[House Hearing, 116 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
OVERSIGHT HEARING ON POLICING PRACTICES AND LAW ENFORCEMENT
ACCOUNTABILITY
=======================================================================
HEARING
BEFORE THE
COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED SIXTEENTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
----------
WEDNESDAY, JUNE 10, 2020
----------
Serial No. 116-80
----------
Printed for the use of the Committee on the Judiciary
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Available via: http://judiciary.house.gov
OVERSIGHT HEARING ON POLICING PRACTICES AND LAW ENFORCEMENT
ACCOUNTABILITY
OVERSIGHT HEARING ON POLICING PRACTICES AND LAW ENFORCEMENT
ACCOUNTABILITY
=======================================================================
HEARING
BEFORE THE
COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED SIXTEENTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
__________
WEDNESDAY, JUNE 10, 2020
__________
Serial No. 116-80
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on the Judiciary
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Available via: http://judiciary.house.gov
______
U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
47-629 WASHINGTON : 2022
COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY
JERROLD NADLER, New York, Chair
MARY GAY SCANLON, Pennsylvania, Vice-Chair
ZOE LOFGREN, California JIM JORDAN, Ohio, Ranking Member
SHEILA JACKSON LEE, Texas F. JAMES SENSENBRENNER, Jr.,
STEVE COHEN, Tennessee Wisconsin
HENRY C. ``HANK'' JOHNSON, Jr., STEVE CHABOT, Ohio
Georgia LOUIE GOHMERT, Texas
THEODORE E. DEUTCH, Florida KEN BUCK, Colorado
KAREN BASS, California MARTHA ROBY, Alabama
CEDRIC L. RICHMOND, Louisiana MATT GAETZ, Florida
HAKEEM S. JEFFRIES, New York MIKE JOHNSON, Louisiana
DAVID N. CICILLINE, Rhode Island ANDY BIGGS, Arizona
ERIC SWALWELL, California TOM McCLINTOCK, California
TED LIEU, California DEBBIE LESKO, Arizona
JAMIE RASKIN, Maryland GUY RESCHENTHALER, Pennsylvania
PRAMILA JAYAPAL, Washington BEN CLINE, Virginia
VAL BUTLER DEMINGS, Florida KELLY ARMSTRONG, North Dakota
J. LUIS CORREA, California W. GREGORY STEUBE, Florida
SYLVIA R. GARCIA, Texas
JOE NEGUSE, Colorado
LUCY McBATH, Georgia
GREG STANTON, Arizona
MADELEINE DEAN, Pennsylvania
DEBBIE MUCARSEL-POWELL, Florida
VERONICA ESCOBAR, Texas
PERRY APELBAUM, Majority Staff Director & Chief Counsel
CHRISTOPHER HIXON, Minority Staff Director
------
C O N T E N T S
----------
Wednesday, June 10, 2020
Page
OPENING STATEMENTS
The Honorable Jerrold Nadler, Chair of the Committee on the
Judiciary from the State of New York........................... 2
The Honorable Jim Jordan, Ranking Member of the Committee on the
Judiciary from the State of Georgia............................ 4
The Honorable Karen Bass, Chair of the Subcommittee on Crime,
Terrorism, and Homeland Security from the State of California.. 5
The Honorable Mike Johnson, Ranking Member of the Subcommittee on
Crime, Terrorism, and Homeland Security from the State of
Louisiana...................................................... 7
WITNESSES
Philonise Floyd, Houston, TX
Oral Testimony................................................. 10
Prepared Testimony............................................. 12
Vanita Gupta, President and CEO, The Leadership Conference on
Civil & Human Rights
Oral Testimony................................................. 14
Prepared Testimony............................................. 16
Angela Underwood Jacobs, Lancaster, CA
Oral Testimony................................................. 23
Chief Art Acevedo, President, Major Cities Chiefs Association
Oral Testimony................................................. 25
Prepared Testimony............................................. 29
Sherrilyn Ifill, President and Director-Counsel, NAACP Legal
Defense and Educational Fund, Inc.
Oral Testimony................................................. 35
Prepared Testimony............................................. 38
Pastor Darrell Scott, Pastor, New Spirit Revival Center
Oral Testimony................................................. 46
Prepared Testimony............................................. 49
Paul Butler, the Albert Brick Professor in Law, Georgetown Law
School
Oral Testimony................................................. 51
Prepared Testimony............................................. 53
Ben Crump, President and Founder, Ben Crump Trial Lawyer for
Justice
Oral Testimony................................................. 59
Prepared Testimony............................................. 61
Ron Davis, Chair, Legislative Committee, National Organization of
Black Law Enforcement Executives
Oral Testimony................................................. 63
Prepared Testimony............................................. 66
Daniel Bongino, Host, The Dan Bongino Show
Oral Testimony................................................. 78
Prepared Testimony............................................. 80
Phillip Goff, Co-Founder and President, Center for Policing
Equity
Oral Testimony................................................. 82
Prepared Testimony............................................. 85
Marc Morial, President and Chief Executive Officer, National
Urban League
Oral Testimony................................................. 90
LETTERS, STATEMENTS, ETC., SUBMITTED FOR THE HEARING
Articles submitted by the Honorable Jamie Raskin, a Member of the
Committee on the Judiciary from the State of Maryland for the
record
An article entitled, ``White Supremacists and Other Extremists
Exploiting This Moment,'' Integrity First for America........ 138
An article entitled, ``Far-Right Infiltrators and Agitators in
George Floyd Protests: Indicators of White Supremacists,''
Just Security................................................ 141
An article entitled, ``Facebook removes nearly 200 accounts
tied to hate groups,'' ABC News.............................. 146
A statement from Brian Marvel, President, Peace Officers Research
Association of California (PORAC), submitted by the Honorable
J. Luis Correa, a Member of the Committee on the Judiciary from
the State of California for the record......................... 156
A statement from Arthur C. Evans, Jr., Chief Executive Officer
and Executive Vice President, American Psychological
Association Services, Inc., submitted by the Honorable Joe
Neguse, a Member of the Committee on the Judiciary from the
State of Colorado for the record............................... 170
A video submitted by the Honorable Debbie Mucarsel-Powell, a
Member of the Committee on the Judiciary from the State of
Florida for the record......................................... 183
Articles submitted by the Honorable David Cicilline, a Member of
the Committee on the Judiciary from the State of Rhode Island
for the record
An article entitled, ``It's official: the Trump administration
will `pull back' from investigating police abuses,'' Vox..... 190
An article entitled, ``The Trump administration gave up on
federal oversight of police agencies--just as it was starting
to work,'' The Washington Post............................... 196
An article entitled, ``Trump and Sessions Released Cops From
Federal Oversight. Now We See the Results,'' Mother Jones.... 212
Items submitted by the Honorable Jerrold Nadler, Chair of the
Committee on the Judiciary from the State of New York for the
record
A press release entitled, ``Civil Rights Leaders' Statement on
Justice in Policing Act,'' June 8, 2020...................... 218
A statement from the National Fraternal Order of Police........ 221
A statement from the Constitutional Accountability Center...... 222
A letter from the Players Coalition............................ 230
A statement from Alejandra Y. Castillo, CEO, YWCA USA.......... 241
A letter from Dana Rao, Executive Vice President, General
Counsel and Corporate Secretary, Adobe, Inc.................. 244
A press release from Third Way, June 9, 2020................... 245
A statement from Erika Moritsugu, Vice President for Economic
Justice, National Partnership for Women & Families........... 246
A press release from the Blue Dog Coalition, June 9, 2020...... 247
An article entitled, ``Little Evidence of Antifa Links in US
Prosecutions of Those Charged in Protest Violence,'' Reuters. 249
An article entitled, `` `It means open season:' Under Trump,
the Justice Department has largely stopped investigating
police departments for systemic abuses,'' Boston Globe....... 252
A statement from Kristen Clarke, President and Executive
Director, Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law...... 253
APPENDIX
A statement submitted by the Honorable Sheila Jackson Lee, a
Member of the Committee on the Judiciary from the State of
Texas for the record........................................... 270
An article entitled, ``Man charged in deputy ambush scrawled
extremist `Boogaloo' phrases in blood,'' NBC News, submitted by
the Honorable Jamie Raskin, a Member of the Committee on the
Judiciary from the State of Maryland for the record............ 276
An article entitled, ``Miami-Dade officer who threw woman who
called 911 to the ground charged with battery,'' NBC News,
submitted by the Honorable Debbie Mucarsel-Powel, a Member of
the Committee on the Judiciary from the State of Florida for
the record..................................................... 278
A slideshow submitted by the Honorable Matt Gaetz, a Member of
the Committee on the Judiciary from the State of Florida for
the record..................................................... 280
Items submitted by Sherrilyn Ifill, President and Director-
Counsel, NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc. for the
record
A report entitled, ``Locked Out of the Classroom: How Implicit
Bias Contributes to Disparities in School Discipline,'' LDF
Thurgood Marshall Institute.................................. 290
An article entitled, ``For cops who kill, special Supreme Court
protection,'' Reuters........................................ 318
A paper entitled, ``Civil Rights Principles for Safe, Healthy,
and Inclusive School Climates,'' The Leadership Conference
Education Fund............................................... 335
An article entitled, ``As a judge, I have to follow the Supreme
Court. It should fix this mistake,'' The Washington Post..... 348
A statement submitted by the Honorable Ro Khanna, a Member of
Congress from the State of California, and the Honorable
William Lacy Clay, a Member of Congress from the State of
Missouri for the record........................................ 350
A statement from Rory Gamble, President, UAW for the record...... 351
A statement submitted by Bruce Stern, President, American
Association for Justice for the record......................... 354
A letter submitted by Jay R. Schweikert, Policy Analyst, Project
on Criminal Justice, Cato Institute for the record............. 357
A press release submitted by the Center for American Progress,
June 11, 2020 for the record................................... 364
A letter submitted by Neil L. Bradley, Executive Vice President &
Chief Policy Officer, Chamber of Commerce of the United States
of America for the record...................................... 366
A statement submitted by Alphonso David, President, Human Rights
Campaign for the record........................................ 367
A statement submitted by the National Council of the Churches of
Christ in the USA for the record............................... 375
A statement submitted by Ayesha Delany-Brumsey, Division
Director, Behavioral Health, Council of State Governments
Justice Center and Terence Lynn, Deputy Division Director, Law
Enforcement, Council of State Governments Justice Center for
the record..................................................... 377
QUESTIONS FOR THE RECORD
Questions to Ben Crump, President and Founder, Ben Crump Trial
Lawyer for Justice, submitted by the Honorable Steve Cohen, a
Member of the Committee on the Judiciary from the State of
Tennessee for the record....................................... 382
OVERSIGHT HEARING ON
POLICING PRACTICES AND LAW
ENFORCEMENT ACCOUNTABILITY
----------
Wednesday, June 10, 2020
House of Representatives
Committee on the Judiciary
Washington, DC
The Committee met, pursuant to call, at 10:08 a.m., in Room
CVC-200, Capitol Visitor Center, Hon. Jerrold Nadler [Chair of
the Committee] presiding.
Present: Representatives Nadler, Lofgren, Jackson Lee,
Cohen, Johnson of Georgia, Deutch, Bass, Richmond, Jeffries,
Cicilline, Swalwell, Lieu, Raskin, Jayapal, Demings, Correa,
Scanlon, Garcia, Neguse, McBath, Stanton, Dean, Mucarsel-
Powell, Escobar, Jordan, Sensenbrenner, Chabot, Gohmert,
Collins, Buck, Roby, Gaetz, Johnson of Louisiana, McClintock,
Lesko, Reschenthaler, Cline, Armstrong, Steube, and McCarthy.
Staff Present: Aaron Hiller, Deputy Chief Counsel; Amy
Rutkin, Chief of Staff; David Greengrass, Senior Counsel; John
Doty, Senior Advisor; Madeline Strasser, Chief Clerk; Moh
Sharma, Member Services and Outreach Advisor; Priyanka Mara,
Professional Staff Member; Jordan Dashow, Professional Staff
Member; Anthony Valdez, Staff Assistant; John Williams,
Parliamentarian; Keenan Keller, Senior Counsel, Constitution;
Will Emmons, Professional Staff Member, Constitution;
Christopher Hixon, Minority Staff Director; Kathy Rother,
Minority Deputy General Counsel and Parliamentarian; Jason
Cervenak, Minority Chief Counsel for Crime; Ken David, Minority
Counsel; Betsy Ferguson, Minority Senior Counsel; Ella Yates,
Minority Director of Member Services and Coalitions; and Kiley
Bidelman, Minority Clerk.
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 hearing on ``Policing
Practices and Law Enforcement Accountability.'' I thank all our
Members and Witnesses for participating today, both in person
and remotely. I appreciate all the work that went into making
use of this room and the technology we are using possible.
Before we begin, I would like to remind the Members that
we've established an email address and distribution list
dedicated to circulating exhibits, motions, or other written
materials that Members might want to offer as part of our
hearing today. If you would like to submit materials, please
send them to the email address that has been previously
distributed to your offices, and we will circulate the
materials to Members and staff as quickly as we can.
In light of what's going on in the world today, I ask that
everyone in the room wear a mask at all times except, if you
wish, when you're speaking. Other than if you are a speaker
when you're speaking, a Witness when you're speaking, a Member
when he or she is speaking, please wear a mask at all times.
This is for public health.
I will now recognize myself for an opening statement.
We are all familiar with the terrifying words, ``I can't
breathe.'' They were uttered in Minneapolis by George Floyd
while a police officer pinned a knee to his neck for a chilling
8 minutes and 46 seconds, taking from him the final breath of
life.
Six years ago, Eric Garner uttered those exact same fateful
words while locked in a chokehold in New York City. He too died
at the hands of law enforcement.
Millions of Americans now call out ``I can't breathe'' as a
rallying cry in streets all across our country, demanding a
fundamental change in the culture of law enforcement and
meaningful accountability for officers who commit misconduct.
Today, we answer their call.
Our hearts ache for the loss of George Floyd and Eric
Garner. They ache for Breonna Taylor, Amadou Diallo, Tamir
Rice, Laquan McDonald, Freddie Gray, Walter Scott, and for so
many other victims of police violence in all parts of America.
Their shocking deaths sparked momentary outrage but no
fundamental change. For every incident of excessive force that
makes headlines, the ugly truth is that there are countless
others that we never hear about.
Every day African Americans and other people of color live
in fear of harassment and violence at the hands of some law
enforcement officers. This is their reality. Our country's
history of racism and racially motivated violence, rooted in
the original sin of slavery, continues to haunt our Nation.
To those who do not believe it, please look at the tragic
statistics. African Americans are more than twice as likely to
be shot and killed by police each year. Black men between the
ages of 15-34 are approximately 10 times more likely to be
killed by police than other Americans. This outrage is a
reality we must change.
Today we examine the State of policing in America, and we
look for ways to prevent racist acts of violence by police
officers, to hold accountable those who commit such acts, and
to strengthen the trust between law enforcement and the
communities they serve.
On Monday, I joined Karen Bass, the Chair of the Crime
Subcommittee, as well as the Congressional Black Caucus, in
introducing the Justice in Policing Act, which would further
that cause. The bill now has over 200 cosponsors in the House
and 36 cosponsors in the Senate.
I want to make clear at the outset that the bill is not an
indictment of all police officers. We must always remember that
most law enforcement officers do their jobs with dignity,
selflessness, and honor, and they are deserving of our respect
and gratitude for all they do to keep us safe.
We owe a debt that can never be paid to the too many
officers killed in the line of duty every year. It is clear
that there are many officers, including some local police
chiefs, who marched arm in arm with their communities who want
to separate themselves from the dangerous behavior of others in
the profession.
There are too many officers who abuse their authority, and
we cannot be blind to the racism and injustice that pervades
far too many of our law enforcement agencies. The Nation is
demanding that we enact meaningful change.
This is a systemic problem that requires a comprehensive
solution. That is why the Justice in Policing Act takes a
holistic approach that includes a variety of front-end reforms
to change the culture of law enforcement while also holding bad
police officers accountable to separate them from those with a
true ethic to protect and serve.
Among other things, the bill would make it easier for the
Federal Government to successfully prosecute police misconduct
cases. It would ban chokeholds. It would end racial and
religious profiling. It would encourage prosecutions
independent from local police. It would eliminate the dubious
court-made doctrine of qualified immunity for law enforcement.
