mr. Yoes. I think the Constitution is very clear that it is
illegal, and it is already law--it is there. It exists.
Ms. Jackson Lee. So, then it would not be offensive to have
legislation that provides grants and opportunities to ensure
that does not happen.
Mr. Yoes. I think it is unconstitutional. The law has
already spoken.
Ms. Jackson Lee. I take that as a yes, and I thank you for
that.
Let me ask the question to Mr. Blake. Do you--we are
speechless, but we are also speechless for the lives lost whose
names I recall. Clearly, you were racially profiled. Did you
have an encounter, a language, a comment, ask who your name was
or anything of the sort?
Mr. Blake. No. I have thought about my opening remarks, but
I didn't have any sort of fight-or-flight response. I
actually--if you watch the video closely, which we don't need
to do again, but I was actually smiling. It was due to my
previous life as a tennis player, I actually was under the
misguided opinion that this may have been someone coming to
give me a hug or a fan in some regard. I find myself extremely
lucky because I thought what could have possibly happened had I
thought this was someone coming to do me harm. After speaking
to many officers since then, I have thought about--I asked them
what would have happened if I had put my arms up, if I had
actually made an effort to fight, or if my brother or one of my
best friends was with me, or my wife, and had acted in any way
accordingly.
Ms. Jackson Lee. You were clearly a man of color standing
in front of a prominent hotel in downtown--in Manhattan.
Mr. Blake. In Manhattan, 42nd, right outside Grand Central
Station, and had something else happened, I--
Ms. Jackson Lee. We need to pass the End Racial Profiling
among other very important legislative initiatives.
Mr. Blake. Yes, absolutely, because it happens far too
often.
Ms. Jackson Lee. Can I ask--thank you.
Can I ask Dr. Goff--because of my time, let me respect all
the Witnesses. Let me as well thank Ms. Garcia for indicating
it is Black and brown, it is women, it is other individuals
that may be profiled in different ways. When we have
statistics--and I want Reverend Sharpton to answer this as
well--that clearly indicates the higher number of African
Americans that are killed by law enforcement, I think the point
I want to distinguish is this whole question that comes back to
us about black-on-black crime. What I hope that we will pass
H.R. 40, the Commission to Study Reparations, so we can address
the systemic issue and the impact of slavery.
As it relates to this bias about, Black people kill
themselves, make the distinction of color of law, because what
we are talking about is democracy. We are talking about the
response. So, if both of you would answer the difference when
law enforcement is engaged in the likes of Tamir Brown--excuse
me, Tamir Rice, Walter Scott, Michael Brown, and Eric Garner,
the color of law. Mr. Goff?
Chair Nadler. The gentlelady's time has expired. The
Witness may answer the question.
Ms. Jackson Lee. Reverend Sharpton, please. Go ahead, sir.
Mr. Goff. Thank you for the question, Congresswoman Jackson
Lee. It is different because it feels different for the
community. There is a difference between a neighbor who is
violent, which is, obviously, scary. When the State says it is
okay, it is terror. We see that both in the responses from
communities and in the responses, frankly, from law
enforcement. I think one of the things that you mentioned was
really important, and I want to put a fine point on the
statistical element.
The idea of black-on-black crime is a trope that gets
raised in response to the idea that is the reason why law
enforcement is disparately using force in Black communities. As
distasteful as that may seem, it is a reasonable statistical
question. It may be that crime or poverty are driving this and
there is no bias within law enforcement. It is an answerable
question as well. There is not a study that takes into account
crime rates, violent or otherwise, poverty rates, school
achievement, housing inequality that yields anything other than
those elements, crime and poverty are not sufficient to explain
racial disparities. Right? So, we should be able to distinguish
between the two.
Chair Nadler. Reverend Sharpton, briefly.
Rev. Sharpton. I would concur with Dr. Goff's answer. I
would also say for the record that when we had campaigned
against stop and frisk in New York saying it was
discriminatory, and the new Administration came in and reduced
it down to nothing, crime went down. Crime is at an all-time
low. So, I am not a nerd, but I can read and write. Crime went
down with stop and frisk gone, and I think that we need to be
very, very clear about that.
As far as black-on-black crime, I think in any community
most people are the victim of people of their same race. The
problem in the Black community is that we have a fear of cops
and robbers.
Chair Nadler. Thank you. The gentlelady's time has expired.
Ms. Jackson Lee. Thank you.
Chair Nadler. The gentleman from Ohio.
Mr. Chabot. Thank you, Mr. Chair, and I want to thank all
the Witnesses for appearing here today. We really do appreciate
it.
Earlier this year, we held a hearing on universal
background checks, and a few weeks ago, this Committee held a
hearing on red flag legislation. As I understand it, next week
the Committee will hold a hearing on assault weapons and gun
violence in urban areas. While I appreciate the majority's
focus on gun control legislation and think it is important that
this Committee Act in a responsible manner, I think that their
efforts are misdirected.
I am a firm believer in the Second amendment rights and
laws like the ones that are proposed by the majority this year,
unfortunately, I am afraid would do little more than restrict
the rights of hardworking, law-abiding gun owners. The majority
tends to focus on remedies which may sound good but would have
done little to stop the attacks that we have seen occur in this
Nation and, unfortunately, I am afraid would do little to do
anything about future attacks that might occur. We do need to
work together to find a way that we can make Americans safer.
Mr. Yoes, let me ask you, first, you are the national
President of the FOP, the Fraternal Order of Police. Is that
correct?
Mr. Yoes. Yes, sir.
Mr. Chabot. Thank you. I want to thank you for being here
today and for representing the men and women across America who
keep us all safe. So, thank you for that.
In my home State, Ohio, it is a priority that those who
shouldn't have firearms can't get access to those firearms, and
that is what we ought to be working on, making sure that those
people who aren't eligible can't get them. They shouldn't--guns
should not be in the wrong hands.
One way that this could be accomplished is to ensure that
the NICS system, the National Instance Criminal Background
Check System, is accurate, that it is up to date, that it is
checked before obtaining a firearm, that it really works. Would
you agree with that?
Mr. Yoes. Sir, I think everyone in law enforcement will
share the same opinion that we would like to take guns out of
the hands of people who mean harm. We would rather fix that
rather than respond and explain why it happened. Certainly, we
are in favor of any process that is going to allow us greater
ability to be able to do that.
Our concern is and should be that it should have a strong
due process for--to work through the issues.
Mr. Chabot. Thank you. I am sure you are familiar with the
gunfire detection technology that is out there today and that
some cities, including my city in Cincinnati is currently
using. At the Federal level, I would say that we should try to
help cities and counties invest in that technology to help
reduce gun violence. In effect, it is a technology where you
have microphones or you have sound wave equipment who can
identify very quickly where this shooting is taking place, and
you can oftentimes get there quickly, stop something that has
happened, capture a criminal, pick up casings from the gun that
has been fired.
Do you have an opinion about that type of--
Mr. Yoes. Well, my opinion is this: That law enforcement
officers have a very difficult job, and any tools that we can
give them to more effectively and efficiently do their job
should absolutely be a priority. Our effectiveness to be able
to respond accurately and at times of very stressful or very
tense situations could mean a matter of life and death. So, any
tools that we have available to law enforcement absolutely
should be explored and made available.
Mr. Chabot. Thank you. Let me follow up. Also, some of our
most highly trained individuals about how to handle an active
shooter situation, whether it is in a school or in a place or
worship or anywhere, are law enforcement people. They are
trained. They are the most highly trained people in our
society. They tend to retire after 25 years or whatever. They
may be in their 50s, and oftentimes are seeking other
employment. It would seem that you have a source of trained
people perhaps a school resource officers in the schools. Do
you have an opinion--have you thought about that?
Mr. Yoes. Actually, I served as a resource officer for
several years. Best job I ever had working in the schools,
interacting with youth, changing attitudes towards law
enforcement. I absolutely agree that a presence in school plays
a pivotal role. In my agency, we started it long before it
became a trend across the country, recognizing that it was
important to be able to protect the safety of children in
schools. If you have a safe school environment, you are going
to have learning occur.
So, I absolutely totally agree that there are definitely a
positive element to resource officers, and that is the reason
why it is across the country. The ability to include other
people into protecting schools, any efforts we do to protect
schools and protect the security within schools is well worth
it.
Mr. Chabot. Thank you very much. Mr. Chair, my time has
expired, but I want to thank the Committee and hope that we can
work together to keep the American people as safe as possible.
Thank you.
Chair Nadler. We will certainly do our best to do that, and
I thank the gentleman.
The gentleman from Tennessee.
Mr. Cohen. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I am deeply concerned about the crisis of trust between law
enforcement and the communities they serve, and this is true in
my home city of Memphis, unfortunately, because we are not a
stranger to the issue. From my perspective there are several
things we can do here in Congress to help. I have introduced
bills to address many of these issues.
One would be a way we could use technology and data to
improve police-civilian interactions. The Police Camera Act,
H.R. 120, would provide grants for State and local
jurisdictions to purchase cameras for their officers. We also
need to collect data and technology to be useful about policing
practice, to make law enforcement more responsive and
responsible, and that is why I have introduced the National
Statistics on Deadly Force Transparency Act of 2019, which is
H.R. 119. Communities need to feel safe that law enforcement
agencies are accountable for their actions, that nobody is
above the law. It is a shame the Department of Justice, which
has been effective in the past, has stepped back from providing
independent review and accountability for police practices.
Along with Congressman Lacy Clay, we have introduced the Police
Training and Independent Review Act, H.R. 125, and at this
point, Mr. Chair, I would like to introduce a letter of support
for that Act from the NAACP in June of 2019.
Chair Nadler. Without objection.
Mr. Cohen. Thank you, sir.
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MR. COHEN FOR THE RECORD
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Mr. Cohen. I would like to ask Chief Hawkins, what our bill
would do besides have sensitivity training for policemen about
minorities and different areas that might not be of their
history, it would say that a law enforcement agency that would
determine if there should be a grand jury and determine whether
or not there should be a prosecution and also prosecute the
case should come from a jurisdiction other than that from which
law enforcement came. In my experience, I started my
professional life after law school as the attorney for the
police in Memphis. There is no question there is home cooking.
Many people from law enforcement go and work as investigators
for the DA, and it is almost like a farm team. So, from my
perspective, you can't have absolute independence if the DA has
to go to the grand jury and if the DA indicts a policeman, gets
a policeman indicted, then the police, as we saw in New York--
and I think it might have been in the--I don't know if it was
the Garner case or another one, but the police all went out
against the DA. They protested.
Chief Hawkins. Are you saying change jurisdictions, sir?
Mr. Cohen. Yes, ma'am.
Chief Hawkins. Yes, sir.
Mr. Cohen. You think that is a good idea?
Chief Hawkins. I think so, sir. That gives an unbiased
ability to gauge the facts of the situation and facts of the
case and a good review of it.
Mr. Cohen. Mr. Davis, do you have any thought about that
type of concept?
Chief Davis. Yes, sir, I do. There were actually two
recommendations in the President's Task Force on 21st Century
Policing. The first was start with the investigation, that it
should be an investigation by the department not overseeing the
officer who was involved in the shooting.
Mr. Cohen. So, it would be a separate total law enforcement
agency.
Chief Davis. Yes, so that I as the detective don't have to
interview or investigate somebody, I worked with for 20 years.
The second part would be that as prosecutors and police
work together on a daily basis and just the things necessary to
make communities safe, that you then go outside that
jurisdiction as well so that you can have a separate
jurisdiction look at the prosecution and convene a grand jury.
So, I would agree with you. This level of independence is
important to build trust in a process that people think is so
insular and so designed to benefit the officer, that we need
that--those were two recommendations from the President's task
force.
Mr. Cohen. Now, I am going to take a long shot. You are not
supposed to ask a question where you don't have an idea of what
the answer is going to be. The gentleman from the Fraternal
Order of Police, and I appreciate your position, and I am a
former IACP person, but do you not see the benefit that might
give to law enforcement, everybody else seen as a fair shake?
Mr. Yoes. Sir, I can tell you that I think that a
collaborative effort on a local level of which law agencies are
based on local jurisdictions, that that should be the very
first part of reviewing any systemic problems there are within
agencies. There are processes within each State of how they
handle them, and we support those positions that are taken
within those States to investigate crimes or incidents.
Mr. Cohen. Thank you, sir.
Later this week, I am going to introduce the Deadly Force
Independent Review Act, which would provide independent review
of instances when a Federal law enforcement officer has used
deadly force. I think that will help, too.
Reverend Sharpton, what do you think? You have been active
for many years in all these issues. What do you think are the
most important reforms that we can take up to try to cure these
problems? What works best?