At the same time, the bill encourages departments to meet a
gold standard in training, hiring, de-escalation strategies,
bystander duty, and use of body cameras and other best
practices. It also creates a new grant program for community-
based organizations to create local task forces on policing
innovation that would reimagine public safety so that it is
just as equitable for all Americans.
The goal of this legislation is to achieve a guardian, not
warrior, model of policing.
The Justice in Policing Act is at once bold and
transformative to meet the moment that calls out for sweeping
reform, while also taking a responsible and balanced approach
to the many complicated issues associated with policing. I look
forward to bringing it before our Committee in short order.
To the activists who have been sounding the alarm for years
only to be ignored or greeted with half-measures, it is because
of your persistence and your determination that we are here
today.
If there is one thing I have taken away from the tragic
events of the last month, it is that the Nation demands and
deserves meaningful change. We can and should debate the
specifics, but at the end of the day it is the responsibility
and the obligation of the House Judiciary Committee to do
everything in our power to help deliver that change for the
American people.
I look forward to hearing from our Witnesses, who bring a
wealth of knowledge and experience on the many issues we are
examining today and will help guide us in that process. First,
I want to address just one Witness, Philonise Floyd, the
brother of George Floyd.
We are all very sorry for your loss, and we appreciate your
being here today to discuss your brother's life. We must
remember that he is not just a cause, a name to be chanted in
the streets. He was a man. He had a family. He was known as a
gentle giant. He had a rich life that was taken away from him
far too early, and we mourn his loss.
This is a very difficult time for our Nation. We have lost
more than 110,000 people to COVID-19, a toll that has fallen
disproportionately on people of color. We have lost brave
police officers and other frontline workers, who risked their
lives to serve their communities. We have lost George Floyd,
Breonna Taylor, and the many, many other victims of excessive
force by law enforcement. We must Act today to honor their
memory.
I now recognize the Ranking Member of the Judiciary
Committee, the gentleman from Ohio, Mr. Jordan, for his opening
statement.
Mr. Jordan. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I want to thank all our Witnesses for being here today and
extend our sympathy to Mr. Floyd and Ms. Underwood Jacobs. We
are, as the Chair said, all so sorry for your loss and for what
your families have had to live through and had to endure.
Mr. Floyd, the murder of your brother in the custody of the
Minneapolis police is a tragedy, never should have happened.
It's as wrong as wrong can be. Your brother's killers will face
justice.
Ms. Underwood Jacobs, the murder of your brother by the
rioters in Oakland is a tragedy. It never should have happened.
It's as wrong as wrong can be. Your brother's killers will face
justice.
There are 330 million people in this great country, the
greatest Nation ever, not perfect but the best Nation ever, and
they understand, they understand, the American people
understand it's time for a real discussion, real debate, real
solutions about police treatment of African Americans.
Americans also understand that peaceful protest, exercising
their First Amendment liberties, honors George Floyd's memory
and it helps that discussion, that debate, and those solutions
actually happen.
The people of this great country, you know what else they
understand? You know what else they get? They understand that
there is a big difference, a big difference between peaceful
protest and rioting. There is a big difference between peaceful
protest and looting. There is a big difference between peaceful
protest and violence and attacking innocent people. There is
certainly a big difference between peaceful protest and killing
police officers.
You know what else they get? You know what else the
American people fully understand? They know, as the Chair said,
the vast majority of law enforcement officers are responsible,
hardworking, heroic first responders. They're the officers who
protect the Capitol, who protect us every single day. They're
the officers who rushed into the Twin Towers on 9/11. They're
the officers in every one of our neighborhoods, in every one of
our communities, every day, every night, and every shift they
work, who put their lives on the line to keep our communities
safe.
Guess what Americans also get? Guess what else they
understand? They know it is pure insanity to defund the police.
The fact that my Democrat colleagues won't speak out against
this crazy policy is just that: Frightening.
Think about what we've heard in the last few weeks. We've
heard the mayors of our two largest cities, Mayor Garcetti said
he wants to defund the police. The mayor of New York says he
wants to defund the police. The city council in Minneapolis, a
veto-proof majority says they want to defund the police and
abolish the department.
This Congress started off with the Democrats, folks on the
left saying, we should abolish ICE, then moved for us to
abolish the entire Department of Homeland Security, and now
they're talking about abolishing the police. This is wrong and
the American people know it's wrong.
We should honor the memory of George Floyd and work hard so
that nothing like it ever happens again. We should honor the
memory of Dave Patrick Underwood and work hard so that nothing
like that ever happens again.
A week and a half ago, our mission was clearly stated.
Eleven days ago in Florida, the President of the United States
clearly stated what our mission should be. President Trump said
this: ``I stand before you as a friend, an ally to every
American seeking justice and peace, and I stand before you in
firm opposition to anyone exploiting tragedy to loot, rob,
attack, and menace. Healing, not hatred, justice, not chaos are
the mission at hand.''
Well said, Mr. President. Healing, not hatred. Justice, not
chaos. That is our mission. The President is right, and I
appreciate his leadership.
This is the House Judiciary Committee, with its storied
history of defending the Constitution and the rule of law.
Let's adopt that mission. Healing, not hatred. Justice, not
chaos. Let's work together to make America the great place, to
continue to make America the greatest Nation ever.
With that, I yield back, Mr. Chair.
Chair Nadler. Thank you, Mr. Jordan.
I now recognize the Chair of the Subcommittee on Crime,
Terrorism, and Homeland Security, the gentlelady from
California, Ms. Bass, for her opening statement.
Ms. Bass. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I want to thank you for
your years of leadership on this issue. I know you've been
involved for many years supporting police reform, and I want to
thank you for convening this hearing today.
What we saw in Minnesota, the slow, tortuous murder of
George Floyd by a uniformed officer, was an outrage and a
tragedy. What we have seen since then, millions of Americans
marching in the street to demand justice and call for reforms,
it has been an inspiration. Minus a few days of violence, it
has been peaceful and it has been in the American tradition.
What we have here today is a hearing in the U.S. Congress
to examine policing practices in America and paths to reform,
and so we have an opportunity. What we have seen since then is
an opportunity to rethink the nature of policing, an
opportunity for meaningful accountability in policing, and it
is an opportunity to show the Nation and the world that we are
listening and that we will act.
Too often this debate is framed in terms of citizens versus
the police, us versus them. This is really about the kind of
America we all want to see. We all want to be safe in our
communities. We all want the police to come to our rescue when
we're in trouble. We all want to support the brave men and
women who put their lives on the line for us every day.
When we interact with police, we all want to be treated
with respect, not suspicion. Nobody should be subjected to
harassment or excessive force just because of the color of
their skin, and no one should suffer the indignities of racial
profiling or be on the end of a deadly chokehold. We should all
want for ourselves and for our children and for our neighbors
the same.
On Monday, I introduced, along with Chair Nadler and more
than 200 Members of Congress, H.R. 7120, the Justice in
Policing Act. This bold, transformative legislation would help
reimagine the culture of policing while holding accountable
those officers who fail to uphold the ethic of serving and
protecting their communities. I know later when we do a markup,
we will entertain an amendment to change the name of the
legislation in honor of George Floyd.
If this had been a law last year, George Floyd would be
alive, because chokeholds would be banned. Breonna Taylor would
be alive, because no-knock warrants for drugs would be banned.
Tamir Rice would have graduated high school this May because
the officer that killed him had been fired from a nearby
department and he lied on his application. This legislation
calls for a national registry, so that would not have happened
and Tamir Rice would have graduated high school.
I understand that change is difficult, but I am certain
that police officers are professionals who risk their lives
every day, and they're just as interested in building a strong
relationship with the communities that they serve, based on
mutual trust and respect, as those who rely on their protection
are. They want to increase and upgrade the profession, and so
having national standards. It should never be that you can do a
chokehold in one city and not in another. There should be basic
standards, there should be basic accreditation, there should be
continuing education, just as there are in so many other
professions.
When I was at the service yesterday, and when I was there,
I looked up at the picture of George Floyd and I saw the year
that he was born. He was born in 1973. That was an important
year in my life, because that was the year in Los Angeles that
I joined an organization called the Coalition Against Police
Abuse.
That was 47 years ago. Our police chief at the time, we
were suffering from a number of victims who had died because of
chokeholds. Our police chief held a press conference where he
told Los Angeles that the reason why Black people died of
chokeholds was because our neck veins were different, they
didn't open up as rapidly as normal people. That's where we
were 47 years ago.
The question remains for us, though--it was 29 years ago
that we saw the Rodney King beating, and as an activist at the
time I was sad at the tragedy. It was horrific to see him beat
like that. Most of the activists said, finally we know we'll
have justice, there's no way these police officers are going to
get off because the whole world saw what happened.
In the civil rights movement what led to the great change
and the end of legal segregation, aside from the tens of
thousands of people that protested, it was the fact that there
were cameras there. The beatings, the treatment of Black people
in the South had gone on for, frankly, hundreds of years, but
it wasn't until those cameras exposed that that then things
began to change.
So, what has happened in the 29 years since Rodney King,
with the advent of cell phone cameras? We have seen example
after example after example. Twenty-nine years since Rodney
King, 20 years since Amadou Diallo, 6 years since Eric Garner,
just weeks since the death of George Floyd. His death cannot be
in vain.
I told his brother that his name will live on in history
because the tragedy that he suffered has been the catalyst for
what I believe will be profound change, and not just change
that helps to professionalize police departments, not just
change that prevents further abuse and deaths, but an
opportunity for communities, through receiving grants, to take
a look at their community and say, well, there's all these
issues that we face, why should police officers have to address
homelessness and mental illness?
Police officers complain all the time they're not social
workers. That's right. So, with these grants, maybe communities
can take an opportunity to re-envision what public safety is
and come up with models, better models to work with police,
better models to reduce the problems that wind up needing a
police officer.
So, that's what we have an opportunity to do in this
Congress with this piece of legislation. I hope that we work
for passage of this legislation in the House, it gets through
the Senate, the President signs it, and in the year 2020 we
never, ever see again what we saw a few weeks ago.
It wasn't just a tragedy for our country and our Nation,
but it really was an embarrassment of our Nation in front of
the entire world. While we hold up human rights in the world,
we obviously have to hold them up in our country.
With that, I yield.
Chair Nadler. Thank you.
Since Mr. Ratcliffe, the former Ranking Member of the Crime
Subcommittee, has left the Committee to serve as Director of
National Intelligence, I now recognize the Ranking Member of
the Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights, and Civil
Liberties, the gentleman from Louisiana, Mr. Johnson, for an
opening statement.
Mr. Johnson of Louisiana. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I want to join all my colleagues today in thanking all our
Witnesses sincerely for being here, and especially Mr. Floyd
and Ms. Underwood Jacobs for making the trip in the midst of
such tragedy and difficult circumstances to share your
experiences with us. It's very valuable to us, and we're
grateful.
Of course, you have our condolences and our profound
sadness for your losses. I and my family and the community of
faith that I represent have been praying for you and will
continue to do that.
We're going to talk about policing practices and reforms
today, and that's a really important topic. Since this is the
first Full Committee hearing that we've had in Judiciary since
the tragic death of Mr. Floyd, I think it's also important for
us to acknowledge here in the beginning what's believed by so
many to be a root cause of the persistent challenges we face
together as a country, and that is the need for authentic
reconciliation in our communities.
Everyone here understands the plain and simple truth that
racism in any form violates the most fundamental principles of
our great Nation and the rules of our Creator. The central idea
of America, let's not forget, is the idea that we boldly
declare the self-evident truth that all men are created equal
and that they're thus endowed by God with the same inalienable
rights.
Because each of us is made in the image of God, there are
very serious implications that come from that. Among them is
the idea that every single person has an estimable dignity and
value, and our value is not related in any way to the color of
our skin or what ZIP Code we live in or what we contribute to
society or anything else. Our value is inherent because it
comes to us by our Creator.
Any fool who contends he has some sort of natural right of
supremacy over his neighbor violates not only the foundational
creed of America but the greatest commandments of the God who
made him. If we can ever learn to see one another as God does,
I think it will solve a lot of our problems.
This unspeakable Act of cruelty that America witnessed in
Minneapolis has opened an important new dialogue on reform.
While policing has always been regarded as an inherently local
function, we do agree that Congress has a key role to play in
ensuring that abuses are not tolerated and can never happen
again. Justice has to be swift and bad police officers have to
be held accountable for their actions.
At the same time, we want to be careful to recognize, as
all my colleagues have this morning, that officers like the
ones involved in the death of George Floyd are not
representative of the vast majority of America's law
enforcement officers. Most are faithful, self-sacrificing
public servants who put their lives on the line every single
day to protect and serve our communities.
We need to honor that, and we need to recognize and empower
those law enforcement officers, which is precisely the opposite
of the radical, dangerous proposals we're seeing right now to
defund them.
A government of, by, and for the people must be a Nation of
law and order, and public safety, of course, is the key to
maintaining our Republic. Without that, things like the
rioting, looting, and violence that has led to the destruction
of cities and minority-owned businesses, ironically, would
prevail over the valuable peaceful protests that are intended
to bring about meaningful change.
There's a consensus among every Member of this Committee,
Democrat and Republican, that there are solutions we can work
towards that will restore faith in our institutions and build
trust in our communities. From where we sit right now, we
believe the most actionable reforms must focus around three
core concepts, to simplify it: Transparency, training, and
termination of those rare bad apples in law enforcement who
violate the law and the legitimacy that upholds the character
of our legal system.
This common ground is key if we're going to accomplish the
goal of keeping our communities safe, upholding the civil
liberties of individuals, and protecting the legitimacy of law
enforcement.
None of these goals that I've outlined today are mutually
exclusive, of course. We can and should clearly condemn the
senseless violence we've seen and all causes of it, from a few
bad apples wearing a badge to the bad apples and anarchists
sparking riots and destruction in our streets.
At the same time, we can work together on meaningful
reforms and real results while upholding the respect and
appreciation that is due to every American patriot who
faithfully serves us on the Thin Blue Line.
I have faith that we can work together as a Committee. This
is a bipartisan concern, and we'll have bipartisan solutions, I
hope. For the future of our country and for generations of
Americans to come, we have to do that.
I urge my colleagues in this moment, all of us, to hear and
to listen to our Witnesses and work with each other as friends
and fellow Americans to understand the need in our communities
and foster our discussions on a foundation of civility and
mutual respect. We've started that and I hope we can continue
it.
With that, I yield back.
Chair Nadler. Thank you.
Without objection, all other opening statements will be
included in the record.
We have an unusually large panel today but given the broad
range of issues that we will be discussing, we have invited a
broad range of Witnesses.
As is customary, the minority was given the opportunity to
invite Witnesses as well, and they have selected Mr. Bongino,
Pastor Scott, and Ms. Underwood Jacobs.
We welcome everyone and thank them for their participation.
Now, if the Witnesses would please rise, I will begin by
swearing you in.
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?
Let the record show the Witnesses answered in the
affirmative.
Thank you, and please be seated.
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, for those Witnesses
testifying in person, 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. For our remote
participants, there is a timer on your screen to help you keep
track of time.
Given the large number of Witnesses, I will introduce each
Witness and then invite him or her to give his or her testimony
before introducing the next Witness.
We will begin with Mr. Floyd. Philonise Floyd is the
brother of George Floyd, who was killed by Minneapolis police
officers on May 25th. Mr. Floyd has spoken eloquently about his
brother's life, and we appreciate his being with us today,
having flown to Washington to testify before us today directly
from his brother's funeral in Houston yesterday.
We are all so sorry for your loss.
Mr. Floyd, you may begin.
STATEMENT OF PHILONISE FLOYD
Mr. Floyd. Thank you. Chair Jerrold Nadler and the Members
of the Committee, thank you for the invitation here today to
talk about my big brother, George. The world knows him as
George, but I called him Perry. Yesterday, we laid him to rest.
It was the hardest thing I ever had to do.
I'm the big brother now. So, it's my job to comfort my
brothers and my sisters, Perry's kids, and everyone who loved
him, and that's a lot of people. I have to be the strong one
now, because George is gone.
Me, being the big brother now and is why I'm here today, to
do what Perry always would have done, to take care of the
family and others. I couldn't take care of George that day he
was killed, but maybe by speaking with you today I can make
sure that his death will not be in vain, to make sure that he
is more than another face on a tee shirt, more than another
name on a list that won't stop growing.
George always made sacrifices for our family, and he made
sacrifices for complete strangers. He gave the little that he
had to help others. He was our gentle giant.
I was reminded of that when I watched the video of his
murder. He called all the officers ``sir.'' He was mild-
mannered. He didn't fight back. He listened to all the
officers. The man who took his life, who suffocated him for 8
minutes and 46 seconds, he still called him ``sir'' as he
begged for his life.
I can't tell you the kind of pain you feel when you watch
something like that, when you watch your big brother who you
looked up to your whole entire life die, die begging for his
mom.
I'm tired. I'm tired of pain, pain you feel when you watch
something like that, when you watch your big brother, who you
looked up to for your whole life, die, die begging for his mom.
I'm here to ask you to make it stop. Stop the pain. Stop us
from being tired. George called for help, and he was ignored.
Please listen to the call I'm making to you now, to the calls
of our family and the calls ringing out in the streets across
the world.
People of all backgrounds, genders and races have come
together to demand change. Honor them, honor George, and make
the necessary changes that make law enforcement the solution
and not the problem. Hold them accountable when they do
something wrong. Teach them what it means to treat people with
empathy and respect. Teach them what necessary force is. Teach
them that deadly force should be used rarely and only when life
is at risk.
George wasn't hurting anyone that day. He didn't deserve to
die over $20. I'm asking you, is that what a Black man is
worth, $20? This is 2020.
Enough is enough. The people marching in the streets are
telling you enough is enough. Be the leaders that our country,
the world, needs. Do the right thing.
The people elected you to speak for them, to make positive
change. George's name means something. You have the opportunity
here today to make your names mean something, too.
If his death ends up changing the world for the better, and
I think it will, then he died as he lived. It is on you to make
sure his death is not in vain.
I didn't get the chance to say good-bye to Perry while he
was here. I was robbed of that. I know he's looking down at us
now.
Perry, look up at what you did, big brother. You changed
the world. Thank you for everything, for taking care of us
while on Earth, for taking care of us now. I hope you found
Mama and you can rest in peace with power.
Thank you.
[The statement of Mr. Floyd follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Chair Nadler. Thank you, Mr. Floyd.
Vanita Gupta is the President and CEO of The Leadership
Conference on Civil and Human Rights. Ms. Gupta previously
served as Acting Assistant Attorney General at the Department
of Justice and led the Department's Civil Rights Division. She
received her J.D. from New York University School of Law and
her B.A. from Yale University.
Ms. Gupta, you may begin.
STATEMENT OF VANITA GUPTA
Ms. Gupta. Thank you, Chair Nadler.
Mr. Floyd, thank you for being here today and for those
incredibly powerful words, and we are so sorry.
Chair Nadler, Ranking Member Collins, and the Members of
the Committee, thank you for the opportunity to testify today.
Thank you, Chair Nadler, for calling this hearing on policing
practices and the need for transformative policies that promote
accountability, begin to reimagine public safety, and respect
the dignity of all people.
While the recent murder of George Floyd at the hands of
four Minneapolis police officers put the issue of police
brutality in the national spotlight, the outpouring of pain and
anger is anything but a reaction to one isolated incident or
the misconduct of a few bad apples. Instead, the outcry is a
response to the long cycle of stolen lives and violence with
impunity toward Black people in our Nation.
We are now at a turning point. There is no returning to
normal. We have to create a new way forward, one that does more
than tinker at the edges, that promotes data and training. We
need something that truly transforms policing and leads to more
accountability for communities.
It is imperative that we get this right and that Congress'
response in this moment appropriately reflects and acknowledges
the important work of Black Lives Matter, the Movement for
Black Lives, and so many people that are bringing us to this
tipping point.
My tenure as head of the Justice Department's Civil Rights
Division began two months after 18-year-old Michael Brown was
killed by a police officer in Ferguson. The Justice Department
was hardly perfect, but we understood our mandate: To promote
accountability and constitutional policing to build community
trust.
During the Obama Administration, we opened 25 pattern or
practice investigations to help realize greater structural and
community-centered change, often at the request of police
chiefs and mayors who needed Federal leadership.
After making findings, we negotiated consent decrees, with
extensive engagement and input from community advocates, who
not only identified unjust and unlawful policing practices, but
also helped develop sustainable mechanisms for accountability
and systemic change.
That is not the Justice Department that we have today.
Under both Attorneys General Jeff Sessions and Bill Barr, the
Department has abdicated its responsibility and abandoned the
use of tools like pattern or practice investigations and
consent decrees. Instead, it is focused on dismantling police
accountability efforts and halting any new investigations.
The disruption of crucial work in the Civil Rights Division
and throughout the Department of Justice to bring forth
accountability and transparency in policing is deeply
concerning. In the absence of Federal leadership, The
Leadership Conference Education Fund launched the New Era of
Public Safety Initiative, a comprehensive guide and toolkit
outlining proposals to build trust between communities and
police departments, restore confidence, and imagine a new
paradigm of public safety.
While much of these changes must happen at the State and
local level, success is going to require the leadership,
support, and commitment of the Federal Government, including
Congress.
Last week, The Leadership Conference and more than 400
civil rights organizations sent a letter to Congress to move us
forward on a path of true accountability.
The recommendations included the following:
(1) Create a national necessary standard on the use of force;
(2) prohibit racial profiling, including robust data
collection;
(3) ban the use of chokeholds and other restraint maneuvers;
(4) end the militarization of policing;
(5) prohibit the use of no-knock warrants, especially in drug
cases;
(6) strengthen Federal accountability systems and increase the
Justice Department's authority to prosecute officers that
engage in misconduct;
(7) create a national police misconduct registry; and
(8) end qualified immunity.
The Leadership Conference was pleased to learn that the
Justice in Policing Act introduced Monday by both Members of
the House of Representatives and the Senate reflects much of
this accountability framework. This is Congress' most
comprehensive effort in decades to substantially address police
misconduct by taking on issues, critical issues affecting Black
and brown communities. As the bill advances toward passage, we
will continue to work on it and to ensure that real change is
achieved.
Let me just say in closing that policing reform alone is
not going to solve the crisis that we're in today. This moment
of reckoning requires leaders, together with communities, to
envision a new paradigm of public safety that respects the
human rights of all people. That means not just changing
policing practices and culture, but ultimately shrinking the
footprint of the criminal legal system in Black and brown
peoples' lives.
It means shifting our approach to public safety from
exclusively focusing on criminalization and policing towards
investments in economic opportunity, education, healthcare, and
other public benefits.
Police chiefs and officers talk about the same thing. This
approach will not only further equity but also constitute
effective policy. When we stop using criminal justice policy as
social policy, we will make communities safer and more
prosperous.
Now, is the time for Congress to pass lasting
accountability measures, and we look forward to working with
you until the day that these reforms are signed into law.
George Floyd's death has impacted the world, and now it is
on us to change it. Thank you.
[The statement of Ms. Gupta follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Chair Nadler. Thank you very much.
Without objection, at the request of the Ranking Member, I
will now recognize the distinguished Minority Leader of the
House for a brief introduction of his constituent, our next
Witness, Angela Underwood Jacobs.
Mr. McCarthy. Thank you, Chair Nadler and Ranking Member
Jordan, for convening this very important hearing.
Mr. Floyd, thank you for your powerful words. I'll make one
promise to you: Your brother will not have died in vain.
I'm here to introduce Angela Underwood Jacobs, her husband,
Michael, and her daughter, Trinity. More importantly, I'm here
to listen to them and all of you.
Now, I know Angela and I'm proud to call her a friend. She
is a mother, a businesswoman, and the first Black woman to
become a City Council Member in Lancaster, California.
Angela is here to testify because her brother, Dave Patrick
Underwood, he was tragically and senselessly murdered in the
line of duty 2 weeks ago in Oakland.
We mourn and pray for Angela and the entire Underwood and
Floyd family.
As a member of the Federal Protective Service, Pat was
guarding a Federal courthouse, a symbol of equal justice and
the rule of law, during the riots in Oakland on the night of
his death. It appears his death was part of a targeted attack
on Federal law enforcement.
We pray that justice comes swiftly and completely for Pat,
for George Floyd, and all victims of violence.
Pat Underwood should be alive today, George Floyd should be
alive today, David Dorn should be alive today, and so should
countless others. Though we cannot bring them back, we can
learn from their lives and deliver the justice and change they
deserve.
I hope that every Member of this Committee will listen
closely and carefully to what Angela has to say. Our Nation
must listen, and it must heal. Like Dr. King, we must reconcile
our differences with a renewed sense of love and compassion.
Like President Lincoln, we must remember that we are not
enemies, but we are friends, friends that have a responsibility
to rise above, to make sure we become the more perfect Union we
strive to be. I hope at this moment in time, we rise to the
occasion.
I yield back.
Chair Nadler. Thank you, Mr. McCarthy.
Ms. Underwood Jacobs, you may begin.
STATEMENT OF ANGELA UNDERWOOD JACOBS
Ms. Underwood Jacobs. Thank you very much, and I truly
appreciate the opportunity to be here today.
As a Nation, as a people, we must come together to defeat
fear, hate, prejudice, and violence. I want to ensure the
memory of my brother, Patrick, is as a catalyst against
injustice, intolerance, and violence of any kind. I want to
honor my brother, Dave Patrick Underwood, and our family, and
help our Nation think about how to navigate the righteous path
to equality, freedom, and nonviolent systemic change.
I want to extend my sympathies and condolences to George
Floyd's family. Mr. Floyd's murder was not just cruel and
reprehensible, but criminal. The officers involved should be
brought to justice and held accountable for their actions or as
well as their inaction.
I wish that same justice for my brother, Patrick, who
served with distinction and honor as a Federal officer for the
Department of Homeland Security until he was murdered
anonymously by blind violence on the steps of the Federal
courthouse in Oakland, California. As he took his last breath
on the cold, hard cement after being shot multiple times, he
died.
Fear, hatred, ignorance, and blind violence snatched the
life of my brother, Patrick, from all of us. Dr. Martin Luther
King, Jr., preached always avoid violence. If you succumb to
the temptation of using violence in your struggle, unborn
generations will be recipients of a long and desolate night of
bitterness and your chief legacy to the future will be an
endless reign of meaningless chaos.
I have spoken to many people across this country--in fact,
across the world--regarding what is going on in America.
America is in pain, and she is crying. Can you hear her?
I am here to seek justice through the chaos for my brother,
Patrick, for George Floyd, for citizens of all colors, for
communities across America, and for the police officers that
protect those communities and their citizens every day.
The actions of a few are dividing us as a Nation at a time
when we should be coming together and uniting for the well-
being of all people. We will never solve generational systemic
injustice with looting, burning, destruction of property, and
killing in the name of justice. We must find lawful, peaceful
solutions that uplift and benefit everyone.
This, this is greater than a black, white, or blue issue.
It is a humanity issue. When those in a position of authority
choose to abuse their power, that is the very definition of
oppression. When innocent people are harmed in the name of
justice, no one prevails. We all lose.
Everyone deserves the opportunity to feel heard, be seen,
and feel safe. Police brutality of any kind must not be
condoned. However, it is blatantly wrong to create an excuse
out of discrimination and disparity to loot and burn our
communities, to kill our officers of the law.
It is a ridiculous solution to proclaim that defunding
police departments is a solution to police brutality and
discrimination, because it's not a solution. It gets us nowhere
as a Nation and removes a safety net of protection that every
citizen deserves from their community's elected officials.
There is a path to achieving what we desire and deserve as
a Nation and as a people: Equality, fairness, justice, peace,
and freedom from oppression. It is the same path we started on
during the civil rights movement.
The solution to our Nation's ills is straightforward:
Education. We need to actually invest in education again
and make it our Nation's top priority. Through education comes
knowledge, through knowledge comes understanding, and through
understanding comes opportunity and freedom.
Jobs. If there isn't any chance of making a decent living,
there isn't any chance of having a decent, just society. We
need to create more jobs that, in turn, will create more
economic justice for all Americans.
Housing. There is no way to live a decent life if you can't
find or, in America's case, afford shelter.
We need to listen and learn from each other. It's time for
everyone to open their ears and listen to what each other has
to say. America is the world's melting pot because we have so
many people, cultures, beliefs, and points of view. Yet
somehow, we've become siloed.
As a single voice in this Chamber attempting to honor my
brother and family, I hope I can make a difference today. I
America to make a change, I want you, as our Representatives in
Congress, to make a change so that no one ever has to wake up
to the phone call that I received telling me that my brother
was shot dead and murdered.
How my brother died was wrong, and I am praying that we
learn something about how he lived. Patrick was the type of man
that when our mother fell to the ground as she was dying, he
picked her lifeless body up as her spirit was leaving to place
her upon her bed, because that's where she wanted to die.
My question is, who will pick up Patrick and carry his
legacy? I believe this is a responsibility for all of us.
Please do not let my brother Patrick's name go in vain.
Patrick was a good man who only wanted to help others and
keep his community safe. He had an infectious laugh and a corny
sense of humor. He would go out of his way to help family,
friends, and strangers. He did not deserve to die in such a
horrendously inhumane way. No one does.
Now, my family is in a State of hollow disarray. We all
feel the anxiety of wondering what tomorrow may bring or may
not bring, which has struck fear in our hearts.
Nevertheless, I wholeheartedly urge us all, all Americans,
not to give in to hate and anger, but to resolve conflict with
kindness and love, to lead with a sense of purpose and renewed
energy, to create positive change as I have outlined here,
through education, jobs, housing, and listening.
Pat didn't tell anyone how to live, but he lived, and what
an amazing life it was. I will never forget the way my brother
smiled and the way that he loved his family with every piece of
his heart.
My wish is for us to live and live without fear and
discrimination. Do not simply tolerate your neighbor, but
strive to understand one another, and we will be a better, more
just society for all.
Thank you.
Chair Nadler. Thank you.
Our next Witness is Art Acevedo, who serves as the Chief of
the Houston Police Department and also serves as President of
the Major Cities Chiefs Association. Chief Acevedo received his
B.S. in public Administration from the University of La Verne.
Chief Acevedo, you may begin.
STATEMENT OF ART ACEVEDO
Chief Acevedo. Thank you, Chair.
Ms. Underwood, Mr. Floyd, I want to follow up with our deep
condolences. Know that we are lifting you in our prayers.
Chair Nadler, Ranking Member Jordan, and the Members of the
Committee, thank you for the opportunity to participate
virtually in today's hearing. It's good to be with all of you,
and especially my Congresswoman, Sheila Jackson Lee, and
Congresswoman Garcia. I want to thank Congressman Sheila
Jackson Lee and Congresswoman Bass for their leadership.
As the Major Cities Chiefs Association reviews, the Justice
in Policing Act, please know that we support the intent and
look forward to working with the Committee.
I appear before you today as the Chief of Police in
Houston, Texas, and it is also my privilege to testify on
behalf of the Major Cities Chiefs Association as their
president.
No matter the circumstance, every time a life is taken, a
loved one is taken. George Floyd was a child of God and raised
in Houston. His death was deeply disturbing and a shock to the
conscience.
Over the past few days, I've had the opportunity to meet
with the Floyd family, and I will continue to lift them in
prayer.
Mr. Floyd, thank you to you and your family for allowing us
to join you on your brother's journey home.
There is no denying that changes in policing must be made.
Out of crisis comes opportunity, and this is an opportunity for
all of us to have some tough conversations, to listen, learn,
and enact meaningful reform that is long overdue.
As a profession, we must learn what is being shared with
us. That includes being honest about our history. We must
acknowledge that law enforcement's past contains institutional
racism, injustices, and brutality. We must acknowledge that
policing has had a disparate treatment and impact on
disenfranchised communities, especially communities of color
and poor communities.
Several topics have risen to the forefront, and all reforms
must be vetted to ensure that they are sustainable, effective,
and have no unintended consequences.
Law enforcement plays an important role. No two calls for
service are the same, and in Houston we respond to an average
of 1.2 million calls for service annually. Those calls
disproportionately originate from communities of color.
If we are going to talk about better policing, we also need
to talk about the root causes behind the need for those calls
for service. Some think defunding the police is the answer. I'm
here to tell you, on behalf of our mayor and other mayors
across the country and police chiefs across this country, and
the diverse communities that we serve, this is simply not the
answer.