Rev. Sharpton. I think that what we need is clear
legislation on where the police are dealing with Federal
charges in excessive force, what raises to the bar of a Federal
crime. It is too nebulous now.
Secondly, that we would have some preventative measures in
like cameras on police that cannot be turned off, and that when
consent decrees or audit by the Justice Department, they
remain, even if Administrations change that they remain, and
that we have constant reviews by the Justice Department with
the Department there on policing around the country,
particularly looking for pattern and practices. I think if we
start with legislation, not just with feel-good programs but
legislation, so police know they are accountable legislatively,
not just on a local and State level, which is what had to
happen with voting and other things in the civil rights era.
Mr. Cohen. Thank you, sir. I yield back the balance of my
time.
Chair Nadler. The gentleman yields back.
The gentleman from Texas.
Mr. Gohmert. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I appreciate all the
Witnesses being here, and I appreciate the comments. It does
help if you have someone who is not bigoted or prejudiced
against the person that they are either pursuing or
investigating. Hopefully at some point our Attorney General
will have somebody independent review the investigation and the
determinations made by Peter Strzok and Lisa Page. They
obviously hate President Trump.
I was concerned about the exchange by Dr. Goff and Ms. Mac
Donald. I would offer for the record this from PNAS, from David
Johnson, Trevor Tress, Nicole Burkel, Carley Taylor, and Joseph
Cesario, ``Officer characteristics and racial disparities in
fatal officer-involved shootings.'' I didn't know--I would ask
that it be made part of the record.
Also, Ms. Mac Donald, I had a couple of articles from her,
one about Vow of Truth from City Journal, Summer 1999, and one
from August 31, 2000, the Manhattan Institute. I offer those
for the record.
Chair Nadler. Without objection.
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MR. GOHMERT FOR THE RECORD
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Mr. Gohmert. Thank you.
In looking at this that my staff just brought me from this
study Ms. Mac Donald references, I don't know the statistics
underlying this. I am just reading from their results. It said,
``We find no evidence of anti-black or anti-Hispanic
disparities across shootings, and White officers are not more
likely to shoot minority civilians than non-white officers.
Instead, race-specific crimes strongly predicts civilian race.
This suggests that increasing diversity among officers by
itself is unlikely to reduce racial disparity in police
shootings.''
I don't know the underlying statistics, but that is what it
says on its face.
During my days as a prosecutor, I would ride along with law
enforcement, and I will never forget, we had a threat in my
home county against some law enforcement folks, and I went with
them, and he was supposed to be there and have an arsenal.
There is nothing like standing outside the door--and I was 4
years in the Army. We were never in combat, but lots of
training. Standing outside the door of somebody that has
threatened to kill the people that you are with, and knowing
that person has an arsenal, and you are about to go in this
home, and officers all over the country do that each day; put
their life at risk so that others hopefully don't end up
killed.
As a judge, I can acknowledge not all officers are paragons
of virtue, but it seemed to me from what I have dealt with
there is a lower percentage of bad apples in law enforcement
than there is in the general population, but one of the things
that was said earlier about the family, I will never forget the
testimony of a gang leader. He had been convicted of murder.
His attorney had wisely advised him not to testify. He refused
the advice of his attorney on sentencing, took the stand, for
one reason. He made it very clear: ``I am not following my
lawyer's instruction because I can't sit there anymore. I sat
through this whole trial and listened to people talk badly
about my gang.'' He was a gang leader, and he had killed a guy.
He said, ``I am sick of it. That is my family. I don't know my
father. My mother is never around. That is my family, and I
couldn't sit still and not say something about people bad-
mouthing my family.'' Boy, that comes home. He never knew his
father. He never had a mother that was around. I just can't
help but think if he had one or both of those, he wouldn't have
ended up in my courtroom having a jury sentence him to life in
prison.
So, there are a lot of things we need to look at, and I
appreciate the effort of everybody trying to get back to more
civility. I hope that we don't overlook the importance of the
family and what it used to be in America.
I appreciate all your time. I have read your statements and
thank you for going to the trouble to be here.
Thank you. I yield back.
Chair Nadler. The gentleman yields back.
The gentleman from Georgia.
Mr. Johnson of Georgia. Thank you, Mr. Chair, for holding
this very important hearing, and I want to thank each of the
Witnesses for their testimony today.
Let me begin by saying that the men and women who serve in
law enforcement in this country are for the most part brave,
dutiful, honorable, and they keep us safe. That is not a
question for debate.
However, it is undeniable that there is an epidemic of
police shootings of unarmed civilians in our country, and by
failing to recognize that, we are contributing to the problem.
I want to point out the fact that I believe that police
should be accountable just as the citizens who they seek to
hold accountable, and so that means that just as citizens have
to be questioned by police after an incident happens, why
should it be that police are protected from having to answer
questions from law enforcement agencies when they have been
involved in a police shooting, when they have killed somebody,
or when they have choked someone to death? Why should they have
a week of respite with a legal right to not be questioned about
what happened because they have it in their employment
agreement, their collective bargaining agreement?
So, these kinds of rules that insulate police from
accountability need to be removed from our practice, and that
is why I am going to be filing what will be called ``The Cool-
off Period Elimination Act,'' so that we can make sure that
police officers are treated the same way citizen suspects are
treated.
With respect to investigating police misconduct, what
happens is the same agency that employs them is the one that
does the investigation. The same prosecution authority that
would prosecute the case is the one that presents the case to a
grand jury if it ever gets to that point. It usually takes in
many cases years before it gets to that point, and it is kind
of lulling the people to sleep, the public to sleep, and then
you announce with regularity that there will be no prosecution.
So to alleviate that, for the last couple of terms of Congress,
I have filed the Grand Jury Reform Act which would cause police
shootings to be investigated by a State's highest law
enforcement authority, such as in the case of Georgia, the GBI,
Georgia Bureau of Investigation, that would assume
investigatory authority, and also an independent prosecutor
would be appointed by the Governor to preside over these
investigations, and then the results would have to be submitted
to a judge in open court, not a grand jury but a judge in open
court for a preliminary hearing, and that would be the way that
these cases are disposed of. So, in the event that a
jurisdiction declined to prosecute an officer for what might be
an obvious offense, like the Eric Garner situation, live and on
camera, choked a man to death, why shouldn't the Federal
Government be able to prosecute for murder? In that way, you
bring about some accountability. When police officers are held
accountable, it sends a strong message to others that they need
to conform their conduct to society's norms. So, I look forward
for your support on the Grand Jury Reform Act, the Police
Accountability Act, and the Cool-Off Period Act.
Let me last say that a lot of our law enforcement officers
are straight from the military. When they went to the military
as young men, they were trained in terms of what kind of
instinct that they should have. General Mad Dog Mattis got his
nickname because he said that it was during the training
session, he told his Marines to be polite, be professional but
have a plan to kill everybody you meet. He said, ``that a good
soldier follows orders, but a true warrior wears his enemy's
skin like a poncho.'' That is the military ethos of going into
battle. When you have a police officer that has been trained in
that way, it is hard when that police officer gets trained to
become a police officer to put aside that instinct that has
been bred into them and put into operation suddenly a protect
and serve mentality. So, we have a lot of local law enforcement
who are military veterans, and they are also Reservists and
National Guardsmen who are trained to kill, to occupy and
destroy. They are roaming our streets. More police officers die
every year of suicide than they do from being killed in the
line of duty.
So, our police officers are under a lot of stress out
there. It plays out in terms of their reactions to situations,
their overreaction to situation. Then people of color are
predominantly the victims of that. So, I think we need to take
a comprehensive view in terms of mental health as it is applied
to our law enforcement officers.
With that, I have run out of time. I don't have a chance to
ask anybody for any feedback, but I want everyone to think
about that carefully. Let us work on that issue.
Thank you, and I yield back.
Chair Nadler. The gentleman yields back.
I would like to briefly address the Members of the audience
in the hearing room today. We welcome you and respect your
right to be here. We also ask, in turn, for your respect as we
proceed with the business of the Committee today. It is the
intention of the Committee to proceed with this hearing, but it
is against the rules to permit any applause or, for that
matter, negative applause or disruption of any kind. So please
refrain.
The gentleman from Florida?
Mr. Gaetz. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Reverend Sharpton, your current MSNBC coworker Joe
Scarborough is my former congressman. When Joe Scarborough
served in the Congress, he had quite a bit to say about your
contribution to the national discussion. It was in the 106th
Congress that Joe Scarborough filed House Concurrent Resolution
270, entitled, ``Condemning the racist and anti-Semitic views
of the Reverend Al Sharpton.'' Mr. Scarborough's resolution
began by saying, ``Whereas the Reverend Al Sharpton has
referred to Members of the Jewish faith as `bloodsucking Jews,'
and `Jew bastards.' '' So, my question to you is, Mr.
Scarborough's assertion that you said these things, is that
true or did you not say those things?
Rev. Sharpton. They are patently untrue. I never said that.
Mr. Gaetz. Okay. Well, maybe--
Rev. Sharpton. Well, can I finish my answer?
Mr. Gaetz. No. It is actually my time, but you will be
able--
Rev. Sharpton. Well, I thought you raised a question. Can I
answer the question?
Mr. Gaetz. So, the next question relates to Mr.
Scarborough's second comment. It says, ``Whereas the
Reveren''--
Chair Nadler. Since aspersions were cast on the Witness,
the Witness will be permitted--
Voice. Absolutely.
Mr. Gaetz. No, no. I am sorry, Mr. Chair. Aspersions
weren't cast. I asked--
Chair Nadler. Well, the aspersions were--
Rev. Sharpton. You asked, was it true that I said that?
Chair Nadler. The Witness will be permitted--
Mr. Gaetz. I can't reclaim my time, Mr. Chair?
Chair Nadler. You will have your time. The Witness will be
permitted to answer.
Rev. Sharpton. You asked me, was that true? The answer is
no, that was not true. As you know, Mr. Scarborough and I work
very closely together. He comes to National Action Network
conventions. He comes and I think he is a great guy, and we do
each other's shows often.
Chair Nadler. Thirty seconds.
Mr. Gaetz. Mr. Scarborough also said--
Chair Nadler. Excuse me. The gentleman whose--the
timekeeper will add 30 seconds to Mr. Gaetz's time.
Mr. Gaetz. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Mr. Johnson of Georgia. Mr. Chair, parliamentary inquiry.
Chair Nadler. The gentleman will State his parliamentary
inquiry.
Mr. Johnson of Georgia. Is it appropriate for a Member of
the body to personally attack a Witness before the body or
shall I say can a Congressman's words be taken down in the
event that he cast aspersions on a Witness?
Chair Nadler. We ask everyone to adhere to rules of
decorum.
The gentleman will proceed.
Mr. Gaetz. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Joe Scarborough then wrote, ``Whereas the Reverend Al
Sharpton has referred to Members of the Jewish faith as `white
interlopers' and `diamond merchants.' '' Have you ever referred
to Members of the Jewish faith as ``white interlopers'' or
``diamond merchants''?
Rev. Sharpton. No, sir. I referred to one in Harlem, an
individual, who I didn't even know was Jewish, as an interloper
and said I should never refer to his race. I said that I was
against those that were using apartheid diamonds.
When I did a funeral in Crown Heights in '91 because we
were boycotting Oppenheimer and those that were selling
diamonds from apartheid South Africa and the same sermon--
Mr. Gaetz. Thank you, but I am going to reclaim my time.
Rev. Sharpton. I am trying to--
Mr. Gaetz. Mr. Scarborough--
Rev. Sharpton. May I finish my answer, sir?
Mr. Gaetz. No.
Rev. Sharpton. Am I allowed to finish my answer?
Mr. Gaetz. I am allowed to reclaim my time.
Chair Nadler. No.
Rev. Sharpton. You asked a question, and I am answering it.
Mr. Gaetz. I have got a few more.
Rev. Sharpton. I have a few more answers.
Mr. Gaetz. I can't wait.
Chair Nadler. Let me--
Rev. Sharpton. Well, apparently you do because you don't
want me to answer.
Mr. Gaetz. No. I want to know if you--
Rev. Sharpton. So, since you raised it, let me finish.
Mr. Gaetz. I have a right to ask you questions.
Rev. Sharpton. I also talked about people--
Mr. Gaetz. It is more than just a filibuster by talking--
Rev. Sharpton. --snatching the pocketbooks that are in
the--
Mr. Gaetz. That is not how this will work, Reverend.
Rev. Sharpton. I am not filibustering any--
Chair Nadler. Everyone will--
Rev. Sharpton. I am answering your question.
Chair Nadler. Everyone will suspend, please.