Defunding the police without addressing the socioeconomic
reality faced by poor communities and the disenfranchised and
how they are riddled with missteps would increase the need for
police services. History has shown that underfunding the police
can have disastrous consequences and hurt those most in need of
our services.
Appropriate police funding is critical to ensure agencies
have resources to invest in technology like body-worn cameras,
recruit qualified police officers who are service-minded, and
training in implicit bias, training in cultural competency,
training in de-escalation, and other critical training.
The overwhelming majority of cops are good people. This
cannot be lost. They are faithful public servants who put their
uniform on every day willing to make the ultimate sacrifice. We
can't let, again, the actions of bad cops let us lose sight of
the fact that most cops are good. We must all judge each other
through the prism and content of our individual hearts and
actions and not through the prism of color and the uniform that
we wear.
While there is no national use of force standard and
previous efforts at establishing one were met with
disagreement, several components are ubiquitous throughout the
U.S. prioritization of the sanctity of life, duty to intervene,
and the use of de-escalation tactics and techniques is a must.
Let me be clear. The actions of the four officers involved
in the death of Mr. Floyd are inconsistent, unjustified, and
repulsive. They are contrary to the protocols of the policing
profession, and they sabotage the law enforcement community's
tireless efforts to build trust.
Moving our profession forward begins with a sustained
commitment to accountability. From the start of academy
training, recruits must understand that they have an absolute
duty to put public safety, service, and security first.
In the Houston Police Department, we instill in our men and
women the certainty that policy violations regarding
truthfulness will lead to termination or, as we put it, if you
lie you die.
It is important to note that every chief's administrative
authorities are different across the Nation and that not
everyone has the legal authority to take immediate action like
Chief Arradondo did.
I am encouraged. While there have been eras in America's
history when police have found it difficult to speak up, we are
speaking up today.
Let it be clear, for many years officers have consistently
been holding one another accountable, and complaints about
police misconduct overwhelmingly originate from within
agencies, not from Members of the community.
Communities have an absolute responsibility as well. We ask
citizens to report police misconduct without fail. This will
afford us the opportunity to investigate, track, and report
those complaints.
We must also address the issue of officers who have been
terminated with cause, only to get rehired by another
department. Many of us refer to these individuals as gypsy
cops. Many gypsy cops have exhibited troubling behavior, and
that, in turn, undermines efforts to build trust with the
public and efforts in terms of internal department
accountability.
Transparency breeds trust, and trust breeds respect. Mutual
trust and respect between law enforcement and the public is
crucial to good policing. The civil unrest occurring throughout
our Nation and throughout this entire country is a sobering
reminder of how quickly we will lose public trust and the
consequences of that fact.
Ensuring the department looks more like the communities we
serve helps build trust and confidence. Unique perspectives and
insights help a department lead and serve the communities of
color.
I'm happy to report that the Major Cities Chiefs
Association has several departments now that are minority
majority, like the city of Houston and the Houston Police
Department and are reflective of the communities that we serve.
On behalf of the Major Cities Chiefs, I want America to
know that we hear you. We will continue to do everything in our
power to facilitate your right to peacefully protest. The MCCA
will not shy away from this challenge and will continue to be a
leader and voice in the national discourse on racial relations,
policing, and reform.
To the Floyd family and to the activists across the Nation,
our commitment is to be your voice, to join you, and to make
sure that Mr. Floyd's death was not in vain.
I yield the remainder of my time and look forward to any
questions the Committee may have.
[The statement of Chief Acevedo follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Chair Nadler. Thank you, Chief.
Our next Witness is Ms. Sherrilyn Ifill. Ms. Sherrilyn
Ifill is the President and Director-Counsel of the NAACP Legal
Defense and Educational Fund. She received her J.D. from New
York University School of Law and her B.A. from Vassar College.
Ms. Ifill, you may begin.
STATEMENT OF SHERRILYN IFILL
Ms. Ifill. Good morning. My name is Sherrilyn Ifill. I am
the President and Director-Counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense
Fund, the Nation's oldest civil rights legal organization,
formed in 1940 by Thurgood Marshall.
I want to thank Chair Nadler, Ranking Member Jordan. I want
to salute the leadership of Representative Bass and the
Congressional Black Caucus on this issue. I want to extend, on
behalf of the Legal Defense Fund, my deepest condolences to the
Floyd family and thank them for their courage and their voice
at this important moment.
We welcome the Justice in Policing Act as a first step in
addressing the decades-long call and demand for policing
reform.
The legislation includes reforms that LDF's Policing Reform
Campaign has advocated for years to ensure greater
accountability for police officers who engage in misconduct and
brutality. Members of Congress incorporated a number of our
proposals in the act, which is a step in the right direction
toward ensuring police accountability nationwide.
I want to first focus this Committee's attention on the
significance of this moment and the importance of the Federal
Government's role in addressing this crisis. You are in a civil
rights moment.
In 1964-1967, cities all over the North in this country
were gripped by urban unrest. In Watts and Detroit, Harlem,
Minneapolis, and scores of other cities, Black people took to
the streets to protest police brutality. It was during that
period of unrest that Dr. Martin Luther King said, ``Riots are
the language of the unheard.''
The 1968 Kerner Commission was created to study the source
of that unrest, and much of the report's findings and
recommendations focused on law enforcement's presence and
conduct in Black communities.
This period overlapped with the years that most people
think of as the core civil rights movement, when Black people
in the South petitioned, protested, marched, and demanded
Federal legislation to address segregation, voter suppression,
and economic injustice. The result were core civil right
statutes: the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Voting Rights Act
of 1965, and the Fair Housing Act of 1968.
Despite the unrest in northern cities, in over 100 cities
during that decade, there was no legislation to address the
issue of police brutality in African-American communities. As a
result, very little has changed since that period as it relates
to this issue.
Therefore, too many officers know that they can commit the
most heinous acts against African Americans without fear of
accountability. Ranking Member Jordan said that the killers of
George Floyd will face justice, but we also know that those who
killed Philando Castile, Eric Garner, Terence Crutcher, Eleanor
Bumpurs, Michael Stewart, Clifford Glover, Sean Bell, Amadou
Diallo, and countless others never were held accountable for
the crimes they committed.
That snapshot of former officer Derek Chauvin kneeling on
the neck of George Floyd, with his hands in his pockets,
looking out, with no fear of being videotaped, should shame
every Member of this body, every judge, every lawyer, everyone
who has participated in the perpetuation a system that calls
itself a justice system but routinely allows officers of the
State to take innocent life with impunity. You have the chance
now to change that.
Once the key parts of the system of impunity have been
qualified immunity, a defense that shields officials from the
unforeseeable consequences of their Act but has been
interpreted by courts so expansively that it now provides near
immunity for police officers who engage in unconstitutional
acts of violence.
LDF has litigated a number of these cases. For example, in
2018, we filed a petition in the United States Supreme Court
appealing a decision of the United States Court of Appeals for
the 11th Circuit that affirmed summary judgment in favor of a
law enforcement officer who tased our client, Khari Illidge, 19
times to death. The U.S. Supreme Court denied the petition.
This case was not a one-off. Every year, cert petitions are
filed in the Court, seeking review of cases in which law
enforcement officers have successfully eluded accountability
for the most violent forms of brutality by raising the
qualified immunity defense.
The Justice in Policing Act seeks to address qualified
immunity by amending the civil rights statute used most in
police excessive-use-of-force cases, 42 U.S.C. 1983, and we
welcome this amendment. We want it to apply to all civil suits
that are pending or filed after enactment of the act. We will
continue to work towards the elimination of qualified immunity.
There is bipartisan support for ending qualified immunity,
and so I'll close my remarks by quoting from a Federal Circuit
Court Judge in a decision issued just this week in the Fourth
Circuit Court of Appeals. It was written by a judge appointed
first to the bench by George W. Bush.
He said, in Jones v. City of Martinsburg, Judge Henry Floyd
said, ``Wayne Jones was killed just 1 year before the Ferguson,
Missouri, shooting of Michael Brown would once again draw
national scrutiny to police shootings of Black people in the
United States. Seven years later, we are asked to decide
whether it was clearly established that 5 officers could not
shoot a man 22 times as he lay motionless on the ground. Before
the ink dried on this opinion, the FBI opened an investigation
into the death of yet another Black man at the hands of police,
this time George Floyd in Minneapolis. This has to stop. To
award qualified immunity at the summary judgment stage in this
case would signal absolute immunity for fear-based use of
force, which we cannot accept.''
This decision represents a minority of cases, and so we
need Congress to act. You are required by history to meet this
civil rights moment. It is a moment in which we have a chance
to transform our approach to public safety, to recognize that
most community conflicts do not require the intervention of an
armed officer, and to speak our values through Federal and
State budgets that prioritize our commitment to
antidiscrimination, to public health, and to true public safety
for all.
Thank you.
[The statement of Ms. Ifill follows:]
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Chair Nadler. Thank you.
Our next Witness is Darrell Scott, who is the founder and
senior pastor of the New Spirit Revival Center, a
nondenominational church in Cleveland Heights, Ohio. Pastor
Scott is also the author of the book ``Nothing to Lose:
Unlikely Allies in the Struggle for a Better Black America.''
Pastor Scott, you may begin.
STATEMENT OF PASTOR DARRELL SCOTT
Pastor Scott. Chair Nadler, Members of the Committee,
Ranking Member Jordan, thank you for inviting me to participate
in these very serious hearings today.
I want to begin by stating that the prospect of defunding
and/or dismantling police forces across the country is one of
the most unwise, irresponsible proposals by American
politicians in our Nation's history and makes absolutely no
sense at all, at least to me. I believe it is nothing short of
the politicizing of current social events in an effort to
garner votes during this election season. I also believe that
it's a reactionary measure that can and will result in short-
and long-term damage to American society, particularly in our
inner-city and urban communities.
Now, I recognize the fact that the elimination of excessive
force and physical retaliation by officers of the law against
American citizens is paramount today. I recognize the fact that
racial profiling and the harsh treatment of minorities is a
very real reality that must be eliminated immediately.
I, myself, can testify of times in my life when I felt
racially profiled by police. I can testify of times in my life
when I was pulled over for driving while black. I can testify
of giving my grandson, who is now of driving age, ``the talk''
of how to properly behave if pulled over by police, because he
had the question of a very real fear of the possibility of
death at the hands of police.
In fact, my very first interaction with police, when I was
13 years old, resulted in me being roughed up. I could very
easily have been George Floyd. George Floyd could have very
easily been me, my brothers, my friends, or any number of any
other Black men in America.
However, I do not recommend throwing the baby out with the
bath water by labeling all police officers as bad cops simply
because of the bad actions of a rogue segment of those whose
job is supposed to be to protect and to serve American
citizens.
In fact, in certain inner-city communities across America,
increased funding for police and increased police presence is
actually necessary to enforce the law and to guarantee the
safety and the security of law-abiding members of those
communities.
As one who was formerly in that street life years ago--I
might be a pastor, but I didn't come down from heaven. I came
up out of hell with the rest of everybody else. I was formerly
in that street life. I know very much about the criminal
element. I can State definitively that the criminal element in
and of society would enjoy nothing better than a reduction in
police presence and police power. It would allow those with
criminal intentions and criminal actions to flourish, virtually
unchallenged, in the communities of America.
The law-abiding members of society would be directly
threatened by the absence of police or the inability of police
to respond to criminal activities and, in many cases, would
endeavor to take the law into their own hands to ensure their
safety and well-being, as evidenced by the response of some who
decided to defend themselves and their property from vandalism.
An absence of police presence could potentially give rise to
acts of domestic terrorism, mob rule, gang rule, neighborhood
intimidation, oppression, and vigilantism.
Defunding of police departments has already happened in a
number of American cities and, rather than remedying problems,
has actually made conditions much worse. The city of Cleveland,
my hometown, is a prime example of the results of police
defunding.
In 2004, the city of Cleveland laid off 285 officers. The
entire police budget was slashed by 31 percent. To cover basic
services, the following units were either disbanded or cut
forever: The district strike force units; the narcotics unit
was completely cut. SWAT was downsized. The fugitive unit was
disbanded. The auto-theft unit was disbanded. The intelligence
unit was cut to bare bones. The mounted unit was cut 85
percent. The aviation unit was down completely for 3 years and
is now only utilized during special events. The harbor unit was
disabled; the boat sits, rotting, in a dry dock. The scientific
investigation unit was cut 80 percent. All the lab techs were
let go. All the evidence collection is now done by priority.
The DARE program, the Drug Abuse Resistance Education program,
was cut. Community policing was cut 45 percent.
Cleveland went through a decade-long downsizing which saw
the department reduce from 1,900 officers to 1,500 officers, on
average. Zone car coverage, which directly affects citizens,
has been cut. Police presence in any given district on any
given shift has been cut in half. One- and two-man units have
been cut in half. Response time is dramatically longer, if the
police show up at all.
The murder rates have climbed. The property crime is at
record levels. Aggravated robbery statistics are higher. Drug
sales, drug use, drug abuse is higher. Drug- and alcohol-
related motor vehicle accidents are the highest they have ever
been.
Cleveland went from a relatively safe city per capita to an
unbelievably unsafe city. Calls for service have increased even
though the population has dropped significantly over the last
20 years. Once-safe areas of the city are now unsafe. Once-nice
neighborhoods in the city are now not nice. Homicides are up 55
percent in Cleveland from this time last year, and Cleveland
now has a higher murder rate per 100,000 residents than Chicago
does.
I believe the police departments are only as effective as
politicians and their appointees allow them to be.
Consequently, politicians and appointees are directly
responsible for the State of their police departments.
Law-abiding citizens--and I've spoken to a great deal of
them--overwhelmingly think that defunding or disbanding police
departments is a horrible idea.
Community policing is a very viable option to address the
needs of inner-city communities. Having police in the
communities to actually get to know the residents is the best
way to obtain the results that we all want. When I was growing
up, the residents and the business owners knew the police
officers that were assigned to our neighborhoods, and their
presence was a deterrent to criminal activity.
So, in short, defunding of police departments in America
has already happened, and it has proven to be an epic failure.
We cannot allow that paradigm to continue if we want the
neighborhoods of America to be safe to live in, the streets of
America to be safe for residents to walk on, and the
communities of America conducive for businesses to thrive in.
So, I recommend and I agree with the fact that police
reform--or, better yet, police revision--should be enacted. It
has to be one that is sensitive to the stress, tension,
pressure, and paranoia that policing produces--the fact that,
on any given day, any given call, any given stop can result in
an officer's death can be very challenging mentally--while also
being sensitive to the citizens of America, who are supposed to
be protected by the police and not be enemies of the police,
whether in the suburbs or in the inner cities, whether we are
black, white, red, yellow, or brown.
I really believe that most police officers, most cops began
their careers--most bad cops began their careers as good cops,
but they allowed the rigors of their job to affect their
perspectives and their social interaction with those they are
supposed to protect, and they began perceiving those that they
are supposed to protect as those they, themselves, need to be
protected from.
I'm in agreement, I endorse police reform, but it has to be
sensitive to both sides of that issue.
Thank you for allowing me. God bless you.
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Chair Nadler. Thank you.
Before I call on the next Witness, I just remind Witnesses
to turn off their mikes when you're not speaking. Turn them on
when you're speaking, turn them off when you're not speaking,
please.
Our next Witness is Mr. Paul Butler, who's the Albert Brick
Professor at Georgetown University Law Center, where he
specializes in criminal law and race relations. Professor
Butler is also the author of the book ``Let's Get Free: A Hip-
Hop Theory of Justice'' and ``Chokehold: Policing Black Men.''
Mr. Butler received his J.D. from Harvard Law School and his
B.A. from Yale University.
Mr. Butler, you may begin.
STATEMENT OF PAUL BUTLER
Mr. Butler. Chair Nadler, Ranking Member Jordan, honorable
Members of the Committee, thank you for this opportunity to
testify.
Mr. Floyd and Ms. Underwood Jacobs, I'm so sorry for your
loss. May the memory of your brothers, the memory of the other
marchers be a blessing to the people all over the country, all
over the world who are rising up in what Martin Luther King
called the beautiful struggle for equal justice.
There has never, not for 1 minute, in American history been
peace between Black people and the police. Nothing since
slavery has sparked the level of outrage among African
Americans as when they feel under violent attack by the police.
Black people have endured Jim Crow segregation, being shut
out of Social Security and the GI Bill, massive resistance to
school desegregation, nonstop efforts to prevent us from
voting, and poison water. The rare times Black people have set
aside traditional civil rights strategies and instead have
risen in the streets, destroyed property, and resisted symbols
of the State has been because of something that the police have
done.
In Watts, 1965; Newark, 1967; Miami, 1980; L.A., 1992;
Ferguson, 2015; Baltimore, 2016; and Minneapolis, 2020; all
those cities went up in flames because the police killed
another Black man.
Unlawful violence is never acceptable, either as a
misguided approach of a few or as an abuse of the power and
trust we place in law enforcement officers.
The main problem is not bad-apple cops. Officers have
difficult jobs, and many serve with honor and valor. Still,
almost every objective investigation of a police department
finds that police, as policy, treat African Americans with
contempt. The police kill, wound, pepper spray, beat up,
detain, frisk, handcuff, and use dogs against Black people in
certain circumstances in which they do not do the same to White
people.
When armed agents of the State are harming American
citizens in our name, we, the people, must ask why.
In the past 2 weeks, we have seen acts of grace and bravery
by police officers. Cops in New York took a knee. In Houston,
Chief Acevedo arranged for an honor guard to accompany Mr.
Floyd's body when he came home.
Unfortunately, we have also witnessed, these past 2 weeks,
police officers commit deplorable acts of violence against the
citizens they've sworn to serve and protect. In New York,
officers drove two large police vehicles into a crowd of
protesters. In Atlanta, officers broke the window of a car,
dragged out two college students, and shot them with a stun
gun.
In Buffalo, a police officer knocked a 75-year-old man to
the ground, but what happened next was just as bad. When two
officers were disciplined for that criminal conduct, 57 other
officers quit the squad in protest. President Obama's task
force on policing decried the warrior mentality present among
too many law enforcement officers. In Buffalo, the Nation saw
warriors on steroids.
African-American and Hispanic people disproportionately
bear the cost. Blacks are about 20 percent of the population of
Minneapolis but 60 percent of the people who cops use violence
against. The result is that there are more Black people in the
criminal legal system today than there were slaves in 1850.
When I mentioned to a young man I mentor that if he
attended protests he should wear a mask, he said he certainly
would try, but he wanted me to know that, as a young Black man,
he has a greater risk of dying from police violence than from
the coronavirus. According to the National Academy of Science,
1 in 1,000 African-American men and boys will be killed by the
police.
What African Americans need to realize equal justice under
the law is for selective enforcement and police brutality to
end. We need the police to stop killing us, to stop beating us
up, to stop arresting us in situations in which they would not
do those things to White people.
The Justice in Policing Act is a commonsense reform. Among
other things, it requires cops to be trained in understanding
racial bias.
In Minneapolis, as three officers crushed the life out of
Mr. Floyd and another served as a lookout, somebody in the
crowd said to the cops, ``He's human, bro.'' These four
officers did not treat Mr. Floyd like a human being. Too often,
police work seems to enforce the dehumanization of people of
color. Understanding the history and reality of racism in the
United States will make our men and women in blue more
effective officers.
In the end, this hearing is about the legitimacy and
sustainability of our democracy. ``No justice, no peace'' is
not a threat; it is simply a description of how the world
works.
The multiracial, multigenerational demonstrations that have
risen up all over the United States reflect the wonderful
diversity of our great Nation and the potential of ordinary
citizens to make our country live up to its highest ideals.
The Justice in Policing Act of 2020 heralds the urgency of
transformation and the promise for all Americans of equal
justice under the law.
[The statement of Mr. Butler follows:]
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Chair Nadler. Thank you, Mr. Butler.
Our next Witness is Benjamin Crump. Benjamin Crump is the
founder and principal owner of Ben Crump Law. He is also
currently representing George Floyd's family. Mr. Crump
received his J.D. and B.A. from Florida State University.
Mr. Crump, you may begin.
STATEMENT OF BEN CRUMP
Mr. Crump. Thank you, Chair Nadler and distinguished
Members of the Committee.
I know all the speakers have 5 minutes to speak, but I wish
it was 8 minutes and 46 seconds, not as a symbolic gesture but
as an actual, exact time reference of how long George Floyd
literally begged--he literally narrated a documentary of his
death, begging for his life, saying, ``I can't breathe,'' and
calling for his mama.
The death of George Floyd has galvanized the world and
mobilized Americans to demand a more just system of policing,
because it's become painfully obvious that what we have right
now are two systems of justice: One for White Americans and
another for Black Americans.
George is one in a long line of Black Americans who
unjustly are killed at the hands of police or, in George's
case, at the knee of the police, including Breonna Taylor,
Pamela Turner, Botham Jean, Michael Brown, Stephon Clark, Eric
Garner, Tamir Rice, Philando Castile, Terence Crutcher, Laquan
McDonald, just to name a few. The list goes on and on. It is
important, Mr. Chair, that we remember their names.
It is way past time that we revised the role of police to
become peacekeepers and community partners. Of course, they
must be prepared to protect themselves and the public in direct
life-threatening situations, but these should be the exception
and not the rule.
What we are witnessing throughout our country is not that.
American as being tear gassed in the streets, hit with rubber
bullets, shoved violently to the ground, cracking their sculls
against the pavement, being bloodied with batons. For what? For
demanding justice for Black Americans.
Our constitutional rights are under attack, and not in the
shadows but in the broad daylight.
Changing the behavior of police and their relationships
with people of color starts at the top. We need a national
standard for policing behavior, built on transparency and
accountability.
The only reason we know what happened to George Floyd is
because it was captured on video. The advent of video evidence
is bringing into the light what long was hidden. It's revealing
what Black Americans have known for a long, long time: That it
is dangerous for a Black person to have an encounter with a
police officer.
Given the incidents than have led to this moment in time,
it should be mandatory for police officers to wear body cams
and should be considered obstruction of justice to turn them
off. Like a Black box data recorder in an airplane, body cams
replace competing narratives with a single narrative, the
truth, with what we see with our own eyes.
Second, insist that police officers only use the level of
force needed based on the level of threat actually posed by the
circumstances.
We've seen way too many Black people shot in the back or
unarmed Black people shot and killed or a handcuffed Black man,
face down on the pavement, asphyxiated by a knee on his neck
for 8 minutes and 46 seconds though he posed no threat at all.
Neck restraints were used by Minnesota police more than 200
times, resulting in suspects losing consciousness at least 44
times. Lethal restraints like chokeholds and strangleholds
should be outlawed.
Finally, reform how qualified immunity applies to police
officers. If officers know they have immunity, they Act with
impunity. If officers know they can unjustly take the life of a
Black person with no accountability, they will continue to do
so. That's what you saw in the eyes of Derek Chauvin, with his
hand casually tucked in his pocket as he extinguished the life
of George Floyd.
Accountability requires that officers face public
consequences for unjustly taking a life or brutalizing a fellow
American that they are sworn to protect and serve.
Too often, many officers are silent in the face of evil
because of the ``blue shield,'' the brotherhood of police
officers which fosters systematic racism and abuse. There's a
higher brotherhood that God calls us to honor, the brotherhood
of mankind, Black and white. That's what we're witnessing in
the diversity of the protesters filling our streets even today,
and that's the brotherhood our police officers must honor above
all.
The Founding Fathers knew they had not built an infallible
system, a faultless union, but they did task us with the
perpetual duty to aim for it: A more perfect union, of justice,
liberty, resilience, hope, and compassion. We have to do
better, and we must strive to live up to those American ideals.
We are better than this.
Chair, Members of the Committee, you have the power to make
this moment in history the tipping point so many of us have
been waiting for, fighting for, and praying for, that Americans
are marching for. You have the power to make sure that George
Floyd's death is not in vain.
I've been asking for us to take a breath. First, the breath
that George Floyd was denied. Second, take a breath to consider
how we use police in our society and how we hold them
accountable for the tremendous power we place in their hands.
Third, to take a breath to consider how we create a more
perfect union that extends equal protection and equal justice
to people of color. Finally, to take a breath for George Floyd,
because his life mattered and Black lives matter.
I thank you, Chair.
[The statement of Mr. Crump follows:]
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Chair Nadler. Thank you, Mr. Crump.
Ron Davis is the legislative affairs Chair of the National
Organization of Black Law Enforcement Executives, or NOBLE.
From 2013-2017, Mr. Davis directed the Office of Community
Oriented Policing Services at the U.S. Department of Justice.
In 2014, he was appointed Executive Director of the President's
Task Force on 21st Century Policing.
Mr. 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.
Mr. Davis, you may begin.
STATEMENT OF RON DAVIS
Mr. Davis. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Good morning, Mr. Chair and Ranking Member Collins. I want
to thank you for hosting this hearing. I come to you today on
behalf of NOBLE. On behalf of our president, Police Chief C.J.
Davis, we want to again thank you for allowing us to testify
today.
As you mentioned, before serving as the Director of the
COPS Office, I spent close to 30 years as a police officer, 20
years in Oakland and about 9 years as the police chief in the
city of East Palo Alto.
I do want to say, NOBLE joins the Nation in condemning the
heinous killing of Mr. Floyd, and we offer our heartfelt
condolences and prayers to the Floyd family. I want to thank
Mr. Floyd this morning for his powerful testimony and strong
recommendations.
Yet, Mr. Chair, with no debate, we know George Floyd is
just one in a long list of tragedies. We also know that the
vast majority, as the reverend had mentioned, of police
officers in this country are decent, honorable, committed men
and women to service.
We know that the core problem of policing is not just about
a few bad apples. I think too often we focus on the bad apples,
and we need to acknowledge, Mr. Chair, that the problem in
policing today is the continued use of draconian policing
systems that still suffer from structural racism and severe
institutional deficiencies. Under these systems, even good cops
have bad outcomes, and bad cops and racist cops can operate
with impunity.
Most of the systems that we are talking about that
determine why we police, how we police, where we police, were
constructed in the 1940-1960s, and they were actually
constructed to enforce Jim Crow and other discriminatory
practices.
In other words, this Committee should acknowledge--the
Nation needs to acknowledge--that our policing systems are, in
fact, not broken; they are doing what they were actually
designed to do.
To understand this hard truth is to recognize that this
system cannot be reformed; it must be reconstructed.
It also means that the demand for policing reform should
not require an indictment against all police. In fact, it is
our hope that our brothers and sisters who wear the badge will
not only embrace this moment but will join this movement and
become a part of the change that is needed.
We've seen police chiefs and officers walk with crowds and
take a knee, and that is great. We now need them to take a
stance and stand with the community as we reconstruct this
unjust system.
The first step in reconstructing a new system is to
strengthen police accountability and trust with our
communities. This, in fact, was the core charge that President
Obama gave the Task Force on 21st Century Policing, and, until
2015, the task force provided recommendations for police
agencies and their communities to advance this.
Unfortunately, the Trump Administration not only tossed
this report away, but it also actually retreated backwards to
the so-called ``law and order'' days--days in which the mass
arrest of men of color was this Nation's crime strategy.
We need to abandon that dangerous rhetoric, we need to
abandon the idea of ``law and order,'' and we need to embrace a
``peace and justice'' mantra that enhances public safety and
assures justice for all.
Mr. Chair, we need the support of the Federal Government to
further advance the recommendations from President Obama's task
force. We also need to make some immediate actions.
In the interest of time, I will say that we support the
eight bullets that Vanita Gupta outlined, with the Leadership
Conference on Civil Rights. I won't go over those eight bullets
since she's already given the testimony.
We also believe that we need to immediately rescind the
Sessions memo so that the Department's Civil Rights Division,
the Department of Justice's Civil Rights Division, can
immediately restore the use of consent decrees where
appropriate.
We believe that we should restore programs within the COPS
Office that allows police departments to do voluntary reviews
so that they can identify deficiencies in their operating
systems and structural programs. We believe that all police
agencies should obtain some type of accreditation before
receiving Federal funds.
We also need the Federal Government's help in supporting
local and State efforts. In the absence of this DOJ, it's been
the States that have been stepping up. So, for example, the
State of California and Governor Gavin Newsom passed Assembly
Bill 392, the most comprehensive use-of-force reform bill in
the Nation.
Last week, Governor Newsom also ordered the State to stop
teaching the carotid hold, or carotid restraints, and chokehold
and made clear that he would support any legislation that
prohibits those techniques.
In Illinois, former Attorney General Lisa Madigan and
current Attorney General Kwame Raoul used their office to
negotiate with the city of Chicago to adopt the most
comprehensive consent decree in the Nation's history.
In California, Attorney General Becerra used his office to
conduct pattern-of-practice investigations, provide
organizational assessments and use-of-force reviews.
Most recently, in Minnesota, Attorney General Keith Ellison
worked with Department of Safety Commissioner John Harrington
and used their office to convene a task force, a working group,
of diverse people to address the issue of police deadly
encounters. Now, unfortunately, the group released their report
just weeks after Mr. Floyd was killed so that it was too late
to impact that tragedy, but it does provide a roadmap for
Minnesota as it moves forward.
These are all activities that the Trump Administration has
walked away from and these are all activities that are sorely
needed if we're going to address police reform.
Chair Nadler. Thank you, Mr. Davis.
Mr. Davis. In sum, the recommendations that have been
outlined, the ones I just mentioned, the ones that Ms. Gupta
outlined, the ones that you heard today, are all contained in
the Justice in Policing Act. We appreciate Congresswoman Bass,
yourself, Mr. Nadler, and all the cosponsors for introducing
this comprehensive bill. NOBLE looks forward to working with
this body as you move the bill forward.
Chair Nadler. Thank you.
Mr. Davis. As we proceed, there are immediate steps that I
believe police leaders and departments can take. I want to
basically quickly go over five points that I would ask my
colleagues--
Chair Nadler. Thank you very much. Can he hear me?
Mr. Davis. --police chiefs and police leaders to follow.
These are the steps that we can do to start the race to
reconciliation that was mentioned earlier that we have yet to
do and to start the reimagining policing process.
The first step is to publicly acknowledge the historical
and current--too often we just say ``historical''--but the
historical and current police abuses that occur and its impacts
on communities of color. The more police chiefs acknowledge
this and do so publicly, the more we can start our
reconciliation.
Second, the acceptance of responsibility to change our
policing system and its culture.
Third, I think it is time for all police officers to
reaffirm their oath of office to the Constitution and to the
core principles of our democracy. I say that because we need to
be reminded that the oath is to the Constitution, not to each
other, not to the police department, not to the police union,
but to the Constitution and our democracy.
Fourth, collaborate with community to redefine and
reimagine policing, including the development of reinvestment
strategies that rely less on police and more on community-based
safety programs.
As we debate about the departments, I think we can have
some core agreement that we definitely need to invest in the
social programs, the community-based programs that go more to
the core problems of crime--
Chair Nadler. Mr. Davis, your time has expired.
Mr. Davis. Thank you.
[The statement of Mr. Davis follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Chair Nadler. Mr. Davis, thank you for your testimony. You
time has expired.
Our next Witness is Daniel Bongino. Daniel Bongino has
served with both the New York Police Department and the United
States Secret Service. He is also a best-selling author and
host of ``The Dan Bongino Show'' podcast.
Mr. Bongino has an MBA from Penn State University and both
an M.A. and B.A. from the City University of New York.
Mr. Bongino, you may begin.
STATEMENT OF DANIEL BONGINO
Mr. Bongino. Mr. Chair, Ranking Member Jordan, I deeply
appreciate the opportunity to speak on this critical issue.
Ms. Underwood Jacobs, Mr. Floyd, deeply sorry for your
loss. I can only hope you take some solace in the justice that
we all pray is to come. I mean that. That was a tough video to
watch, for all of us.
Police Officer Dan O'Sullivan, he was a friend of mine. We
went through the police academy together. Sadly, we lost touch
when we graduated, so we were both assigned to separate
precincts, different areas of the city of New York.
Dan and I with a briefly reunited in 1998, but it was no
joyous occasion. I was reunited with Dan in a hospital in
Queens, where he was hospitalized with devastating injuries
after pulling over, off duty, to assist a driver in a critical
emergency situation. He was hurt, badly.
Dan was the very essence of a public servant. Dan always
put himself last, while putting his commitment to the safety
and security of the public he pledged to serve always first.
That was the Dan I knew.