Ms. Jackson Lee. Mr. Chair? Mr. Chair, a parliamentary
inquiry.
Chair Nadler. Everyone will suspend.
Ms. Jackson Lee. Parliamentary inquiry.
Chair Nadler. The gentlelady will State her parliamentary
inquiry.
Ms. Jackson Lee. It will be in the form of an inquiry
statement. Is it appropriate for a Member to do a constant
tirade of attacking the Witness and then not allowing the
Witness to answer?
Chair Nadler. My personal opinion is that it is not proper,
but that is not a proper parliamentary inquiry. The gentleman
controls the time.
Ms. Jackson Lee. May I make a statement, a statement to the
gentleman?
Chair Nadler. The gentleman controls the time.
Mr. Gaetz. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Mr. Scarborough continued, ``Whereas the Reverend Al
Sharpton led a protest in the Crown Heights neighborhood and
marched next to a protester with a sign that read, `The White
Man is the Devil.' '' Did you march next to sign that said--
Rev. Sharpton. I have no recollection of that. I have
marched in many things where there were signs that I did or did
not agree with.
Mr. Gaetz. Scarborough continues, ``Whereas the Reverend Al
Sharpton''--
Rev. Sharpton. I would say that if I was aware of that, I
would have said--
Mr. Gaetz. `vicious verbal''--
I ask that my time--
Rev. Sharpton. --that I would not want to have that sign.
Mr. Gaetz. --that I would have the opportunity to question
the Witness and not just have him continue to--
Rev. Sharpton. Well, then you shouldn't ask me your
questions if you don't want an answer.
Mr. Gaetz. Well, I want to know if you said them. You could
say, ``Yes'' or ``No.'' You said--
Rev. Sharpton. No. Well, I cannot answer, Mr. Chair, on
``Yes'' or ``No'' when he is asking me whether or not--
Mr. Gaetz. Can I ask for my time? The Witness is obviously
disrupting the Committee.
Rev. Sharpton. The Witness. First, this has nothing to do
with policing.
Mr. Gaetz. Mr. Chair?
Rev. Sharpton. Since he wants to--
Mr. Gaetz. This is outrageous.
Rev. Sharpton. Since he wants to make the subject Joe
Scarborough and I, then let me answer it. I had nothing to--
Chair Nadler. The gentleman--
Rev. Sharpton. Last, I know, Joe Scarborough nor I are
Members of the police department or has anything to do with
excessive force.
Chair Nadler. What is outrageous, what is outrageous--
Rev. Sharpton. I would love him to engage this if he lets
me finish.
Chair Nadler. What is outrageous is a matter of opinion.
The gentleman controls the time.
Mr. Gaetz. Mr. Chair, I ask that it be restored.
Chair Nadler. The gentleman controls the time.
Mr. Gaetz. So, you are not going to restore my time?
Chair Nadler. No.
Mr. Gaetz. Joe Scarborough continues, ``[T]he Reverend Al
Sharpton's fierce demagoguery incited violence, riots, and
murder in the Crown Heights section of Brooklyn.'' Do you agree
or disagree with that statement?
Rev. Sharpton. As a matter of fact, New York State did an
extensive study on the Crown Heights riots, said I was not even
there until after there was death of Yankel Rosenbaum. I was
not even called by the family until the day after.
Mr. Gaetz. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I will reclaim my time.
Rev. Sharpton. We had nothing to do with it. When I came to
Crown Heights--
Mr. Gaetz. Mr. Sharpton, did you ever refer--
Rev. Sharpton. --I led the first nonviolent march there.
Mr. Gaetz. Mr. Chair? Are you really--
Chair Nadler. Go ahead.
Mr. Gaetz. Fine. Mr. Sharpton, have you ever referred to
African Americans who disagree with you as ``cocktail-sip
Negroes''?
Rev. Sharpton. I have.
Mr. Gaetz. Have you ever referred to African Americans who
disagree with you--
Mr. Johnson of Georgia. Mr. Chair, I have a parliamentary
inquiry.
Chair Nadler. The gentleman will State his parliamentary
inquiry.
Mr. Johnson of Georgia. If a Congress person is
persistently questioning a Witness about a non-germane matter,
is it proper--
[Applause.]
Chair Nadler. I think the gentleman makes a fair point, but
the rules provide Members with very wide latitude.
Mr. Gohmert. Parliamentary inquiry.
Chair Nadler. The gentleman will State his parliamentary
inquiry.
Mr. Gohmert. Does it violate any rules of decorum for a
Member to read specifically verbatim from a document filed in
the Congressional Records as a resolution?
Chair Nadler. The gentleman from Florida may proceed.
Mr. Gaetz. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Have you ever referred to African Americans who disagree
with you as ``yellow'' and then the ``n'' word?
Rev. Sharpton. I don't know that I have referred to people
as names. I don't know if it is because they disagree with me,
but I have said things about blacks and whites. I am glad you
made it clear that I don't only attack whites. Thank you for
that.
Mr. Gaetz. Have you ever referred to African Americans who
disagree with you as ``Negro militants''?
Rev. Sharpton. I didn't know that was a derogatory
statement.
Mr. Gaetz. I didn't say it was, just asked if you used it.
Rev. Sharpton. I don't know. I don't recall.
Mr. Gaetz. Have you ever said, ``If the Jews want to get it
on, tell them to pin their yarmulkes back and come over to my
house''?
Rev. Sharpton. No. There was a man named Mordecai Levy who
had been charged with some terrorist acts who threatened to
march on me and several activists in New Jersey. He said he was
going to come deal with my hairstyle. In referring to his
hairstyle, I said for him to pin it and come on.
Mr. Gaetz. So, you did say it?
Rev. Sharpton. I was not talking about all Jews, no.
Mr. Gaetz. You said those words?
Rev. Sharpton. No. I said about getting Mordecai Levy.
Mr. Gaetz. Okay. Have you said, ``I am in Hell already. I
am in Israel''?
Rev. Sharpton. Yeah, because I had been threatened that if
I came over to deal with a--
Mr. Gaetz. One more question.
Rev. Sharpton. No. Well, first--
Mr. Gaetz. Did you say the words, ``I believe in''--
Rev. Sharpton. I believe that you can deal with the decorum
of the Congress, but you cannot disrespect a Witness. You
cannot ask a question and tell the Witness he can't answer the
question.
Chair Nadler. The Witness is permitted to answer the
question.
Mr. Gaetz. You are welcome to answer them. How about--
Rev. Sharpton. Well, then let me answer, sir.
Mr. Gaetz. Okay. Did you ever say the words--
Rev. Sharpton. Let me answer because I am enjoying this.
Voice. Mr. Chair, I have a parliamentary inquiry.
Rev. Sharpton. I think that you have--
Mr. Gaetz. We are in a Committee about policing.
Rev. Sharpton. Don't get upset. Calm down. Calm down.
Mr. Gaetz. I am calm.
Rev. Sharpton. You are yelling. You are yelling. You are
yelling. Calm down.
Mr. Gaetz. Did you talk about offing--?
Rev. Sharpton. I am trying to answer your last question.
Chair Nadler. The Witness would be permitted--the time of
the gentleman has expired. The Witness may answer the question.
Mr. Gaetz. The one about offing the pigs, answer that one.
Chair Nadler. The Witness may answer the question. The time
of the gentleman has expired. The Witness may answer the
question.
Rev. Sharpton. The question that he raised, what I was
saying was clearly that I have disagreed with blacks and
whites. I have used the language graphically sometimes to do
so, some of which I have grown beyond but none of which shows
anything other than I am an equal-opportunity attacker.
Voice. Mr. Chair, a parliamentary--
Rev. Sharpton. I am glad that Joe Scarborough and I both
are equal-opportunity attackers that now work together.
Mr. Gaetz. Mr. Chair, I ask to be recognized for a
unanimous consent request.
Chair Nadler. The gentleman will State his unanimous
consent request.
Mr. Gaetz. Mr. Chair, I seek unanimous consent to introduce
the Scarborough resolution as a part of the committee's
permanent record.
Chair Nadler. I object.
The gentleman from Georgia is recognized.
Mr. Gaetz. Mr. Chair, I have a motion. Now that--
Chair Nadler. The gentleman from Georgia is recognized.
Mr. Richmond. Fox audition is over? Who? Who?
Chair Nadler. The gentleman from Louisiana.
Mr. Richmond. Okay. So, the audition is over? Okay. Just
checking.
Mr. Chair, now that we just wasted five minutes that had
nothing to do with the subject of how we make our communities
safer, both Black and white, how we make our officers safe, I
want to start with Mr. Yoes, who is in my district and
represents Fraternal Order of Police. We met with Fraternal
Order of Police last year, and I brought in NOBLE and Fraternal
Order of Police. I thought we had a good meeting. What I want
to ask on the record is that we come together. Those
recommendations from the 21st Century policing model, those
that the FOP is behind, can you all submit to us the
recommendations you are for, the ones you are against, and the
ones you are neutral on so we will know where there is common
ground? I think that NOBLE has adopted the entire report. If
you all could give us that, then at least we know where the two
law enforcement groups stand on the 21st Century policing
recommendations.
Mr. Yoes. Yes, sir, I absolutely can forward that
information to you. It is documented. It is prepared. I can
send it. We can make it part of the record.
Mr. Richmond. Okay. Second, Dr. Goff lists some
recommendations in his testimony. I don't know if you have
them, but if you could, there are five recommendations. If you
can look at those recommendations and get us your position on
those five, it would be very helpful.
Second, part of your testimony, you talked about making it
a Federal offense to target law enforcement officers, which I
agree with. You use as an example Dallas and Baton Rouge. Baton
Rouge was very personal to us. I want to point out that this
not necessarily apples to apples when you talk about community-
police relations. Baton Rouge was Sovereign Citizens. They are
a domestic terrorist organization. They target police officers.
So, that has a lot less to do with community relationships
with the police, and I didn't want it to seem that way. Since
you did mention Baton Rouge, which was Sovereign Citizens, then
I will point you next door to St. John Parish, where we lost
two officers and two were ambushed. The thing that both of
those incidents have in common besides the loss of multiple
police officers is that they were outgunned by the perpetrator.
Both of them had AR-15s. So, when we mention assault weapons
ban, let me just ask you very specifically. In those cases,
were the police outgunned by the perpetrator?
Mr. Yoes. Well, sir, thank you for bringing up Brandon
Nielsen and Jeremy Triche. Both were friends of mine. That
incident occurred probably 10-15 minutes from my house. So, I
am very much familiar with it. Yes, I would say, absolutely,
they were armed with weapons, and the officers were not
prepared for what happened.
Mr. Richmond. The Baton Rouge incident was also an AR-15.
So, when we talk about assault weapons, we are really talking
about weapons of mass destruction and the question of whether
they have a place on the streets in a civilized community. I
won't put you on record as to whether you are for or against
assault-weapons ban, but I would like to ask you, are you
troubled by the fact that ordinary citizens are more equipped
and more weaponized than the police officers in many incidents?
Mr. Yoes. Well, as a law enforcement officer, I am very
much concerned about our ability and the safety of officers.
Mr. Richmond. The other thing I would point to--and, Dr.
Goff, I will ask this question of you or maybe even Chief
Hawkins--the mentality that we have in terms of police, so we
have a warrior mentality. We can have a guardian mentality. In
the warrior mentality, you are rewarded in terms of how many
stops you make, how many tickets you issue, how many summonses
you give out, which encourages that mindset. Then in the
guardian mentality, it is how often you engage with citizens.
So, in that setting--and my time is going to run out, and I
hope you will comment on it. Let us take the Alton Sterling
case as an example. He sold DVDs outside the same store for
years. So, when there is a call to a police officer to come
check on what Alton is doing, whether he may or may not have a
weapon, where is the breakdown in community policing that the
police that responds to that does not know who he is? I mean,
if you are the same person in front of the same store, do the
police officers never go get a sandwich or a drink from those
community stores? Where is the breakdown? I am trying to
understand why did the police not already have a relationship
with a guy who has a business set up in front of another
business for years? So, if you could answer that in terms of
community policing, guardian relationship versus warrior? With
that, I yield back the rest of my time.
Chief Hawkins. I will start really quick. In regard to the
guardian and warrior mentality, the way that you described it,
sir, I am going to have--I believe in both, but I don't believe
in that perspective. I believe it as the citizen that I am of
my community. I am a mother. So, I am going to be a warrior if
someone comes for my family. In that aspect, law enforcement
are warriors in protecting the community. That is what we train
for. That is what we prepare for, so that if we are outgunned,
we have better tactics. The mindset is a dual relationship of
the guardian. We are there because we are protective.