During my employment with both the NYPD and the United
States Secret Service, I had the honor and profound privilege
of working with agents and police officers who had committed
themselves to a higher cause. Just like Dan, I met so many of
these committed public servants that, sadly, I can't even
recall all their names anymore.
These are good men and women. Yes, as with any provision,
there are officers, no question, who aren't suited for the job.
Some will cause trouble, sometimes worse. We've seen that. In
my experience, this is rare and becoming rarer.
The special agents I worked with and remain friends with to
this day in the Secret Service joined Members of the NYPD and
New York City Fire Department on that tragic day of September
11, 2001. Do you know what they did? They sprinted into those
burning buildings and personally escorted people out. As we all
know, those buildings collapsed, taking many of those brave
NYPD and FDNY souls with them. Those brave souls were running
into the buildings; everyone else was evacuating.
These are the types of people I was honored and deeply
privileged to work with. Public safety came first. Everything
else came second, sometimes even their own families.
The ``defund the police'' movement will target these
heroes. They are the police, these people. It's not some
amorphous mass that will be affected. It's real heroes, in
real-time, right now.
Removing these heroes from your communities and my
community will do nothing but ensure chaos and destruction.
Police officers are the front lines, putting themselves between
the evildoers among us and the honest, hardworking Americans
just yearning for some security and prosperity and a small
slice of Americana.
We can and should commit to police accountability, there's
no question about that. We can do it without shredding the thin
wall between civilization and chaos.
There are few jobs in the country as stressful as policing.
I receive an email or a text a few times a year notifying me
about the death or injury of a police officer I knew, worked
with, or knew someone I worked with. Imagine if that was
happening at your job. Think about that, just for a minute. God
forbid you found out a coworker of yours was killed or injured
in the line of duty, in the course of doing their job. You
didn't just get the text; you got this text a couple times a
year. That's policing. That's what they do. They risk their own
lives for yours.
I'll say in closing, I spoke at an event for police
officers years ago, and a spouse of one of these heroes said
this. She said, ``The most wonderful sound in the world for the
spouse of a police officer is the sound of Velcro at night. You
may be saying, why Velcro? Because it's how a police officer's
body armor is secured to their bodies. When that body armor
comes off and that sound echoes in their ears, the families of
these heroes know that they're finally home safety.''
I ask you, please, with the greatest of respect and
humility, please stop this ``defund the police'' abomination
before someone gets hurt.
Thank you for your time.
[The statement of Mr. Bongino follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Chair Nadler. Thank you, Mr. Bongino.
Our next Witness is Phillip Goff. Phillip Goff is the co-
founder and President of the Center for Policing Equity. He
also serves as the inaugural Franklin A. Thomas Professor in
Policing Equity at John Jay College of Criminal Justice.
Dr. Goff received his Ph.D. and M.A. from Stanford
University and an A.B. from Harvard University.
Dr. Goff, you may begin.
STATEMENT OF PHILLIP GOFF
Mr. Goff. Thank you, Chair Nadler, Ranking Member Jordan,
and Members of the House Judiciary Committee.
[Inaudible] I want to say that we mourn with you.
To Mr. Floyd, I want to thank you, especially, for your
powerful witness in front of this body and the entire country.
I offer my deepest condolences for the circumstances that made
your presence here necessary. I want to say that your words
have moved a Nation that was already mourning with you.
To everyone gathered, it is my honor to be back before the
Committee to provide testimony on policing practices and law
enforcement accountability.
My background and training are in behavioral science. I am
the inaugural Franklin A. Thomas Professor in Policing Equity.
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.
I was one of three leads on the recently concluded Department
of Justice-funded National Initiative for Building Community
Trust and Justice.
I am likely best known for my work with the Center for
Policing Equity, the leading research and action organization
focused on equity in policing. My testimony today is in that
capacity.
CPE maintains the National Science Foundation-funded
National Justice Database, which we understand is the largest
collection of police behavioral data in the world. Our work
focuses on combining police behavioral data, psychological
survey data, and data from the U.S. Census to estimate not just
racial disparities in police outcomes, such as stops and use of
force, but the proportion of those disparities for which law
enforcement are actually responsible and can do something
about.
I have to say that what we have seen in the streets of the
United States over the past 2 weeks nearly defies description.
Some have called it massive protest; others have called it a
riot; others have called it a revolution. What I am confident
in is that what we have seen has been larger than the incident
that sparked collective outrage and is still tearing at the
fabric of our democracy.
What has spilled out onto the streets of this Nation is
even larger than our grief at the brutal extension of George
Floyd's life and the life of 1,000 citizens per year killed by
police, a number that has not changed significantly since
newspapers began cataloguing those numbers in 2015.
What we are seeing on the streets of the United States is a
``past due'' notice for the unpaid debt owed Black people for
400-plus years. If the responses to this moment are not
proportional to that debt, I fear we will continue to pay it,
with interest, again and again and again.
Turning to the complex issue of police reform, I applaud
the work of Chair Nadler and Congresswoman Bass in putting
forth a comprehensive proposal to rethink how we best hold law
enforcement accountable to the ideal of equality. The Justice
in Policing Act of 2020 contains a number of critical reforms,
including banning neck restraints and creating a national
registry of police misconduct.
In my capacity at CPE, however, I want to spend a moment
focusing on what science says about bias in policing. I feel
it's important to set a baseline, especially with all the false
information circulating in the media, given the general vacuum
in the ecosystem on evidence in this area.
First, there is no doubt that black, Native, and Latinx
people in this country have more contact with law enforcement
than do White people. There's also relative agreement that
where there are fewer public services--so fewer drug treatment,
mental health, job training programs--law enforcement has more
contact with residents.
There is evidence of racial bias in who is contacted by
police and who is targeted for force. However, it is also the
case that, clearly, not all the disparities we see are from
police policy or behavior. It is some but not all.
Given this understanding of bias in policing, what are we
to do? As we've already heard today, the most recent debate is
between institutional reform and defunding the police.
While there is no quantitative research literature on
abolishing policing, there are reasons to believe that many
within Black communities are not fully aligned with this
vision. Historical and polling results reveal that Black
communities support less biased and less deadly law enforcement
more than eliminating it. With the mood of the Nation changing
so quickly, so too may these attitudes.
Still, to the degree that a path forward involves using
police budgets to invest in Black communities, the process must
be led by evidence--evidence about what programs work, both in
policing and in communities, and evidence about where cities
can safely receive a higher return on their investment in
community empowerment.
Regardless, there is no need to wait for a decision on
police budgets to invest in our most vulnerable communities.
Wherever the country lands on police budgets, we can all agree,
the communities that have the resources to solve their own
problems and do not need to call the police in the first place
are safer communities that are better equipped to realize the
American Dream. There is no reason to avoid this obvious truth,
and there is no reason not to Act on it now.
As I previously mentioned, the Justice in Policing Act of
2020 contains the best Federal police reform package of the
bills I have before this Congress, and CPE supports its
passage.
Many of our partners in law enforcement--
Chair Nadler. Thank you.
Mr. Goff. --the chiefs who are experts on public safety,
support many of its provisions, especially the Federal ban on
neck restraints and the implementation of a national registry
of police officers who have been fired for misconduct. These
reforms are long overdue, and such commonsense reforms should
be enacted immediately.
Chair Nadler. Thank you very much. Thank you very--
Mr. Goff. More specifically, and briefly, I want to
emphasize--
Chair Nadler. Thank you.
Mr. Goff. --the need for a national registry of police
officers who've been fired for misconduct is a reform that will
increase transparency and the public's trust in law enforcement
agencies.
Chair Nadler. Thank you very much.
Mr. Goff. Doctors and lawyers, those tasked with protecting
life and liberty--as officers have to do both on their jobs
every day--those, along with many other professions, are
required to be licensed, and their employment data are shared
across State lines by appropriate entities and in appropriate
ways.
Chair Nadler. Thank you. Thank you, Dr. Goff. Your 5
minutes have expired.
[The statement of Mr. Goff follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Chair Nadler. Our next Witness is Marc Morial. Marc Morial
is the President and CEO of the National Urban League. Mr.
Morial also served as Mayor of New Orleans from 1994-2002. He
received his J.D. from Georgetown Law School and his B.A. from
the University of Pennsylvania.
Mr. Morial, you may begin.
STATEMENT OF MARC MORIAL
Mr. Morial. Thank you very much, Chair Nadler and Ranking
Member Jordan, the Members of the Committee.
To Representative Bass, thank you for your incredible
leadership on this issue.
First, we at the National Urban League strongly support the
passage of the Justice in Policing Act.
To Mr. Floyd and Ms. Underwood Jacobs, I join in sharing
our thoughts and our prayers with you on your losses. Your
courage is admirable. Thank you very much.
Between 1882-1968--that's an 86-year period--4,742 people,
mostly black, were lynched in the United States. These murders
were turned into public spectacles, with people being tortured,
mutilated, and burned in front of hundreds of spectators
mocking their deaths.
In 1922, the United States House of Representatives had the
courage to pass a bill to make lynching a Federal crime.
However, White supremacists in the United States Senate
filibustered that bill and blocked 200 attempts to pass that
bill--a blockage which continues to this day in the United
States Senate.
Imagine, if in 1922 the Congress of the United States had
demonstrated the courage to make lynching a Federal crime, how
many of those 4,742 people would not have died?
Today, we look at most recent history, and we see, from
1954-1965, dozens of civil rights activists were murdered,
including the four little girls at that Birmingham church in
1963.
This Congress, in 1964 and 1965, this Congress, with
bipartisan majorities and the courage of a Southern President
who had previously supported segregation, demonstrated the
courage and the conviction to pass the 1964 Civil Rights Act,
the 1965 Voting Rights Act, and the 1968 Fair Housing Act.
Since 2013, when Trayvon Martin was killed in Florida,
1,291 Black people have been shot and killed by the police.
Over 100 of them were unarmed.
Now, in 2020, as we stand just 6 years ago from the 250th
anniversary of this Nation, before the eyes of the world,
George Floyd was lynched on the streets of Minneapolis,
Minnesota.
The world, from Hungary to New Zealand, to Australia, to
Paris, to London, to big cities, small towns, every village,
every hamlet, every neighborhood in this Nation, have risen up
in mainly peaceful protests to simply say: Enough is enough.
Enough is enough, and Black lives matter.
This Justice in Policing Act represents a bold and clear
step forward, but an opportunity at a historic time in American
history, as to whether this Nation's elected representatives
will hear the pain, hear the cries, hear the suffering, hear
the outrage, and realize this is not the time for a de minimis,
backroom, Washington political compromise, that this is a
moment for bold and courageous action and the type of action
where, 20, 40, 60 years hence, history will ask, your children
will ask, your grandchildren will ask: Where did you stand?
Where did you stand?
This is a moment not of politics. This is not a moment of
Black or white. This is a moment of morality. It's a moment of
human decency.
This Act does a number of things. It bans some practices
that we all know have to be banned: Chokeholds, no-knock
warrants, racial profiling.
It creates a multitiered accountability system, some
through the system of the courts, in both civil and criminal
proceedings, and strengthens the hands of the Justice
Department so that it can do its job.
Chair Nadler. Thank you, Mayor Morial.
Mr. Morial. It also suggests an accreditation program.
So, let me just say one last thing, Mr. Chair, if you'll
indulge me, and I'll go back to what I said earlier.
I am asking this Congress, this body and the United States
Senate, to recognize the gravity of this moment and the
importance of this time and to stand with the people of this
Nation to say enough is enough, Black lives matter.
Chair Nadler. Thank you, Mayor Morial.
We've now heard from all the Witnesses before the
Committee. The Committee will now stand in recess for 45
minutes for lunch. As a matter of safety, there will be no
eating in this room. The Committee will reconvene in 45
minutes. The Committee is in recess.
[Recess.]
Chair Nadler. The Committee will be in order.
We will now proceed under the 5-minute rule with questions.
I will begin by recognizing myself for 5 minutes.
On May 25th, in the twilight of Memorial Day, Derek Chauvin
of the Minneapolis Police Department held his knee to George
Floyd's motionless neck and pressed his face to the pavement
for 8 minutes and 46 seconds as Mr. Floyd pleaded for relief,
repeating the words, ``I can't breathe.''
Mr. Floyd, I'm sure you've seen the video. Can you think of
any reason why Officer Chauvin would need to hold his knee on
your brother's neck for over 8 minutes?
Mr. Floyd. No, sir. I don't really know why he did it.
Personally, I think it was personal because they worked at the
same place. So, for him to do something like that, it had to be
premeditated and he wanted to do it.
Chair Nadler. Intentional.
Mr. Floyd. Yes, sir.
Chair Nadler. Now, we've learned since then that Officer
Chauvin faced at least 17 misconduct complaints during his
career on the Minneapolis police force. He was named in a
brutality lawsuit. He shot and critically wounded a man after a
brief and nonviolent confrontation.
Mr. Floyd, how did you feel when you learned about Officer
Chauvin's history of misconduct?
Mr. Floyd. He should have been off the force. Any officer
committing an Act like that shouldn't be able to get a job in
any county after they get fired. The guy--they had enough
evidence to sit there and fire them, but they didn't have
enough evidence to arrest him? I'm not understanding that.
Chair Nadler. Ms. Gupta, does this make any sense? Should
we keep police officers with long histories of misconduct
complaints on patrol?
Ms. Gupta. No, we shouldn't. It is why The Leadership
Conference has pushed for the establishment of a national
police misconduct registry. It's a national registry of all
Federal, State, and local law enforcement officials that would
be created containing information on misconduct complaints,
discipline and termination records, and records of
certification.
I will tell you, there is actually significant law
enforcement support for this kind of registry, and prosecutors
around the country have asked for this kind of registry. Chiefs
in particular have said that this is a real problem when they
don't have this kind of information when they're making hiring
decisions.
Chair Nadler. That's why we have the registry provision in
the Policing in Justice bill that we're considering.
Ms. Gupta. That's correct.
Chair Nadler. Thank you.
Now, Chief Acevedo, you manage a large urban police force.
Are repeated misconduct complaints a red flag?
Chief Acevedo. Yes, they are, Mr. Chair.
Chair Nadler. What do you think we can do about that?
Chief Acevedo. Well, we make it real clear to our officers
and our employees that none of them are cats, that you don't
get nine lives. Quite frankly, we use the tenets of progressive
discipline.
Sometimes labor will argue, why are you firing somebody if
you believe in progressive discipline? The answer is simple. If
the crime or the policy violation supports termination,
indefinite suspension, that's what we do, whether it's the
first offense or the third offense.
A pattern of misconduct cannot be tolerated, should not be
tolerated. That's why it's important to also use the pattern of
complaints, whether they're sustained or not sustained or
unfounded, to look for any type of patterns of conduct, to see
if there's any commonality, to see if we need to take a deeper
look at our employees.
Chair Nadler. So, you would think it's a good idea to have
a national registry so that one police department knew about
the misconduct of an officer at a different police department
before they hired him?
Chief Acevedo. Well, I can tell you on my individual
capacity, Mr. Chair, that I do support that concept. We've been
as an organization very busy operationally in the last 2 weeks,
and we're going to start having our deliberations on all these
matters hopefully Friday and we will come back with an official
position. I can tell you the individual chiefs that I know that
I've spoken with absolutely support it.
Having said that, even absent a national registry, it is
incumbent upon hiring agencies to do thorough backgrounds. The
internal affairs packages, complaint histories, everything is
available at the previous employing histories of departments.
So, due diligence is important with or without a registry,
but personally I do support that concept.
Chair Nadler. Thank you.
My time has expired.
Mr. Gaetz.
Mr. Gaetz. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Mr. Floyd, I don't know that the cameras picked it up or
saw it, but when Angela talked about her brother dying, I saw a
physical reaction from you. I saw you lean over in your chair.
I thought I noticed your body even tremble with empathy and
care for Angela and her brother Pat who passed away.
If you could say anything to the people who killed Pat,
what would it be?
Mr. Floyd. Life is precious. Everybody should be able to
live and be able to walk this Earth in a journey that they want
to. Nobody should have to be filled with hatred and so much
animosity that they want to kill somebody.
Dr. King said a long time ago he wanted everybody around
the world to be able to join hands together. I think right now,
if he was here right now, he would understand that the world is
united right now and we all are coming together.
Mr. Gaetz. That is so powerful, and I deeply thank you for
that. I want to test that sense of unity.
Mr. Chair, if we could get the Witnesses who are joining
remotely to be on the screen so we could see them, I have a
question I would like to ask everyone. I apologize for the
crude nature in which I have to ask this but there's just so
many Witnesses.
If you believe that we should defund the police, will you
please raise your hand?
Yes, is there anyone on the--okay. So, that's unifying and
wonderful that here we are gathered--
Ms. Ifill. Can you tell me--can you please tell me--excuse
me.
Mr. Gaetz. I'm sorry.
Ms. Ifill. I actually have an answer to that question.
Mr. Gaetz. Well, I'm sure someone will be able to ask you
that question, but I have limited time here.
I didn't see anyone raise their hand to defund the police.
I certainly didn't see any of the Republican Witnesses.
Ms. Ifill. I take issue with the way you asked the
question.
Mr. Gaetz. So, I'm going to now go through and see where
that sentiment may have been reflected.
Here's a tweet from two of our congressional colleagues
supporting this group Black Visions Minnesota.
The next, please.
Then here's that group, that same group, Black Visions
Minnesota, that my congressional colleagues are raising money
for, saying that they should--we should end the police.
Can we go to the next one?
Then here's that same organization retweeting: Rebel scum,
abolish the police.
Then here's the same group saying that instead of police we
need therapists, doctors, and street medics, not cops.
Mr. Bongino, in your experience, every time someone calls
911, would a therapist or a medic be sufficient or sometime do
people need cops?
Mr. Bongino. I'm quite unclear how a medic is going to help
with an armed subject who is assaulting his wife in a domestic
violence situation or elsewhere. I'm not sure how that's going
to be of any value.
Mr. Gaetz. Here again is that same group saying that we
need lasers to disorient surveillance cameras and we need water
balloons filled with milk to throw at people. Again, this is
the organization that my congressional colleagues are raising
money to support.
If we could go to the next one.
Then here again that same organization that multiple
Members of Congress are supporting saying it's not enough to
only abolish police or prisons. We need to abolish race,
abolish ICE, abolish the military, abolish the State, abolish
the borders.
Again, this is what our colleagues are raising money for.
It's not just any Member of Congress. It's actually one of our
treasured colleagues on the Judiciary Committee, the gentlelady
from Washington, raising money for this very same organization.
Ms. Underwood Jacobs, your brother is someone who was part
of this law enforcement community when he gave his life. When
you learn that my colleagues in Congress are raising money for
an organization that promotes defunding the police, destroying
our borders, defunding our military, and taking apart the State
all together, how does that make you feel?
Ms. Underwood Jacobs. Actually, I find that conduct to be
deplorable. We elect officials to represent everyone. The idea
to have our communities without protection and safety is wrong.
So, my response to that would be for people to get out and
vote and get the right person in office to ensure that we feel
protected and our children feel protected for generations to
come.
Mr. Gaetz. Well, I appreciate that greatly.
Mr. Floyd, again, I appreciate your calls not only today,
but in the direct aftermath of your brother's killing. You
showed grace and care for your fellow Americans. I don't know
if everyone is religious, but I do believe God is working
through you to try to call us together.
Finally, I wanted to thank Ms. Bass for the legislation
she's introduced and that constellation of ideas. While I think
that we can fine tune elements to ensure that we don't defund
the police, that we don't make our communities less safe, I do
think there is not a legitimate defense of chokeholds or
lynching or bad cops that get shuttled around. You will be able
to count on Republican cooperation as we hone these ideas and
hopefully pass them and get them to the President's desk.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I yield back.
Chair Nadler. The gentleman yields back.
Ms. Lofgren.
Ms. Lofgren. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
First, let me say what a transformational few weeks this
has been since the murder of Mr. Floyd. I am grateful to my
constituents and those around the country who have marched
peacefully to raise the issue of justice in our country.
I am grateful to Karen Bass and the Congressional Black
Caucus, as well as you, Mr. Chair, for your work in putting
this bill together.
I think it's important to State at the outset what this
hearing is about and what it isn't about. It's really about
this bill and how we can improve the State of policing in the
United States.
I've heard several people talk about funding for law
enforcement. We did that when we passed the HEROES Act. We
provided funds for local governments to address issues in their
communities, whether it's health or public safety, and we all
know that it is the local communities that organize their
public safety response, not the Federal Government.
However, when there are police, we want to make sure that
those police operate in a legal way that doesn't use violence
against people who pose no violent threat. That's why I would
like to ask Ms. Ifill if she could address these two questions.
First, we've incorporated the PEACE Act into this bill,
which basically outlines when the use of deadly force is
appropriate. That, coupled with the new standard for
unwillfulness, that would provide accountability, is my
question to you. Will those two measures help prevent violence
against people who are not posing a violent threat?
Ms. Ifill. Thank you very much, Representative Lofgren. I
at some point would love to and welcome the opportunity to talk
about the funding issue. Let me answer the question that you
asked.
One of the principal problems that we have found in this
longstanding systemic issue of police violence against unarmed
African Americans is the inability to hold officers who engage
in misconduct accountable.
Now, this is not just about the individual officer who some
refer to as a bad apple. This is about a system of
accountability that must exist if police officers are to
understand that they cannot engage in certain kinds of conduct
without impunity.
Unfortunately, all the legal tools that are available to us
to hold officers accountable have been weakened or lack the
sufficient strength and language to allow us to do so.
So, strengthening the language of the Federal criminal
statute that will not hold us to such a high standard in
proving intent of the officer's conduct is critical. So, adding
a recklessness provision into that language that will allow us
to get at some of this officer conduct is vitally important.
What I suggested earlier, qualified immunity on the civil
side, is vitally important to removing that defense to ensuring
that we can hold officers accountable. I've spoken to many
police officers about the culture of impunity around these
killings and around these acts of brutality. They know, just as
anyone who is in a system knows, whether they are lawyers,
whether they are doctors, whether they are police officers,
that accountability is critical to influencing behavior.
Unfortunately, our legal system has failed in providing
that accountability. What this bill tries to do is to go into
those statutes where the language either isn't sufficiently
strong or where courts have interpreted the language in such a
way as to remove the power of the statute to put the tools back
into the hands of the Department of Justice, but also private
attorneys and civil rights attorneys, so that they can use the
law to hold officers accountable.
Ms. Lofgren. Thank you, Ms. Ifill. Thank you very much. My
time is just about expired.
I would just like to note that for many years African
Americans have been mistreated in many cases, in many
communities by law enforcement. The multiethnic, broad,
peaceful protests that have arisen around our country that have
been met also with violence I think have opened the eyes of
Americans across the United States about the need for reform. I
think this is an important step forward, and I'm grateful to be
a part of it.
I thank you, Mr. Chair. I yield back.
Chair Nadler. The gentlelady yields back.
Mr. Sensenbrenner.
Mr. Sensenbrenner. Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
When I turned the TV on the day after Memorial Day and saw
the brutal murder of George Floyd, it made me sick. The
depravity that was exhibited there really burned in my soul.
I would like to say, Mr. Floyd, that not only am I
personally sad and express my condolences to you and your
family, but the pain of your brother I think has become the
pain of America. It's up to us to constructively deal with this
so that we can do more than just have a press release and make
a difference.
After your brother died there were a lot of people who
legitimately exercised their constitutional rights to
peacefully protest. There were some who came in that didn't
want to peacefully protest, and as a result we had riots and
arson and burning, and people, both protesters as well as
police, became injured as a result of that.
That, in my opinion, ended up attempting to destroy the
legacy of your brother. The people who did decide to raise
mayhem are going to have to account for that sooner or later,
whether it's in a court of law or elsewhere.
I think we have to recognize one thing, and we've heard
about this from some of the Witnesses as well as in the news
media, and that is, is that there are good caps and there are
bad cops. If the police end up being defunded, which I think
would be a horrible idea, let's look at what the consequence
will be.
First, the consequence would be, if there are no police,
there will be vigilantism. I would submit to you that there
will probably be more racism if people take the law into their
own hands than if they relied on the police to investigate
crimes and to protect the public.
Second, is that it would hurt the good cops. Ninty-nine
percent of the people who serve in law enforcement and put
their lives on the line every day of the year are good cops.
They want to enforce the law. They don't want to harm anybody,
and they know that their job is to protect the public. These
are the cops, if money were taken away, that would end up
either losing their job or not getting pay raises or maybe even
getting pay cuts. That would be a travesty of justice, in my
opinion.
Now, having said that, I want to turn to my Democratic
colleagues. A lot of the police union activity that we have
seen has been to protect bad cops. The police unions in this
country--and my Democratic colleagues have more friends in
those unions than we Republicans do--are going to have to step
up to the plate and to be cooperative with communities in
getting rid of the bad cops.
I heard that George Floyd's assailant had 16 allegations of
misconduct against him. Why was he still on the force? That was
just an invitation to more misconduct. Unfortunately, Mr.
Floyd, your brother ended up being the victim of that.
So, I would hope that as this debate goes on we have
speedier resolutions of getting rid of bad cops. I see nothing
wrong with having a bad cop database, but having a database
isn't going to get somebody fired who ought to be fired. The
sooner we get the bad cops off the force, the sooner there will
no longer be any bad apples to spoil the whole barrel.
I look forward with working with all of you, but you guys
over on the other side of the aisle, and gals, are going to
have to be very proactive in telling police unions that it is
in their interest and in the interest of the vast majority of
their Membership to get rid of bad cops.
I yield back.
Chair Nadler. The gentleman yields back.
Ms. Jackson Lee.
Ms. Jackson Lee. Thank you, Mr. Chair, for the leadership,
and the leadership of this entire Committee, and of course the
Congressional Black Caucus that we are privileged to work with.
My very deep sympathy, Ms. Jacobs, to you. No one should
die on the streets of this Nation. We thank you for your
brother's service.
Let me speak to my family and constituent from Houston to
let you know that George Floyd, your brother, your big brother,
should not have died on the streets of Minneapolis. He did not
deserve to die. He was an innocent person. The 8 minutes and 46
seconds which we knelt to reflect was so painfully long that
the stain and the impact will be seared in our souls forever.
You have to carry this in your heart.
So, today I think the good news is that the George Floyd
Law Enforcement Trust and Integrity bill already named is
incorporated in this bill, and the Justice in Policing Act is a
legislative reconstruct to do what you've asked us to do, to do
what those who are on the streets, who are young and Black and
brown, White and Asian, are crying out, and we need to hear
them. I want to say that I have heard them.
So, Mr. Floyd, if you would, there are many things that you
have said. I believe in harmony. Do you believe that race
impacted what happened to your brother?
Mr. Floyd. I believe--yes, ma'am, I believe that because
George, wherever he goes, he impacts the place. He talks to a
lot of people. He's just a gentle giant. So, at that club, and
Mr. Chauvin worked there, I know that he knew him. Everybody
knew him. The mayor knew him. He killed my brother just because
he didn't like him, and it has to be racist. It has to be
something to do with racism.
Ms. Jackson Lee. We must get rid of the stain of race.
In this legislation is an emphasis on discerning what
executive force is, accreditation.
Chief Acevedo, if you can emphasize the importance of
having standards and accreditation of the huge numbers of
police departments very quickly for us, please. Chief Acevedo,
thank you for your leadership.
Chief Acevedo. Thank you, Congresswoman. Thank you for your
leadership and for your advocacy in Washington.
We have 18,000 police departments in this Nation with
18,000 sets of rules, policies, regulations, and 18,000 levels
of accountability and training.
We really believe--I believe, and I can tell you that I
believe once we discuss this as a group with the major city
chiefs, that we absolutely have to have national standards when
it comes to critical policies, training regimens, and
oversight. So, we are prepared to be part of that conversation
and look forward to the conversation.
Ms. Jackson Lee. Thank you.
Mr. Crump, you have seen a lot of these cases. You might
very briefly for me indicate race. Holding police accountable,
taking away this barrier of qualified immunity, but
additionally getting back to consent decrees. If you could
quickly respond to that.
I have a question for Mr. Butler, but you--and let me thank
you for being there from the litany of names, including Eric
Garner and Trayvon Martin. We have been together, and there's a
long list that I am not ignoring, Michael Brown. Thank you very
much.
Mr. Crump. Yes, ma'am, Congresswoman, and thank you for
your leadership.
To answer your question directly, immunity breeds impunity
for these police. If they have this qualified immunity, we see
no accountability. It allows for all those names, all those
Black Lives Matter names to keep adding up, adding up, and
adding up.
So, we need that there. We need the registry. We need to
attack this like it's an epidemic on Black people because
that's what we see happening in our communities.
Ms. Jackson Lee. This is about misconduct, Professor
Butler. I'm glad to be able to say that we know there are good
police officers. Help us understand--and Mr. Morial gave us a
history of slavery and the stain of it--how much of that stain
permeates into policing when they go into the African American
community and deal with African American men.
The mike.
Mr. Butler. Far too often, Congresswoman, officers view
themselves as warriors, and it's almost as though the
communities they serve experience them as occupying forces.
There's been so much attention to the pandemic and how
we're going to find a treatment. For this epidemic of police
violence, we already have a treatment. President Obama's
commission on 21st century policing recommended commonsense
reforms, many of which are contained in the Justice Act of
2020.
So, we don't have to reinvent anything. We know exactly
what to do now to make police departments more accountable and
transparent. The question is, will your colleagues have the
will to implement these commonsense measures.
Chair Nadler. The gentlelady's time is expired.
Ms. Jackson Lee. Well, I believe we can change the
policing, Mr. Chair.
Chair Nadler. The gentlelady's time is expired.
Mr. Gohmert.
Ms. Jackson Lee. I look forward to changing the bill's name
to George Floyd Bill.
Chair Nadler. Mr. Gohmert.
Ms. Jackson Lee. Thank you so very much.
Mr. Gohmert. Thank you.
Appreciate all of you being here. We know it is very
difficult, especially for those of you that have lost loved
ones. You have our deepest sympathy, as do all those families
that have lost loved ones in the aftermath.
This is a serious issue. Mr. Floyd, it's a comfort to a lot
of us, especially those of us who are Christians, to see the
way in which you've carried yourself. You've asked for people
to refrain from violence. We don't need it to lead to worse
violence. That was atrocious. It's just hard to watch the video
and not feel great sympathy for your brother and great sympathy
for you and your family.
So, it's nice when we get together and talk about potential
solutions. Hopefully, the majority will allow more input than
the zero input we've had on the bill so far. It also is
important to look at different proposals.
We've heard some say on television let's get rid of--defund
the police, get rid of them. Some are saying let's get rid of
the qualified immunity that police have so they don't get sued
by every single person they come in contact with.
As a judge, I had judicial immunity, and the thing is, it's
a qualified immunity. It's not there if you're violating the
law, and that's as it should be.
As we look at solutions, and it's been brought up by
others, but the police unions have defended bad apples. If you
talk to police, if you know police, heard Dan Bongino talk
about it, they know who the bad apples are, and most of them
don't want to have anything to do with them. They don't want to
be on patrol with them. They don't want to work with them.
So, how do we get rid of them? I personally have seen where
you have a bad apple at the top and some righteous
whistleblower has retaliation against them, and the unions have
come in and appropriately defended them.
When it comes to eliminating qualified immunity, I've seen
what happened with teachers. I had a bill to eliminate--or to
create qualified immunity for teachers, educational immunity.
The teachers group never had got on board. I was told it was
because they make so much money selling liability insurance to
their members. I'm afraid it might be a cash cow for the
unions, but that's not what this needs to be about.
Let me just ask you, Mr. Floyd, if somebody conspires to
lynch somebody else, do you think a 10-year maximum sentence
would be appropriate?
You're shaking your head. Thank you.
Mr. Floyd. No.
Mr. Gohmert. Okay. Yeah. Well, I agree with you. Bobby
Rush, he's a fine man, a just wonderful heart, good-hearted
man. He had a bill that will make a life sentence if you
conspire to participate.
I said, ``Bobby, it should be a life sentence. Why is it
now 10-year max?'' He said, ``Well, you know, I had it at life
maximum sentence, but I was told if it was going to pass the
House it had to be brought down to 10 years.'' Well, I think
that's an insult.
I know the Emmett Till bill is part of this overall bill,
but I would hope we would come together and say 10 years for
conspiring to lynch is not an adequate maximum punishment.
Maybe it needs to be lower in a given case, but let's have life
in there as the penalty, and I would hope to see that.