Having community policing is more than just the notion. It
is the actual engagement of knowing everyone that is selling
anything in that community, whether it be ice cream or a t-
shirt. So, that comes with a lot of work. That comes with
effort and action and proactive action, proactive discussion in
addressing all the biases, all the theories that you may have
in your mind personally in training and even acknowledging the
fact that you might personally have some type of belief, but
when we address it and we have talks and discussions with our
community Members and actually bring out hardcore discussions,
then we can get past it. So, I believe personally that there is
the ability to have a warrior and guardian mindset work
together.
Chair Nadler. The gentleman's times has expired. On
consideration, I will withdraw my previous objection. The
document will be entered into the record. The gentleman from
Ohio is recognized.
Mr. Jordan. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I yield to the gentleman
from Florida, Mr. Gaetz.
Mr. Gaetz. I thank the gentleman for yielding. I was
reviewing your prior answer, Rev. Sharpton. You are cited in a
Washington Examiner piece July 30, 2019, as having said, ``If
the Jews want to get it on, tell them to pin their yarmulkes
back and come over to my house.''
In your response to my question, you said you were just
referring to one person. So here is my very limited question
for you, Reverend. Were you misquoted in this story when you
say, ``the Jews'' and ``them,'' referring to a plural group of
people, rather than one person you seem to have a grievance
with.
Rev. Sharpton. Am I allowed to answer? My name is Sharpton,
not Lewandowski. I will answer the question if I am allowed.
Chair Nadler. Please.
Mr. Gaetz. We know your name, sir. Go ahead and answer.
Rev. Sharpton. You then know that I am going to answer. I
was referring to an incident and a threat to come to my home by
Mordecai Levy and to the homes of I believe of Rev. Daughtry
and others. How the examiner I think you said or someone else
wrote I am not looking at it. So, I do not know whether they
misquoted me or not. I do know what I said and who I was
referring to.
Mr. Gaetz. Well, did you say, ``them''?
Rev. Sharpton. I just said that I am not looking at the
statement. I do not--
Mr. Gaetz. I just want to--
Rev. Sharpton. You are talking about a situation that
happened in 1991. If I said, ``them,'' ``the,'' or ``those,'' I
don't know. I know that incident, and I know what I was
referring to. A man threatening to come down home who had a
criminal record and I had two young children, I think under
five years old--
Mr. Gaetz. I thank you. I appreciate the answer.
Rev. Sharpton. Again, I am not Lewandowski. Let me talk. I
will talk.
Mr. Gaetz. No. You don't control the--
Rev. Sharpton. I will talk. I have testified before this
Committee.
Mr. Gaetz. As will I. So is it your belief that--
Rev. Sharpton. If I said, ``them'' or not, would that help
or hurt excessive force of policing?
Mr. Gaetz. Well, I think it is pretty significant when
someone wants to come and preach to us about police and then--
Mr. Cicilline. Mr. Chair, point of parliamentary inquiry.
Point of parliamentary inquiry.
Chair Nadler. Who announced it first? The gentleman will
State his point of--
Mr. Richmond. I don't believe you are talking about the
people that come before you.
Chair Nadler. The gentleman will suspend. The gentleman
will State his point of parliamentary inquiry.
Ms. Jackson Lee. Mr. Chair, when a Witness is asked a
question in a hearing before this Judiciary Committee, do our
rules provide that the Witness is permitted to answer the
question?
Chair Nadler. The Witness is permitted to answer the
question.
Mr. Cicilline. I have a parliamentary--
Chair Nadler. The Member controls the time.
Ms. Jackson Lee. Parliamentary inquiry.
Chair Nadler. Hold on. The Member controls the time. If the
Member judges that the question is answered to his
satisfaction, he may go on to another question.
Ms. Jackson Lee. Parliamentary inquiry.
Chair Nadler. The gentlelady will State her point of
parliamentary inquiry.
Ms. Jackson Lee. When a Witness is attempting to answer the
question, is it the rules of this Committee that the Witness be
allowed to answer the question? Is it also in the decorum of
this Committee to not badger the Witness if the Witness is
attempting to answer the question?
Chair Nadler. Well, there are two answers. The Member
controls the time. If the Member thinks that the question has
been answered to his satisfaction, he may cut off the answer
and go to a further question. However, it is not permitted to
badger a Witness. We do afford Members considerable latitude,
but Witnesses, the badgering of Witnesses, is inappropriate.
Our Committee should not conduct itself in that manner. It is
expected that all parties to these proceedings comport
themselves with decorum and professionalism and at all times in
a manner that reflects creditably on the House of
Representatives. House rules require the Chair to maintain
order and decorum, and I will do so. The gentleman controls the
time.
Mr. Gaetz. Thank you, Mr. Chair. ``I ain't having no march.
I believe in fighting. Well, fight, then. Ain't nobody holding
you. I will off the man. We will off him. Plenty of crackers
walking around here tonight.'' Did you say those words?
Rev. Sharpton. I do not recall saying, ``I will not
march.'' I think for the last 40 years, I have marched. I think
that you are referring to, and I am not sure, but I think you
are referring to when I was dealing with some people that said
that they don't want to march and that they are going to off
people. I told them there are plenty of people walking around
that they called the name. They are not offing anybody because
I felt that they were just trying to disrupt our--
Mr. Gaetz. Thank you, Mr. Sharpton.
Rev. Sharpton. --asking people to march.
Mr. Gaetz. In that statement, did you refer to White people
as crackers?
Rev. Sharpton. So, in the context of I was quoting, as I
said--
Mr. Gaetz. Could you--
Rev. Sharpton. --I was quoting, as I said, the reference
made about ``I don't want to march.''
Mr. Gaetz. Did you say, ``We taught philosophy and
astrology and mathematics before Socrates and them Greek homos
ever got around to it?'' Did you say that, Mr. Sharpton?
Rev. Sharpton. I talked about African history, and I talked
about how we had dealt with astrology as well as mathematics
and philosophy and religion in Africa.
Mr. Gaetz. You referred to people as ``Greek homos,''
didn't you?
Rev. Sharpton. I do not recall how I referred to anyone.
Mr. Gaetz. That is quite--
Rev. Sharpton. You would have to cite. You would have to
cite.
Mr. Gaetz. Do you think that your bigoted statements in
1991 are excusable just because they were in--
Rev. Sharpton. I think that any statement that I have made
that was wrong, I have clearly said that we should not make
bigoted statements, including me. I also think that to
distort--
Mr. Gaetz. Have you made bigoted statements?
Rev. Sharpton. I think that also to distort--
Mr. Gaetz. Have you made bigoted statements, Reverend? Have
you? Have you made bigoted--
Rev. Sharpton. You can ask--
Mr. Cicilline. Will the gentleman yield?
Mr. Johnson of Georgia. Point of order.
Rev. Sharpton. You can ask all the questions you want.
Mr. Cicilline. Will the gentleman yield?
Rev. Sharpton. I am going to answer the question.
Mr. Cicilline. Will the gentleman yield?
Mr. Gaetz. When you call Greek homos, when you talk about
White crackers, those are bigoted statements.
Rev. Sharpton. No. I think I made it clear that I was
quoting what somebody said.
Mr. Gaetz. No. You--
Rev. Sharpton. Yelling and getting upset is beneath your
office. You should calm down.
Chair Nadler. You will suspend. The gentleman will State
his point of order.
Mr. Johnson of Georgia. Once again, Mr. Chair, after a
sustained attack on the character of a Witness that has been
called by people on this panel and that panel then attacks that
Witness in a sustained, deliberate manner, which is non-germane
to the subject at hand, is it appropriate for a Member to ask
that the offending Member's words be taken down?
Chair Nadler. It is not under the rules appropriate. The
time is the gentleman's.
Mr. Gaetz. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I would note these are
highly relevant to the issues that we are facing. Rev. Sharpton
has come before the House Judiciary Committee as a purported
expert on policing.
Chair Nadler. The clock should be running.
Mr. Gaetz. Yet, his bigoted statements undermine the
bipartisan work we should be doing to ensure that all citizens
are able to come together and have safe communities.
Mr. Johnson of Georgia. Point of order, Mr. Chair. How is
this germane?
Chair Nadler. The gentleman will State his point of order.
Mr. Johnson of Georgia. How is this line of inquiry
germane? If it is not germane, is it appropriate?
Mr. Gaetz. To the point? May I speak to the point?
Mr. Johnson of Georgia. Mr. Chair, we have had a series. We
had a Witness who came before us two days ago, Mr. Lewandowski,
who totally contemptuously dealt with this panel. Now, we have
a reverse of that. We have one of our Members doing the same
thing to a Witness whom we have called. I don't think it is
within our best practices to allow our process to get down to
the level that we have now sunk. I am asking the Chair to in
the wise use of discretion Rule that the gentleman from
Florida's line of inquiry with this specific Witness who he is
trying to attack his character--there is no question about that
but--
Mr. Gaetz. I am reading his own words back.
Mr. Johnson of Georgia. --doing it in a sustained way and
doing--
Chair Nadler. The gentleman has the time, not you.
Mr. Gaetz. He does? I have the time, Mr. Chair.
Mr. Johnson of Georgia. --and not having--
Chair Nadler. No, you do not.
Mr. Johnson of Georgia. --uttered a single--
Mr. Gaetz. Is this regular order? Is this a point of order?
What is--
Mr. Cicilline. Point of order, Mr. Gaetz. You don't have
the floor.
Chair Nadler. The gentleman is being heard on the point of
order, not--
Mr. Gaetz. Will I be heard on the point of order?
Chair Nadler. The gentleman is being heard on the point of
order.
Mr. Johnson of Georgia. Not having uttered a single word of
relevance to the issue at hand, is it appropriate for this
Committee to allow the misuse of this platform to attack the
character of a witness? I mean, this is taking our process down
to a level that we should never allow it to descend to. I am
objecting to us wallowing in the mud down here with these
comments. I mean, it is not whether or not it is true or false.
It is the fact that it is non-germane.
Mr. Gaetz. To the point?
Chair Nadler. The Chair will Rule on the point.
The Chair will Rule on the point of order. Although the
gentleman's comments may be obnoxious, although they may--
Mr. Gaetz. I object to that. Point of order. That is an
improper characterization for a Member of the Committee.
Chair Nadler. Though the gentleman's comments may be
characterized as whatever you want to characterize them as--
Mr. Gaetz. I have a point of order that your words be taken
down--
Mr. Richmond. Oh, woe is me.
Chair Nadler. Gentlemen.
Mr. Richmond. I pick a fight.
Chair Nadler. Gentlemen.
Mr. Richmond. Now I need help.
Chair Nadler. Under the rules, the gentleman has wide
latitude, both on the question of germaneness and on the
language that he uses. Unfortunately, under the rules, I cannot
overrule him.
The gentleman will proceed.
Mr. Gaetz. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
You sold your life story, Mr. Sharpton, to your own
charity. How much money did your charity pay you for the rights
to tell your story?
Ms. Jackson Lee. Parliamentary inquiry. Mr. Chair, this is
an outrage. The question is whether you can impugn the motives
and/or insult or badger the Witness or cost or characterize his
presence at the table?
Chair Nadler. Objection. The gentlelady was not recognized.
Ms. Jackson Lee. Well, I have a parliamentary inquiry, Mr.
Chair.
Chair Nadler. The gentlelady is not recognized. All right.
Stop the clock. Stop. All right. You will State the
parliamentary inquiry.
Ms. Jackson Lee. I thank you, Mr. Chair. I think the
gentleman from Georgia made a point about a Witness that we had
just two days ago, which the impugning of the motive, the
character destruction was not in the course of our questioning.
What I say to our good friend from Florida, that you are now
not only not being germane, but you are pointedly attacking the
character and, in addition, bringing up information that--
Chair Nadler. It is not--
Ms. Jackson Lee. Well, let me just finish. B ringing up
information--it is an inquiry--bringing up information that is
a character destroying, the question is, in the questioning of
a Witness. Can you use items that refer to the Witness'
character? Demeaning the Witness' character, is that an
appropriate line of questioning?
Chair Nadler. Whether it is an appropriate line of
questioning is not relevant. With respect to the parliamentary
inquiry, questioning a Witness' character and motives, which
may go to ascertaining the credibility to give to the
testimony, we have always given very wide latitude. The answer
has to be that I cannot object to that.
The gentleman will proceed.
Mr. Gaetz. How much money did your charity pay you, you
personally, for the right to tell your life story?
Rev. Sharpton. My charity owed a certain amount of money to
me and asked could they use that money to have the right to
sell any rights to my life, be it documentary, one-man play, or
other items that they have already began reaping dividends.
They would have paid, had to pay me the same sum anyway because
it was owed to me. So, the answer--
Mr. Gaetz. Was that sum over half a million dollars?
Rev. Sharpton. Can I finish?
Mr. Gaetz. Was it over half a million dollars?
Rev. Sharpton. Can I finish? Whatever the sum was--
Mr. Gaetz. --or was it half a million dollars that your
charity--
Rev. Sharpton. Whatever the sum--
Mr. Gaetz. --gave you to tell your life story because I
think most people would see that as fraud?
Rev. Sharpton. The charity again--
Mr. Gaetz. It is a great fraud--
Rev. Sharpton. The charity, again, owed me a certain amount
of money--
Mr. Gaetz. Over 500,000?
Rev. Sharpton. --that they would have had to pay anyway.
Mr. Gaetz. I want an answer.
Will you instruct him to tell us--
Rev. Sharpton. They--well, I agreed to allow them--
Mr. Gaetz. --whether or not it was more than 500,000 or
less than 500,000 that his--
Chair Nadler. The gentleman's--
Mr. Gaetz. --charity paid him for his life's story?
Chair Nadler. The gentleman's time has expired.
Rev. Sharpton. I allowed them to use--
Chair Nadler. The gentleman's--
Rev. Sharpton. --those funds to have--
Mr. Gaetz. Mr. Chair, I ask you to instruct the Witness.
Was it more than half a million bucks?
Chair Nadler. The gentleman will suspend. His time has
expired.
The gentleman from New York is recognized.
Mr. Jeffries. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Before I begin, let me just take a moment to thank Ms. Carr
for her presence here today; of course, for sharing her
thoughts with this Committee. What Ms. Carr experienced; no
parent should ever have to experience. No parent should ever
have to bury their child, particularly when that child has been
killed by those who were sworn to protect and serve. So, I want
to thank you for turning your pain into progress, for your
willingness to share the story in such an authentic and
compelling way.
Today, I will be reintroducing the anti-chokehold
legislation that you made reference to in your testimony. We
will be renaming it the Eric Garner Excessive Use of Force
Prevention Act in tribute to your son. Thank you again for all
that you have done.
I want to enter into the record and ask unanimous consent a
tweet from Joe Scarborough from July 29th of 2019. The entire
line of inappropriate questioning from Matt Gaetz was based
purportedly on a resolution that had been introduced over 20
years ago by then Congressman Joe Scarborough. The tweet reads,
``Thanks to those reminding me of how stridently Al Sharpton
and I opposed each other 20 years ago. We take pride in our
friendship today because of that history, recognizing Jesus'
words that all have fallen short of God's glory, and we should
forgive each other 70 7 times.'' Unanimous.
Chair Nadler. Without objection, which will be entered into
the record.
[The information follows:]
MR. JEFFRIES FOR THE RECORD
=======================================================================
[GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Mr. Jeffries. Let me also thank Rev. Sharpton for
continuing to be a voice for the voiceless; a defender of the
disenfranchised; for all that you have done throughout the
country in the context of this issue, police violence; and for
the manner in which you have stood with individuals over the
years in New York, whether that was Amadou Diallo, who was
felled by 42 shots at his doorstep unarmed, African can;
whether that was Patrick Dorismond, a security guard who so-
called Mayor Rudolph Giuliani maligned by releasing his
juvenile records--it turned out that Mr. Dorismond was actually
an altar boy who went to the same Catholic school as the so-
called Mayor Giuliani--whether it was Sean Bell, who was shot
dead, 50 shots, on the eve of his wedding; whether it was Omar
Edwards, who was an off-duty Black police officer, who was
killed in Harlem; of course, whether that was Eric Garner, who
was killed for all of the world to see, unarmed and given a
death sentence for selling loose cigarettes. So, thank you,
Rev. Sharpton.
In all those instances, unfortunately, there was no measure
of justice to the officer who had engaged in the Act resulting
in the death of those individuals. What can be done to create a
greater degree of accountability, recognizing that in my view,
the majority of police officers are there to protect and serve
with the best of intentions? Like any avenue of human endeavor
in life, there are bad apples. When a bad apple engages in an
action that results in the death of an individual, what can be
done to make sure that there is a greater degree of
accountability?
Rev. Sharpton. Are you asking me?
Mr. Jeffries. Rev. Sharpton?
Rev. Sharpton. I think that we need to have--and thank you
for your comments on my work. I thank the gentleman from
Florida for allowing me to straighten out the distortion and
lies on the record that I have been misquoted. He has done a
great service to my reputation.
I want to say I think that the Federal Government has an
obligation--and the Congress can initiate that--to really set
certain laws in place that become Federal law that override
State laws and that in many ways stop State prosecutors and
others from mishandling police matters: One, by having
independent review in the Justice Department, a group in the
Justice Department that can handle that and determine whether
to go criminal or consent decrees of his police forces, things
like training must reach a certain bar. Otherwise, they violate
Federal law. You have to have things, again, like camera on
police that can--that has to be mandated on how they are
handled. There must be Federal standards on policing subject to
criminal or civil law that cannot change by Administrations. I
think we have not answered when all that has happened in the
last decade or more. We have not answered that with any new
Federal legislation. I think it is important we do. I am glad
you are beginning again with this Eric Garner chokehold law.
Mr. Jeffries. Thank you, Rev. Sharpton. The time has
expired.
Chair Nadler. The gentleman's time has expired.
The gentleman from California, Mr. McClintock?
Mr. McClintock. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I would first observe
that every police officer that I have spoken with on this
subject strongly supports body cameras because they provide an
accurate record of encounters. That protects every honest
officer just as it protects every honest citizen.
I saw the video of the killing of Eric Garner, and it is
appalling, particularly when you consider the fact the only
crime that was even alleged was selling loose cigarettes. I
mean, who would make that a crime to begin with, let alone one
to be enforced by lethal force?
Mr. Blake, the attack on you clearly appeared unprovoked. I
am just curious. What was the justification the officer used
for that attack?
Mr. Blake. Apparently, the suspect that they claimed I
looked like was making credit card fraud, was ordering bags and
expensive clothes to that hotel on fraudulent credit cards.
Mr. McClintock. So, he thought you were somebody else when
he attacked you like that?
Mr. Blake. Apparently. That is what he claimed.
Mr. McClintock. Did he ask for any ID or--
Mr. Blake. No. He never even declared that he was an
officer, NYPD. I only knew later when I saw badges on the other
four officers that were on the scene.
Mr. McClintock. I don't know what the statistics are, and I
intend to trust the accuracy of Ms. Mac Donald's study, but,
clearly, that is not the public perception at least among a
significant portion of the population.
I used to work for the former chief of the LAPD, the
legendary Edward Davis. He was chief from '69 to '77 or '78, I
think. During the time he was chief, crime nationally exploded.
It went up 50 percent. In Los Angeles under Chief Davis, it
actually went down. He was not averse to the use of force, but
he had a very unique philosophy of law enforcement. He once
told me, ``It is not the job of the police department to
enforce the law.'' He said, ``That is the job of every citizen.
The police department is there to help.''
He is the chief who pioneered Neighborhood Watch in Los
Angeles. He introduced community-based policing. He introduced
the L.A. Basic Car Plan. Because he viewed law enforcement as a
partnership between citizens and police. Of course, the Basic
Car Plan says, ``We are going to become a partnership with the
local neighborhoods. We are going to have the same officers in
the same neighborhoods who know the people who are involved.''
It seems to me that philosophy works. It is the essence of law
enforcement in a free society and in a self-governing society.
In fact, he was very much opposed to gun-control laws that
would disarm law-abiding citizens because he believed that law-
abiding citizens were the first line of defense and an
important part of that partnership to enforce the laws that are
enacted on behalf of all of us.
Ultimately, that philosophy requires a mutual respect
between the police officers and the neighborhoods and between
the neighborhoods and the police officers. Clearly, we have
lost that. Maybe it is too much to ask for in this day and age
when we can't seem to summon a degree of mutual respect among
ourselves on this Committee, but I would ask Commander Yoes and
Chief Ron Davis. You have obviously different perspectives but
together a great deal of experience with law enforcement. How
do we go about restoring that mutual respect that is essential
for law enforcement in a free society?
Mr. Yoes. Well, I thank you for that question because I
really think that is the root of everything that we should be
talking about here today.
At the end of the day, it doesn't matter what we do or who
we are. At the end of the day, it really is all about the
relationships. When you apply this to law enforcement, it goes
back to our same community, our communities. We are allowed to
do certain things as law enforcement officers. What gives us
the right to do it is the very trust of the people who have
empowered us to do that. Along the way, we have clearly lost
that way. We have lost our way because we have gotten changes
in technology, changes in the way we interact, interpersonal
skills, and social media. All these things have changed our
world and have changed it drastically.
Mr. McClintock. I think that technology would help, though.
I mean, with DNA and GPS and surveillance cameras, it should
make the job easier.
Mr. Yoes. I agree. I don't disagree with that. The point I
am making is that at the end of the day, it really comes down
to the relationships. It is easy to point out and say that
there is us and there is them. The reality is there are people
on both sides of this issue. In those relationships that we
foster, what is going to actually make the difference at the
end of the day?
It doesn't matter what we are doing. In this case, we are
talking about law enforcement. We need to get back to the
basics. We need to have an understanding on what is important
for law enforcement and why, what is important to our
communities. When we have that dialogue and we have that
understanding, we can find solutions to real problems and tear
down some of the walls and the destruction that we see across
this country.
Mr. McClintock. I assume that is not involving the
federalization and nationalization of police policy but,
rather, getting back to the neighborhood level.
Mr. Yoes. I would argue that all politics are local and
that in this case, if we are going to be policing our
communities, what gives us the power is to trust those
communities, the people within that community. It is how we do
it and how we interact with our public will determine whether
or not they are pleased with the services we provide and accept
the services we provide.
Chief Davis. Congressman, thank you for the question. I am
going to start with the end first. I don't think it is a
question of federalizing or nationalizing. I don't agree with
that. Like any profession, whether you are an attorney, whether
you are a doctor, the idea that the profession would not have
national standards. I expect that, no matter what hospital I go
to in this country, that if the best evidence says, ``You take
out an appendix this way,'' that is what you are going to do.
The failure to do that and cause me harm would be malpractice.
We have 18,000 agencies that are engaging in malpractice
literally on a daily basis because of the lack of national
standards. So, the idea that you set national use of force
standards, national standards for accountability is not counter
to the idea of decentralized or local policing.
Your question about how do we get back to that, I have got
to push back just a little bit, Congressman, in saying that for
many, this is not a question to get back to. The trust has
never been there. It is just now visible. It is visible because
of videos. It is visible because of marches and demonstrations.
For many communities, the trust level has always been strained
based on historic abuses and current practices.
It goes to the question Congressman Richmond asked about,
how do you not know? I think they did know. When we have
policies and practices that tell the officers, ``You shall
enforce the law so that these statistical crime rates,'' that
Ms. Mac Donald is talking about ``goes down'' and counts that
and you are sitting there now talking about crime in numbers of
``went up 10 percent,'' ``2 percent,'' and ignoring the people
that are involved is counterproductive. The idea that police
themselves can reduce crime is false. It is completely false.
We had a lot of discussion here today, Congressman, about
the issues of firearms. Not to get into the gun debate, but as
a Black male, I ask one simple thing. Is it my body has more
privilege than a gun? Why are we so willing to fight and push
back on anything that would restrict the Second amendment but
when it comes to the Fourth Amendment, the Fourteenth, the
seizure of my Black body, all of a sudden, there are all kinds
of reasons to do it? We need to show respect to the communities
and move forward.
Chair Nadler. The time of the gentleman has well-expired.
The gentleman from Rhode Island?
Mr. Cicilline. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you, Ms. Carr,
for your grace and your very powerful words. Thank you for
being with us. Mr. Blake, thank you for sharing your story. I
am sorry that you had that experience.
I approach this from kind of an unusual perspective. I was
a civil rights lawyer and criminal defense lawyer before I
became mayor of Providence. I was responsible for their
greatest number of cases against the Providence Police
Department, civil rights cases. I then became the public safety
commissioner.
Providence Police Department today is one of the best
police departments in America. We went from a department that
had two Federal investigations, including a practices and
standards investigation, to a fully accredited department and
the lowest crime rate in 40 years. What I learned in that
experience is that--and my chief used to always say this--the
most powerful weapon we have to reduce crime in the city is not
any of our guns or other equipment. It is the trust of the
community. We built a community policing model that divided the
city into substations where police officers walked beats in the
neighborhood and built relationships with community leaders.
One of the early challenges was we didn't have a police
department that reflected the diversity of the city it served.
I found that to be one of the most powerful ways to build that
trust, that people saw people from their community that were in
the department. So, I am wondering, Chief, whether you have any
ideas of what Congress can do to incentivize the diversity of
departments, the recruitment, the retention, the challenges
that are faced, particularly for communities that may have not
historically been part of the police department that are
interested, that what can we do as Members of Congress to help
departments work aggressively to reflect the diversity of the
communities they serve?
Chief Hawkins. Thank you for that question. That is a very
great question because, trust me, not only am I thinking of
different ways to recruit to make it more diverse or to make it
more open for the field of law enforcement alone, but that is
also, we are being affected drastically with not being able to
recruit individuals. So, in regards to what Congress can do,
maybe incentivizing opportunities for funding support. I know
we had it in the past in regards to being able to recruit with
a better salary. Of course, the equipment that is coming that
is being offered, that assists, but even if there is a think
tank with other opportunities of incentives that can be
offered, trust me, I will be the first one to raise my hand and
say, ``I want to be a part of to figure out what else we can do
to recruit within our communities.''
Mr. Cicilline. Thank you, Chief.
My other experiences--and I think there is a recent study
that confirmed this. I think everyone recognizes the vast
majority of law enforcement officers are doing their job, doing
it well, and never get enough credit for the good work that
they do. In fact, the number of incidents come from a very
small number of Members at each of these departments.
There was a recent article published called ``Good Cop, Bad
Cop: Using Civilian Allegations to Predict Police Misconduct.''
It advances the theory that a small minority of repeat
offenders are responsible for the vast majority of misconduct
within police departments. If you consider in the case of Mr.
Garner and Mr. Blake, the offending officers had previous
misconduct complaints sustained against them. So, one of the
things that we did in Providence was we created an early
detection system because what we learned is that sometimes
these things start off as small things, which were evidence of
something else going on in the officers' life, something at
home, a substance abuse issue. It was an early system to detect
that someone needed to intervene and find out what was going on
to prevent a more seriousness.
So, I am wondering, anyone on the panel, whether or not we
might incentivize the creation of some of those early detection
systems so we can prevent some of the things that are subject
of today's hearings and whether to not your experience is that
it is, in fact, a small subset within most departments where
the most problems persist. Rev. Sharpton or the chief?
Chief Hawkins. I would concur. It is called an early
warning system. Most leading agencies have that. Being able to
offer more incentives, more awareness, more training, not just
for the system of if we have repeated complaints that come in
to our internal affairs unit or from the community but other
aspects, giving the supervisor the oversight internally to be
able to offer wellness issues, be able to ask questions, ``What
is going on?'' You are correct. It is an early warning system
that assists departments with identifying things that are
outliers for those individual officers and extra training as
well.
Rev. Sharpton. I agree. I think that there clearly needs to
be inside the departments, really under the supervisors, to
monitor and really guide a lot of the behavior of the officers
that they keep getting repeat complaints with because those
human factors outside of the job does bear a lot of what
happens in the job. The public could become--I am not saying in
all cases but could become the ones that bear the brunt of
whatever situation they may be facing.
Mr. Cicilline. Yes. I will just end where I began, and that
is that this issue about the trust development between the
communities and police is a key. I knew we had been successful
in the City of Providence when I drove down the street in one
neighborhood and saw these two very big officers playing
hopscotch with a little girl in the neighborhood because they
had become so much a part of that community and so respected. I
think that is one of the things that we can work on to provide
resources so departments can build those trusting relationships
between the police and the community.
With that, I yield back and thank the Witnesses.
Chair Nadler. The gentleman yields back.
The gentleman from Louisiana?
Mr. Johnson of Louisiana. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thanks to
everybody for being here.
Commander Yoes, I had a couple of questions for you. First,
I want to thank you for your long service in law enforcement.
Congratulations on your well-deserved election as the national
President of the Fraternal Order of Police.
Mr. Yoes. Thank you.
Mr. Johnson of Louisiana. You do all of us in Louisiana a
great service, and we are very proud of you. So, thank you for
that.
You shared some statistics earlier today that I just think
are really alarming. I wanted to reiterate 2 of those: Sixty-
six percent reduction in the recruitment of new police officers
nationwide. Is that what you said?
Mr. Yoes. That is what I understand, yes.
Mr. Johnson of Louisiana. First responders have about a
five times the rate of PTSD occurrence than the general
population? I mean, these are things that are alarming and
should--
Mr. Yoes. Well, I think--and this is the elephant in the
room. We don't like talking about it because it is
uncomfortable, but if you think about the demands that are
placed on a person in the law enforcement profession, the shift
work they work, the level of the calls that they respond to,
the things that they see and the things that they deal with in
trying to compartmentalize within their own lives, all that
takes a toll on an individual. For far too long, we refused to
talk about it. We wanted them to be strong. We expect our
officers to be strong. It wasn't until we realized that we were
doing a disservice by not recognizing the impact that it is
having.
Often, we will see officers that we think that they are
acting out. We think that they are bad officers. In a lot of
cases, we really need to acknowledge the fact that there is a
reason why there are some actions being taken. It is signs. It
is signs of something much greater than that and I will argue,
I feel very strongly of the fact that when someone subjects
their life, their family, and everything to the profession of
law enforcement to do good within their community, we need to
recognize these things. We need to not push them aside. We need
to find programs to help them and save those officers. We have
a fiduciary and a moral responsibility to save that which has
been broken in the service of our communities. I think that is
very important to recognize it, to focus on the fact that it
does exist and we need to tackle it and we need to get some
serious consideration and thoughts to a holistic approach of
saving officers who are damaged because of the type of work
they are doing.
Mr. Johnson of Louisiana. I appreciate you saying that. I
grew up in the household of a first responder. My dad was an
assistant chief, Shreveport Fire Department. He was permanently
disabled, critically injured in a fire in 1984. So, I have a
real appreciation of the danger that is faced by first
responders.
I grew up in the Fire and Police Training Academy because
my dad was a training officer. I heard a metaphor one time. It
is pretty well-known now, but basically society is divided into
three groups of people. There are sheep, which defines most
people, not in a derogatory manner, but we are all peace-loving
folks who wouldn't do harm to anybody else.
There is a second category. It is the wolves. These are the
people, evil men, and sociopaths that prey upon the innocent
without mercy.
Then there is a third category. Those are the sheepdogs.
The sheepdogs are called to protect the sheep and confront the
wolves. I am so grateful that we have sheepdogs in our society.
That is our law enforcement officers, military, and first
responders. Thank you. Thank all of you that serve because it
is a thankless job.
A couple of questions in the short time that I have left.
Commander Yoes, I guess you first. Have you yourself or have
you witnessed reduced reaction times by police officers
confronted with violence because somewhere in their thought
processes, they are afraid of being fired or sued or
prosecuted?
The second part is, if so, does that affect their safety
and, by extension, the safety of innocent bystanders and the
community at large?
Mr. Yoes. I will speak in general terms if I can.
Mr. Johnson of Louisiana. Sure.
Mr. Yoes. I know of having discussions with officers to
where their decision to take action was delayed with the
thought process of how it would affect their family. So, the
good news is we were able to have that conversation because it
turned out with a peaceful resolution. I could also tell you
that I know a number of officers who found themselves in
situations where a noncompliance has escalated and because we
have a noncompliance and there is an escalation, then there is
an uncertain outcome. That uncertain outcome affects a lot of
people. It affects the officers. It affects the person that is
having the encounter. It also affects the bystanders. What we
need to do is we need to focus. We need to focus a tremendous
amount of our energy on de-escalation techniques in training
because, really, when it comes--when we look at all these
situations, they have elevated to a point because it is
escalating. We definitely need to improve on our skills in
order to de-escalate these because of the uncertain outcomes.
At times, it can be irreversible.
Mr. Johnson of Louisiana. I see heads nodding all over
across the table. I think that is universally understood.
Last question with the short time left. Do you see policing
ultimately as being the responsibility of police and government
or maybe also an obligation of the public as well?
Mr. Yoes. Oh, it is clearly an obligation of the public and
police. I think it is a partnership. Anything less would not be
effective.
Mr. Johnson of Louisiana. Thank you. I am out of time. I
yield back.
Chair Nadler. The gentleman yields back.
The gentlelady from Washington?
Ms. Jayapal. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you for holding
this important hearing.
Thank you all very much for being here. Ms. Carr, I want to
thank you, in particular, for channeling your anger and your
grief around the brutal killing of your son, Eric Garner, and
giving inspiration with a mother's love, giving inspiration to
the movement for justice and an end to this kind of violence. I
deeply, deeply appreciate it. Thank you, Mr. Blake, also for
sharing your story.
I wanted to start by saying that I think, Chief Davis, you
mentioned this in your opening remarks--when we refuse to
acknowledge the structural biases that are within our
institutions, when we refuse to acknowledge the
institutionalized racism that exists within all systems here in
government, in law enforcement, in every system, when we,
unfortunately, have colleagues who mock and try to malign
witnesses and discredit the idea that we are all working
together to try to get to a solution here, but we have to
acknowledge the biases that exist. If we don't acknowledge that
White supremacy, if we don't acknowledge the history of
institutionalized racism in this country, we cannot move
forward. I do believe that all of us, law enforcement,
community, we do want--for the vast majority of people, we do
want to find a way forward.
I come to this. I represent Seattle, the Seattle area.
Before being a Member of Congress, I was a civil and immigrant
rights leader. We wrote to--I was a signatory to the letter
that went to the Department of Justice asking for a pattern in
practice investigation into use of force and police brutality,
police violence in our community. We got that. I am deeply
grateful for those patterns in practice investigations that the
Department of Justice used to conduct. I am sorry because we
are still not through the process. It is not an easy process.
We are not through it. I wish we could go to the Department of
Justice for support. We can't do that right now.
We also recently passed as a State a Deescalate Washington
initiative. Ms. Carr, you will be happy to know it came from
the families of those who were killed who came together and
said, ``We have to take on what is one of the most restrictive
laws in the country that essentially made it impossible to have
any accountability in police shooting incidents,'' because we
needed to prove according to our Constitution a standard of
malice that was essentially impossible.
What happened is those families got together with law
enforcement and put together an initiative that also has had
bumpy fits and starts, but was passed. Part of that included
de-escalation. I have heard--Mr. Yoes, I know you just spoke
about this. I saw Dr. Goff nodding. Part of what it did, in
addition to changing the standard and making it very clear that
we needed a different standard to hold police officers
accountable, it also provided resources to the frontline
offices because I do think that our law enforcement is being
forced to address issues on the front lines that are, frankly,
the negligence of underfunding that the Federal Government has
been doing, austerity spending that we have been doing that
creates people who are homeless or creates hunger it creates
all kinds of issues in our communities.
So, I wanted to ask--maybe I will direct this at both Chief
Davis and Mr. Yoes--do you support an approach to policing that
encourages de-escalation and makes it clear that use of force
is a last resort? Let me start with you, Chief Davis.
Chief Davis. Thank you, Congresswoman. Yes, I do. I think
it is a good policy to take a look at Camden, New Jersey and
also the Police Executive Research Forum 30 guiding principles,
where the force should be a necessity.
Ms. Jayapal. Right.
Chief Davis. Although it is a last resort doesn't mean that
that sometimes that is the first option, that it should be
proportionate and that it should be with strong tactics of
really sticking to time, distance, and cover. So yes, I do.
Ms. Jayapal. Mr. Yoes, do you want to add anything to that?
Mr. Yoes. I agree that de-escalation is going to be a very
big key of stopping or preventing things from hurling in a very
unpredictable way. We clearly need to focus as much energy as
we can to increase that. I think that there is no doubt that in
instances, force is going to be required. Because of that,
there needs to be a balance.
Ms. Jayapal. Thank you.
I should have mentioned that the initiative had the support
of law enforcement. The Black Law Enforcement Association of
Washington and our local sheriff both endorsed that initiative.
My last question in my remaining time, Ms. Garcia, as a
former DOJ official in the Civil Rights Division, you conducted
these investigations into law enforcement agencies to determine
whether law enforcement actions were pattern and practice. You
helped to enforce consent decrees. In your experience, why is
that DOJ oversight so critical for addressing excessive use of
force of police?
Chair Nadler. The time of the gentlelady has expired, but
you can answer the question.
Ms. Garcia. Thank you.
First, when DOJ initiates a pattern of practice
investigation, it is because there has been such a severe
breakdown at the State and local level to keep those
departments accountable that they do need an outside Federal
agency to come and correct them. Once DOJ finds the systemic
constitutional violations, the consent decrees that result are
actually court-enforceable and overseen by independent
monitors. So, that is what is crucial to correcting all the
problems that come with the constitutional violations,
everything from the training to the resources to the policies
and to officer wellness programs and, most importantly, the
community engagement because community engagement in that
matter is really what is going to take hold and help see that
through once DOJ is gone.
Ms. Jayapal. Thank you. Our Federal monitor is playing a
big role in that still.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I do yield back.
Chair Nadler. The gentlelady yields back.
The gentlelady from Arizona?
Ms. Lesko. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you, all of you, for
being here today. I think both Republicans and Democrats would
agree that we need to penalize bad actors and bad actions, but
what I am concerned about today and in the media is that the
sole focus has been on the relatively small number of bad
actors and bad actions. We heard it from our Chair Nadler at
his beginning statement. He listed a whole bunch of instances
that were not a good outcome. Then we see on the screens all
day today as we are talking just that.
How about all the good things that law enforcement has
done? I really think we need to focus on that, too. Because of
that, I want to give you some examples of good things that have
happened just recently that law enforcement has done in
Arizona.
On August 26, first responders in Arizona, including the
Arizona Department of Public Safety, rescued an 8-year-old girl
who had fallen about 75 feet into Oak Creek Canyon in Arizona.
On August 23rd, Arizona police officers rescued a baby left in
a car in 100-degree heat for nearly an hour, and she survived.
On August 6th, a Tucson police officer spotted a kitten locked
inside a car in Midtown Parking Lot on Saturday and rescued it.
On July 11th, there was a fire at a Mesa, Arizona apartment
complex where officers bravely placed themselves in harm's way
to rescue a family. In Phoenix, just the other day, there was a
severe traffic collision where one of the motorists,
unfortunately, lost his leg. Due to the quick thinking of the
police officers, who were the first to arrive prior to medical
units, his life was preserved by the makeshift tourniquet that
was applied.
One of the things that the police, Phoenix police, is doing
now is they have--their newest unit on the force is an ice
cream truck. They are using it in lower socioeconomic
neighborhoods, where they are concerned that there is a bad
feeling about police officers. So, they are trying to mitigate
it.
Yesterday afternoon, a suspect entered a store full of
customers and robbed the store at knifepoint. Then he fled the
store. He carjacked another victim at knifepoint and was
arrested. I am just saying we need to take care of bad actors,
but let us not forget that our law enforcement are doing so
many great things each and every day, so many heroic things,
and I want to thank them for what they do.
I have a question for Mr. Yoes. In his previously
testimony, one of the Witnesses suggested that we support a
bill that would prohibit chokeholds. I just want your
professional advice on that. If we prohibited chokeholds, would
it then lead to not having an option on the table and you would
actually have to use lethal force more?
Mr. Yoes. Well, that is a very complicated and fluid
question asking for an outcome. That is very much
unpredictable. There is an escalation. The escalation causes
actions. It progresses up. At some point, there becomes an
issue of whether or not what is necessary to maintain or to not
lose control of a situation? So, it is a very fluid concern. It
is not an easy answer. I am not too sure I can answer that. I
can just tell you that everyone every time we find ourselves in
a situation where it escalates to a point where it becomes some
physical altercation, then the outcomes are always going to be
different.
Ms. Lesko. Mr. Yoes, this has been touched on a little bit,
but do you think all the publicity and focus on negative actors
actually hurts the morale of the law enforcement and causes
problems with retention and hiring law enforcement officers?
Mr. Yoes. No, ma'am, I don't think so. I know so. I think
we are in a point now where it is easy to demonize law
enforcement. Often, it is done without knowing all the facts.
We are a Nation of laws. Those laws have due process. We are
quick to rush to judgment on making assertions on what is
happening. I think it has created an atmosphere in this country
that is making it very difficult for law enforcement officers
to do their job. We were once very respected. Now, as you
mentioned, there are incidents that certainly should be
reviewed and handled, but it doesn't reflect on every law
enforcement officer, but every law enforcement officer is
taking a burden for it.
Ms. Lesko. Thank you.
Mr. Chair, I would like to yield any time I have left to
Mr. Gaetz.
Mr. Gaetz. Mr. Chair, on the unanimous consent request--
Chair Nadler. The gentleman's time has expired.
The gentlewoman from Florida, Ms. Demings?
Ms. Demings. Thank you so much, Mr. Chair.
Thank you to all our Witnesses who are here today. As I
have listened to your testimony, I feel very hopeful about the
subject that we are discussing today. This is a serious topic.
Some of the statements today have been helpful, and some have
been downright disgraceful and shameful. I think through all
the yelling and carrying on that we have seen, the theatrics,
some of my colleagues forgot that Ms. Carr was in the room.
They forgot there were other families in the room who lost
their loved ones. So, on their behalf because I know they
forgot, I want to say we are sorry for your loss.
We are talking about a profession that I loved, a
profession that I worked in for 27 years. My first floor speech
as a Member of Congress, I thought it would be about healthcare
or some other topics. It ended up being about a female
sergeant, an African American sergeant, whom I promoted as the
Chief of Police, who was shot and killed trying to arrest a
murder suspect, who had shot and killed his pregnant
girlfriend. I have worked with some of the finest men and women
who wear the badge. Good police officers are like my family,
but we have had some problems. We have an obligation,
Republicans, Democrats, and every person in this room, to work
to make sure that police officers are celebrated but bad cops
are held accountable. The Ranking Member said it correctly,
that there is no one who wants to get rid of bad cops more than
good cops do. I can tell you as a former Chief of Police, I
spent every doggone day trying to get rid of the bad cops.
We wear the badge, law enforcement wears the badge, over
our hearts. We wear the badge over our hearts as a constant
reminder that you have to have the heart for the job, right?
That we are dealing with people and families.
Mr. Yoes or Captain Yoes, you talked about what the men and
women go through. It is a tough job. I know it is tough from
having done it. If we are going to save this profession and get
it back to the level which it deserves to be, we have got to
work together to do that.
I don't have a question for you today, but when I hear the
discussion about Federal--what role can the Federal Government
play? When we talk about leaving it up to individual states,
that scares me. We tried that with the Voting Rights Act. Look
what is happening. I do believe the Federal Government can play
a direct role in helping to create standards. It doesn't matter
whether you are a 1-officer department, 4-, 1,000-, or 30,000-
officer. When you put on that badge and the gun, the standards
in which you police with, there should be standards. I believe
you said it, Chief Davis, that if you were going for any other
profession, there are some minimum standards that you should
have: Hiring standards. Do we want anybody doing the job of a
law enforcement officer, one where he or she will be out there
on the streets by themselves making life and death decisions?
We want the brightest and the best. Every agency should spend
their time trying to hire the best and the brightest men and
women to do the job. We know it is going to cost, Ms. Carr, to
do that, but we need to work together and see how we can get it
done with training standards.
We not only want the brightest and the best, Captain. We
want the best trained so that when our men and women--if we
want them to survive, not just physically, but to survive their
jobs and not be in front of a courtroom, then we have to give
them the tools to survive. Training is one of those tools, use
of force training, standardized training that involves use of
force, across the Nation, and then community partnerships. I
can tell you in Orlando, where I served as a Chief, we would
not have survived. I went to the community every time we had a
good day and every time we had a bad day and asked the
community to help me create a police department that knew how
to police the community in which they serve.
So, I don't have a question, Mr. Chair. I feel extremely
hopeful today if we continue to work together. I believe the
people in this room who have endured and are still here want to
get this done.
So, I thank you. God bless you all. Thank you very much.
Chair Nadler. The gentlelady's time has expired.
The gentleman from Florida has a unanimous consent request
to admit a document. Without objection, the document will be
admitted.
[The information follows:]
MR. GAETZ FOR THE RECORD
=======================================================================
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Chair Nadler. They just called votes on the floor, but I
hope we can finish so we don't have to come back. The
gentlelady from Pennsylvania is recognized.
Ms. Scanlon. Thank you. I do want to thank Ms. Carr and Mr.
Blake for being here and for all the families who are here to
represent their experiences. I also want to thank the law
enforcement officers who do lay their lives on the line every
day, including former Chief Demings, for their commitment to
excellence because I think that is what we are all looking for
here.
Representative Demings talked about the tools that we need
our law enforcement officers to have. As a representative from
Philadelphia, I am both familiar with and a huge supporter of
the robust community-oriented policing work of Charles Ramsey,
who was the former police Chief in Philly and DC, and then of
course was one of the co-chairs of the 2015 presidential task
force, I guess it was, on 21st century policing. That report,
which I think is an excellent document to guide us forward, and
I wish we had been able to work more robustly with that
already. It set forth six core principles, starting with a
broad challenge to change the culture of policing, but also
including attention to office wellness and safety and cutting-
edge technology.
So, in the limited time and with votes coming, I wanted to
focus on some of the tools that the Department of Justice has
used in the past, which aren't currently available, and they
were sort of a carrot and a stick. Ms. Garcia, can you comment
on the impact of the Department of Justice's reversal of policy
regarding consent decrees and how that makes it more difficult
for the DOJ to obtain court enforcement agreements to stop
civil rights abuses? This would be the carrot that could be
held over a police force that perhaps was not meeting its
obligations to the public.
Ms. Garcia. So, Jeff Sessions' memo that he issued on the
last day that he was overseeing DOJ severely undercut the
efficacy of consent decrees by doing things such as placing
time limitations on them of a couple of years, and really
stripping the discretion of the career attorneys from crafting
the remedies that are necessary for systemic reform. They are
the folks that are doing the fact-finding inquiry, and talking
to the communities, and really handling the investigations.
They are not political appointees, so they are really in the
best position to actually deliver justice to the communities
that need it because of all the systemic violations that have
occurred.
Ms. Scanlon. Okay. I understand the U.S. Commission on
Civil Rights has also been critical of that decision.
Ms. Garcia. That is correct.
Ms. Scanlon. Okay. Chief Davis, I also wanted to focus on
the carrot, which was the opportunity for police forces to
request assistance because the two major cities in my district,
Philadelphia and Chester, both reached out and participated in
the COPS CRITI Program.
Chief Davis. Yes.
Ms. Scanlon. In Chester, there was a police shooting after
a suspect was chased, and a man was killed after 100 bullets
were pumped into his car. So, there was community outrage.
There had been a series of police-involved shootings, but that
police department reached out and requested help. My
understanding is that the Department of Justice has ended that
program, which was designed to provide advice and
recommendations on how police departments could do a better job
of engaging their community. Can you talk about that?
Chief Davis. Yes. What the department has done was to,
there was a critical collaborative reform program, but it no
longer does the type of organizational assessments, and
Philadelphia is a perfect example. We went into Philadelphia
and spent close to a year, at the commissioner's request,
looking from top to bottom at use of force training policies,
and found some serious deficiencies in training, found some
deficiencies on what we call threat perception failures, that
there were racial disparities. When people were perceived to
have a gun but didn't and were shot anyway. By changing
policies and training and response, when the commissioner left,
officer-involved shootings were down almost 50 percent. We did
the same thing with Chester technical assistance.
For a lot of the partners, the Chief would call us saying,
look, I really want to find out what is going on in the
department. I need to find out what I need to fix, and could
you help. That is no longer there, which means they are going
to keep operating, making the same mistakes. Depending on the
size of the organization, there could be some systemic
challenges or failures that may take years to get to the point
where they are going to fix them, but usually that is a lot of
victims.
So, I mean, I would strongly recommend that such a program
be brought back. It is a good carrot to what Lynda is talking
about, which is for the agencies that can't reform, that won't
reform, and the leadership is not committed to reform, you need
a consent decree. Some are prepared. They want to do it. If the
leadership is there, the community is working with them, then
you can help get them get there in a most efficient way.
Ms. Scanlon. Okay. I would be wholly supportive of having
multiple tools. So, thank you. I yield back.
Chair Nadler. The gentlelady yields back. The gentlelady
from Texas.
Ms. Garcia of Texas. Thank you, Mr. Chair, and I do want to
thank all the Witnesses for being here, and I apologize that I
have had to step out a lot during this hearing. We have a
markup next door in Financial Services where my vote was
needed.
Mr. Chair, the relationship between law enforcement and the
community is a very important one, which is supposed to promote
the safety and wellbeing of all people. So, where this activism
increases, so much our commitment to a vision for public safety
that honors the humanity of all people. Throughout my career, I
have spent time with community Members, local leaders, and
police officers. I was the founding Chair of the Independent
Police Oversight Board, appointed by former Mayor Elise Parker
in Houston, so I am familiar with the issues that involve the
relationship between law enforcement and the communities they
are supposed to protect.
Houston Chief of Police Art Acevedo testified in this
Committee earlier this year. He shared that the Hispanic
community has suffered a chilling effect in reporting violent
crimes since 2017 when our anti-immigrant racial profiling
bill, S.B. 4, became law. Unfortunately for many of us in
Houston and other parts of the country, the old driving while
Black has now turned into driving while brown. We have seen
that even more against some of our immigrant community.
This Texas law forces local governments and law enforcement
agencies to Act as Federal immigration officers. It diverts
limited resources away from the communities, corrodes public
trust in law enforcement, and drives witnesses and victims of
crime into the shadows. According to Chief Acevedo,
undocumented immigrants and even lawful immigrants are now even
afraid to report crime. In Houston, women advocates, domestic
violence shelter workers, and immigrants shared stories of
women who are now afraid of contacting law enforcement because
of deportation threats and threats of abuse. Across the USA,
authorities have documented declines in crime reported by
immigrants.
The pain and frustrations are real. We are facing serious
challenges and an erosion of trust between the police and
communities, so we must do more. I thank the Witnesses who have
come here today, and I hope that working together we can work
on national standards on guidelines and policies to ensure that
when it comes to public safety, all will be protected.
I want to start with you, Ms. Garcia, and I don't start
with you because you are a cousin because I have not met you
before. I want to start with you. I read with some interest,
you handed out this book, and I wanted to refer to you on the
use of police oversight boards. Like I said, I started the one
in Houston under the guidance of Mayor Parker. Others call them
police civilian review boards. You did list it in your book as
one of the tools that would help among, I guess, 14 or 15
others. How many cities are doing that and are they working? We
have only got less than 2 minutes.
Ms. Garcia. Hi. In terms of whether they are working, they
are actually one of the biggest tools for community engagement
and transparency for the community to be involved in that
oversight process. So, they are extremely important actually in
your home State, Dallas. Just recently the Chief there worked
with a local community coalition to institute a community
oversight review board. So, they are really an important step,
and we would encourage that.
They actually have the ability to also recommend
discipline. Some of them don't. In terms of the numbers, I
would have to get back to you on the total number across the
country.
Ms. Garcia of Texas. Okay. I would ask the Chief over
there, sir, in your experience and your discussions with others
of your colleagues, are we seeing an increase only in the
impact of the influence of the new White supremacy rhetoric and
things that are going not only that are anti-Jewish, anti-
black, anti-people of color, anti-immigrant, in terms of what
is going on even in policing?
Chief Davis. Yes, I think we are seeing an increase in hate
crime and violence external in the community. We are seeing,
quite frankly, an infiltration of White supremacists into law
enforcement, which is also a challenge. So, we are seeing that.
Ms. Garcia of Texas. How can we get at that, though? You
have made my point. I mean, what do we do other than the
cultural training and things that some of the grants can do so
we can make sure that we get that element out of policing?
Chief Davis. So, one of the things I found when I was in
the Administration, there is still significant under reporting
of hate crimes. When you look at the numbers, you got a whole
State that said they had five hate crimes. So, making sure
there is clarity of exactly what is and is not a hate crime,
making sure officers are treating hate crimes for the severity
that they represent. Inside police departments, making sure
that we do thorough background investigations that go to their
culture.
Most agencies do it, but they can't be superficial. They
need to do character references so that they can find out of
the views, and today can even be on social media and others, to
make sure that the person you are hiring for the job, as Chief
Demings mentioned, Congressman Demings mentioned, is prepared
to make these independent life and death scenarios.
Chair Nadler. Thank you.
Ms. Garcia of Texas. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I yield back.
Chair Nadler. The gentlelady yields back. There are 3
minutes and 50 seconds left for votes on the floor, but there
are 321 people who haven't voted yet. So, I think we can have
one more Witness now, one more question. The gentlelady from
Florida. From Georgia, I am sorry.
Ms. McBath. Thank you, Chair, and I don't have any
questions today, so I will be brief. I do have a statement I
would like to make.
Thank you, each and every one of you, today for being here
today. It is vitally important. I know that I was running back
and forth between other hearings as well, but I definitely
wanted to make sure that I was here today. I want to give an
exceptional thank you and welcome to Mama Gwen, as I call her,
Ms. Gwen Carr. She and I have worked together as one of the
mothers of the movement, traveling around the country on this
very vitally important issue. Your testimony was powerful and
just so invaluable, and I will say more about that in just a
minute.
First, I want to say how much I appreciate the law
enforcement officers who do put their lives on the line every
day for the communities that they serve, and those officers who
serve their communities with dignity and respect that they
deserve. Our officers do face difficult situations, and we must
empower them to respond appropriately. It is imperative we give
them evidence-based training and implicit bias. We must also
invest in community-based policing. Most importantly, we must
hold individuals accountable when they abuse the power that we
the people have given them.
No doubt we have more work to do to build bridges that
connect law enforcement and our communities. Our communities
must respect law enforcement as our protectors, not the enemy,
but our police must continually earn that respect. Police
cannot see their communities as the enemy either. Rather, they
must respect the human dignity of every person that they
encounter, even and especially when it is challenging for them
to do so. That is much easier when our law enforcement officers
look like the communities that they serve and see that
community as their brothers, their sisters, and their
neighbors.
When that fails to happen, the costs are great. We know
this from the personal stories that we have heard today, and we
also know it from the data. A 2017 study of over 1,100 law
students against law enforcement, the largest study of its kind
to date, found that our legal framework for these cases, the
doctrine of qualified immunity is not even achieving its stated
goals. It is often raised as a defense at a trial, not in the
early stages of litigation as it was intended. Of course, the
human toll is the most significant reason for the need for
reform, but the financial costs are also significant.
Contrary to what you might hear, a study found that
taxpayers ultimately pay for 99.98 percent of the amount paid
to victims and families when an officer abuses his or her
power. Those who abuse their power often serve no time and
don't pay families a single cent for the immeasurable harms
they have caused. Not enough can ever be said about the lives
that we have lost when officers dehumanize and devalue the life
of another person.
I want to say to my mother sister, I want to say her as I
call ``Mama Gwen,'' thank you for sharing your story, a story
of injustice you and your family and your son, Eric Garner,
should never have ever had to bear. We will keep fighting for
Eric. We will honor his memory and all those that are taken
from us by abuses of power. We will not forget Eric, and we
will not forget the stories of those who are speaking out.
Mama Gwen, your voice is truly a catalyst for change, and I
thank you for that. I speak to you mother to mother, and I hope
that we can make sure that another person ever bears the pain
of losing a child such as you have or such as I have. Until you
suffer the death of your child, you can never truly understand
the depth of inequity and inequality that we still face in this
country. I vow to you that we will take action. We will hold
people accountable when they have the power to do right and
choose instead to devalue life.
When our systems failing to hold those who abuse power
accountable, we must see to it that these systems change. It is
imperative our law enforcement and our citizens work together
to build the trust, the respect, and the community that every
American in this country deserves. I yield back the balance of
my time.
Chair Nadler. The gentlelady yields back. The gentlelady
from Florida.
Ms. Mucarsel-Powell. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you so
much to the Witnesses for coming here and to all of you in the
audience. I know that you come here today to this hearing
seeking justice, seeking equal treatment. It is okay to have
these conversations despite what you hear from some of the
minority Party on the other side. It is not just okay to have
this conversation. I think it is incredibly important for us to
have this conversation today and all over America because the
facts are that people of color are affected by acts of police
brutality 2-4 times more than others.
I represent a district. It is a minority-majority district,
and we have had those issues. I also want to point out that I
have met many Members in law enforcement whom I respect
greatly, who understand the intricacies of our communities, and
who have been working so hard to build the trust which I think
is so important. We know that there is tension between
communities and law enforcement, and we have seen through now
phones and social media, which has shed light on the lack of
trust between the police and the populations that they serve.
I think that, most importantly, we need to start building
trust, but we can't do that without acknowledging that there is
inherent racism in this country. We can't do that if we can't
have an honest conversation, which is why I think it is such an
important moment for us to discuss this here today.
So, police involvement is more than just enforcing the law.
It is more than just making arrests. I think that it is
important to start building trust in these communities,
bringing police officers together to build an understanding of
one another. We have started those programs. I am very proud to
share with you that in my district in Goulds and in the
Hammocks, which are communities in my district, the police
district regularly puts on events designed to get cops acquired
with the city's residents. Police Major Michael Dieppa and his
deputies hold regular coffee with cops at local restaurants,
and they schedule bike rides around different neighborhoods to
engage with the people that they are protecting.
Events like these help foster a real and open relationship
in vastly different communities. At a Federal level, I think
that is our duty to make sure that community policing
initiatives are fully funded and continue to succeed. Sadly,
though, many of the essential Federal programs have been cut or
pushed out of the existence under the current Administration.
So, my first question is to Chief Davis. Given the cuts to the
Federal Community COPS Program over the past couple of years,
especially the Technical Assistance Program, what
recommendations do you have for local communities and police
departments to continue to build these relationships even as we
see more decreased Federal funding?
Chief Davis. Thank you for the question. I will say in many
cases, Congresswoman, States have been stepping up. So, in
California, Illinois, where the Department of Justice walked
away either from a consent decree or from a collaborative
reform, the State attorney generals have stepped in. So, I
think if you go to the State level, I would still talk to
agencies, as Chief Hawkins mentioned, the agencies that have
experience and have the best practices, and get engaged with
the national associations and organizations that are working to
establish these national best practices.
There definitely are significant gaps, but they can be
filled in. The real challenge for many communities is all the
technical assistance provided was at no cost to that
jurisdiction so small or large can have access to it. The
challenge now is most agencies now have to go out and pay for
consultants, pay for that technical assistance, so it becomes a
challenge. They can probably turn to their State, turn to their
associations, and turn within their own group to understand
what are the best practices.
Ms. Mucarsel-Powell. Thank you for that. Mr. Goff, as
Members of Congress, what do you think we can do or bring back
to our communities to optimize the relationship between law
enforcement and the communities that they serve?
Mr. Goff. That is a great question, and I thank you for it.
I would say that the Department of Justice put forward an
initiative that just concluded, the National Initiative for
Building Community Trust and Justice. The goal of that
initiative was to take the science that we already knew worked
in the laboratory and in a one-off do it in six cities across
the United States, from focused deterrence, to racial
reconciliation, to both training and culture shifts in
procedural justice, to training and culture shifts and the use
of data to reduce racially disparate elements. So, given the
time, I will say it is in the proposal and in the record.
Ms. Mucarsel-Powell. Thank you, Mr. Goff.
Mr. Goff. Yep.
Ms. Mucarsel-Powell. I yield back to my time.
Chair Nadler. The gentleman from Maryland is recognized for
5 minutes. (This statement is not audible on the hearing
recording)
Mr. Raskin. Dr. Goff, I am impressed by the remarkable work
you are doing to advance community safety. The question that
has been running through my mind is how America's vast and
quite unique problem of gun violence complicates the problem of
police-civilian relations. We have lost more than 1 million-
and-a-half of citizens since 1968 to gun violence. The rates of
gun violence in America are 25 times higher than 22 other
wealthy countries on average. So, this must be a very serious
problem in terms of community civilian relations, and I wonder
if you would opine on that.
Mr. Goff. Sadly, there is not as much good research on
exactly that question as there should be, but I can tell you
the things that we know both from the science and from mine and
CPE's exposure to law enforcement, which, of course, it has a
huge impact on it. If you look at Chief Art Acevedo in Houston,
who every time there is a shooting understands that his
officers are going out to a place where you can't escalate by
simply putting hands on somebody because they might be armed,
right?
I think one of the elements that we are not talking about
nearly enough is that just as much as gun violence, shooting
other people, homicides makes the job of law enforcement
infinitely more dangerous, it is suicides that are responsible
for a larger proportion of lost officer lives, right? So, we
have to go back to officer wellness to talk about it, so both
as they are going out on the jobs and then as they are having
to metabolize it and live with it at home. The availability of
guns and gun violence are epidemic not just on the streets, but
in the private homes of law enforcement as well.
Mr. Raskin. Thank you. Can I ask one yes or no question?
Chair Nadler. Yes or no.
Mr. Raskin. Okay, and I think this is for Chief Davis. You
mentioned the problem of White supremacists entering police
forces, and we have certainly heard reports of that. Do you
have any research suggesting that this is actually a conscious
strategy by White supremacist groups to send people into local
police forces?
Chief Davis. No, sir, just anecdotes at this time.
Chair Nadler. All Members have 5 legislative days to submit
additional written questions for the Witnesses or additional
materials for the record.
We thank our Witnesses. Without objection, the hearing is
adjourned. There is zero time left for votes on the floor.
[Laughter.]
[Whereupon, at 1:56 p.m., the Committee was adjourned.]
APPENDIX
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