I know Chuck Colson once said, our hope in America will not
arrive on Air Force One. Pastor Scott, I have imminent respect
for you. Where is your hope for America?
Mr. Scott. My hope for America is the Lord Jesus Christ. I
believe that our country was founded on Christian principles,
that we've invoked the name of God and the presence of God, and
I believe the hand of God was upon this Nation in its founding.
Let me say this. When I saw the video of George Floyd--
Chair Nadler. The time of the Member has expired.
Mr. Cohen.
Mr. Gohmert. Can he finish his answer?
Chair Nadler. Mr. Cohen.
Mr. Gohmert. I guess we'll have to have you do by video and
then you can just keep going.
Mr. Cohen. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Appreciate it.
Chair Nadler. Your mike. Your mike.
Mr. Cohen. Thank you.
H.R. 7120 contains in it a change in qualified immunity,
basically an elimination of qualified immunity, and that's
important and it's good. Mr. Amash got out on front on that,
and Mr. Nadler and Mr. Butterfield and I had a bill on it too
and others. It's an important part of civil rights litigation.
The employer has to be made responsible as well. Because of
that, I'm going to propose a bill to have a respondeat superior
relationship with the employer and make part of that reform
that respondeat superior will apply to 1983 civil rights
actions.
Mr. Crump, in your experience with civil rights actions,
and I know you've got a lot, would having a respondeat superior
relationship with the employer be effective in seeing that the
conduct that was improper was changed?
Mr. Crump. Absolutely. Also, I think qualified immunity, as
I've said earlier, allows for police to Act with impunity. I
think there's a reason we see Black men mostly but also Black
women being killed by police over and over again and nobody
ever being held accountable in either criminal or civil, and
this qualified immunity, almost as if we're condoning it,
almost as if Black lives don't matter. That's why hopefully
with this moment we can do something to change that.
Mr. Cohen. Thank you, sir.
Mayor Morial, part of this bill is a different forum for
judging police misconduct, an independent prosecutor to
determine if a law enforcement officer may have violated the
law in using deadly force or force at all.
You've been a mayor of a major city. You helped clean up
the New Orleans Police Department when you were there, and that
was a tough thing to do.
How do you feel a provision, which we've got in this bill
and which Ms. Gupta had in her recommendations, to have an
independent prosecutor would help restore confidence in the
public?
Mr. Morial. I think it's an essential element. The working
relationship between the normal prosecutor, whether it's a
State's attorney, a District attorney at the local level, and
the police department is a hand-in-glove relationship.
Therefore, friendships are developed, a working relationship is
developed, and it becomes difficult sometimes for local
prosecutors to indeed investigate and bring charges against
police departments or police officers.
In the Federal system you'll find sometimes the same thing,
right, where United States attorneys may work very closely with
the FBI, may work very closely with local law enforcement on
joint task forces and strike forces to ferret out crime. So,
independent prosecutors.
I also think it would allow for there to be expertise,
teams of investigators that understand these sorts of cases.
It's just an idea whose time has come.
The record, unfortunately, has been, whether it's in
Ferguson with Prosecutor McCulloch, whether it's been in the
Eric Garner case with the Staten Island district attorney, and
you could cite numerous examples of just instances where many
times these local prosecutors cannot bring themselves to bring
charges even when the evidence is clear.
So, I think this is a reform whose time has come. I think
it's a reform that it should not be difficult for people to
agree to, and I think it would be a vast improvement over the
status quo.
Mr. Cohen. Thank you, sir.
With the local prosecutor you also have--the police unions
make endorsements, as do the Deputy Sheriffs' Association, and
they endorse the DA or they don't endorse the DA, and they make
contributions as well. So, while it is the hand-in-glove
relationship being witnesses and a lot of former officers end
up being investigators for the DA, they also have that
political problem.
Mr. Morial. You're absolutely right, Congressman Cohen, and
that working relationship is so close and so substantial.
Mr. Cohen. This bill also--that was another bill I had that
I worked with Lacy Clay on and it's part of this bill is
requirement of reportage of deadly force incidents.
It would help me now--I tried to do so some research myself
and maybe you can help me--the most egregious civil rights
cases I know of are ones where White officers killed Black
officers--Black citizens unlawfully. Garner, Floyd, necks,
shootings, whatever.
Other than St. Paul, Minnesota, I didn't see any--this is
where Black officers were alleged to have done the same type of
thing. Is it because we don't have statistics to know it, or is
there something that is said about a systemic racism?
Mr. Morial. I will say this. We had instances in New
Orleans where Black officers killed Black citizens. I can't
think of an instance where a Black officer killed--I can think
of an instance, one instance where a Black officer killed a
White citizen. They may be aberrations--
Mr. Cohen. Were those lawful? Was it lawful actions?
Mr. Morial. No, not lawful at all.
Mr. Cohen. No.
Mr. Morial. No. They were acts of misconduct and acts of
brutality. I think there's a great database that The Washington
Post has that pretty much over the last 5 years can give you
pretty much chapter and verse on all killings of citizens by
police.
Mr. Cohen. Thank you. I yield back the balance of my time.
Chair Nadler. The Member yields back.
Mr. Chabot.
Mr. Chabot. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Mr. Floyd and Ms. Jacobs, it took tremendous courage for
both of you to come here today when you're still grieving the
loss of your brothers. I hope we can honor their memory by
enacting meaningful reforms that prevent future senseless acts
of violence and begin a healing process that makes us a
stronger, more unified Nation.
I also want to thank the other Witnesses for appearing
today and helping us to determine what changes ought to be
made. We must enact reforms that ensure accountability for
police misconduct, not defund, or dismantle police departments.
I represent the First Congressional District of Ohio, which
includes most of the city of Cincinnati. Nearly two decades
ago, in 2001, an African American young man named Timothy
Thomas was fatally shot by a police officer in the Over-The-
Rhine neighborhood in Cincinnati.
Following protests and civil unrest, unfortunately
including rioting, police representatives, community leaders,
and city and Federal officials entered into something called
the Collaborative Agreement with the goal of building a
positive, constructive relationship between the Cincinnati
Police Department and the neighborhoods that they serve.
Reaching the agreement required everyone involved putting aside
their political agendas and working together.
What did the Collaborative Agreement do? Well, it addressed
use-of-force situations, called for de-escalation training for
the police, body cameras, and formed a citizen complaint
authority, among other things.
Once the framework of the agreement was in place then
Senator Mike DeWine, who is now our governor, then Congressman
Rob Portman, who is now in the Senate, and I worked closely
together to help secure the Federal funding needed to implement
its provisions.
The results haven't been perfect, but we've seen a dramatic
improvement in Cincinnati police-community relations. Trust and
good will have been restored. Arrests and serious crimes have
decreased in Cincinnati. Excessive use of force by police
officers has also decreased, as has violence against police
officers.
Perhaps most importantly, when problems do arise, they're
handled in a predominantly civil, respectful manner due to
years of cooperation and direct, honest communication between
the police and our communities.
Given the success we've had in Cincinnati, perhaps the
Collaborative Agreement could be the starting point for other
cities across the country who need to repair police-community
relations. The process required to craft such an agreement can
lead to better communication, understanding, and if undertaken
seriously, greater respect between all parties involved.
Mr. Bongino, I'll start with you if I can. Is this the
direction that you think perhaps American cities ought to move
towards if they want to improve police-community relations?
Mr. Bongino. I think it's a terrific idea. I can tell you,
the sheriff in Martin County, where I live and reside, now has
made a concerted effort to do outreach before there's a
problem.
Now, having said that, those collaborations can and do
work. The problem that I see during my experience as a police
officer--or saw, as I should say, back in the late 1990s--is
you can develop all the relationships you want and they can be
very productive and friendly, but if they become
omnidirectional--excuse me, one way, not omnidirectional, but
one way instead of bidirectional, you're not going to get
anywhere.
What I mean by that is if people are afraid to go to those
contacts in the police department that they've made and
established relationships with because the local drug dealer
basically has them under constant threat and effectively house
arrest, you're going to get nothing out of that.
Again, let me just be crystal clear, it's a terrific idea.
There is nothing but positive externalities to be generated
from that. If you can't establish a framework of safety and
security, it's not going to be a bidirectional relationship and
it will be useless. Citizens have to be able to come forward to
the contacts they made knowing they're not going to be attacked
or criminalized later on or retaliated against. That security
comes first.
Mr. Chabot. Thank you very much.
Let me just conclude with this. We need to find a better
way to interact as a society, to work with each other, and have
the police and the communities that they work with actually
work together and talk. We need to put aside our differences
and listen to each other and focus on those things that unite
us rather than divide us.
Finally, we owe it to our children and our grandchildren,
to the future of this Nation, to dedicate ourselves to the
principle that all men and all women are created equal.
Again, I want to particularly thank Ms. Underwood Jacobs
and Mr. Floyd for being here today, and really all the
Witnesses. Hopefully, we can have both parties working together
to actually accomplish something here and not just point
fingers and blame the other side. So, let's hope we can do
that. You've helped to bring that together today. So, thank you
very much.
I yield back.
Chair Nadler. The gentleman yields back.
Let me simply note that if Members ask questions of remote
Witnesses, you should mute your mike while the Witness answers
the question remotely.
Mr. Johnson.
Mr. Johnson of Georgia. Thank you, Mr. Chair, for holding
this incredibly important hearing.
Chair Nadler. Use your mike.
Mr. Johnson of Georgia. Thank you for holding this hearing.
I thank the Witnesses for being here to help us forge a new
path forward, a path to a place where Black men and women
cannot be murdered in the streets with impunity by those sworn
to protect them.
Mr. Floyd, know that we grieve with you and your family on
the loss of your brother, and my heartfelt condolences go out
to you and to your entire family.
Ms. Underwood Jacobs, I offer my sincere condolences to you
and your family on the loss of your dear brother.
Mayor Morial, throughout recent times we've seen repeated
instances where Black people, often unarmed, have been killed
by a police officer and if the death results in a use-of-force
investigation, that investigation most often is conducted by
the law enforcement agency that employs the officer who used
the deadly force. Isn't that correct?
Mr. Morial. That's traditionally the way it works.
Mr. Johnson of Georgia. Professor Butler, we've also
witnessed these use-of-force investigations being overseen by
the local district attorney who works hand in hand, day after
day, year after year with the same officer and with the agency
that employs the officer who used the deadly force in the case
that's under investigation. Isn't that correct?
Mr. Butler. Yes, sir.
Mr. Johnson of Georgia. Attorney Crump, we've seen time and
time again that the investigation becomes long and drawn out,
and at some point months or even years later the local
prosecutor takes that case before a secret grand jury, and out
of that grand jury usually comes what's called a no bill, which
is a refusal to indict the officer who committed the homicide.
Isn't that correct?
Mr. Crump. Yes, sir, Congressman Johnson.
Mr. Johnson of Georgia. Professor Butler, because grand
jury proceedings are secret, the public never learns exactly
what the prosecutor presented to the grand jury. Isn't that
correct?
Mr. Butler. Just like the grand jury proceeding in Staten
Island with Eric Garner, who was placed in an illegal
chokehold, we have no idea why that grand jury didn't indict
that officer for murder.
Mr. Johnson of Georgia. It becomes just another justified
killing of a Black person by the police in America.
Wouldn't it be fairer if the homicide investigation were
undertaken by an independent police agency, Attorney Gupta?
Ms. Gupta. I think it would. It would also give the
community Members much more faith in their legal system if
there was an independent investigator in these kinds of cases.
Mr. Johnson of Georgia. Attorney Ifill, wouldn't it be
better for the use-of-force investigation to be overseen by an
independent prosecutor?
Ms. Ifill. Without question.
Mr. Johnson of Georgia. Professor Butler, wouldn't it
inspire public confidence and trust if the law required
transparency in the investigation and that the results of the
independent investigation be made available to the citizenry
within a reasonable period of time, but not 2 years later like
in the Michael Brown case in Ferguson?
Mr. Butler. Yes, Congressman. When an officer dishonors her
badge by committing a crime, she should receive the same
process as any other criminal.
Mr. Johnson of Georgia. Attorney Ifill, do you believe that
the Justice in Policing Act should require the withholding of
Federal grant funding to police agencies when the States in
which they operate do not require independent deadly force
investigations overseen by an independent prosecutor and police
agency in police use-of-force, deadly use-of-force
investigations?
Ms. Ifill. I believe there needs to be an entire overhaul
of the funding that goes from the Federal Government to the
Department of Justice to local police departments to ensure
that they comply with title 6 of the Civil Rights Act of 1964,
which prohibits the Federal Government from giving money to
local programs that engage in discrimination.
One way to ensure that there is not [inaudible] is to
ensure that there are independent investigations of police
killings of unarmed Americans and particularly unarmed African
Americans.
Mr. Johnson of Georgia. Thank you.
Last, Attorney Gupta, many police officers are protected
from being questioned in use-of-force investigations because of
so-called cooling-off periods mandated under State law like in
Minnesota or under labor contracts negotiated by police unions
like the Fraternal Order of Police.
Cooling-off periods prohibit investigators from
interviewing an accused officer for a period ranging from, say,
48 hours to sometimes as long as 10 days after an incident.
They give police officers a chance to learn the facts uncovered
in the investigation and to create their story lines, get their
story lines straight. Cooling-off periods for police officers
can undermine the integrity of investigations into police
misconduct. Isn't that correct?
Ms. Gupta. That's correct.
Mr. Johnson of Georgia. Is it time for the Federal law to
mandate restrictions on cooling-off periods, as has been
mandated by Department of Justice consent decrees with police
departments in Los Angeles, Seattle, New Orleans, Albuquerque,
and Portland?
Ms. Gupta. Yes. The Justice Department specifically put
those provisions into consent decrees because they were a real
problem, not only in individual investigations but, frankly,
undermined the community's faith in the independence and
fairness of an investigation with setting up two different sets
of rules for people.
Chair Nadler. Thank you. The gentleman's time is expired.
Mr. Collins.
Mr. Collins. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Coming together today, I'm reminded of something this
Committee has done before, and it goes back to Old Testament
scripture: ``Come now, let us reason together.'' What the
scripture is telling us is, is that we've been confronted with
a problem, and the question is for us is, how do we deal with
it? We've been confronted with the issue. The question is, how
do we deal with it?
What's concerning, and as I see this today--and for Mr.
Floyd and Ms. Jacobs, the loss and the realness in your body
language, in your eyes, and in your voice--is the pain of a
Nation right now coming to grips with conflicting issues and
values in their head, wanting a safe and civil society in which
all of us get along in a way that should and in a society we
know doesn't. When you see your loved one murdered, when you
find out your loved one was murdered, in a time in which we're
just all struggling.
It is not surprising to this Committee. It's unfortunate
for this Committee because in the previous Congress we actually
had a police working group in which we went to Houston. Chief
Acevedo was there. We worked and we had a good couple of days
of meetings. We went to Detroit. We went to Atlanta. We also
had meetings here. We were beginning these conversations, but
we didn't continue. When this new Congress set in, we didn't do
anything.
Now, we're here again faced with a crisis of the moment,
and Congress, unfortunately, lives by this seeming decree: Put
it off until we have to have a hearing like this and we mourn
the loss of the things most precious to us.
My question is really, what can we do?
Ms. Jacobs, you said something earlier. It's talking about
communities and jobs. It's about putting our communities
together. The policing issues.
As someone who is a son of a law enforcement officer--my
father was a State trooper--I sympathize with it, I watched it.
One of the most grievous days in my father's ever memory is
I remember when one of his own did something horribly wrong and
they took him to prison. The reason is, is he come home, and I
remember him being down, and he looked at me and he said, ``The
problem is,'' he said, ``everybody thinks I did it.'' He said,
``We've got to get rid of that.''
What have we done? There are things that we can do to help
our communities. This Committee came together on the First Step
Act, on criminal justice reform, sentencing reform, working
with the Senate to actually make a difference in our
communities, to actually take the President, who signed that,
who made it a pillar of what he wants to do and signed it,
that's what a Committee together can do. We've not done that
here.
We've actually took--and I worked with the late Elijah
Cummings, Chair of the Fair Chance Act. We talk about jobs?
Then the Fair Chance Act was giving those with a criminal
record a fair shot at applying for jobs because we unchecked
the box, where they wouldn't have to go through a screening
beforehand. Let's see if they can actually set on their own and
try a new chance in life. It's about making our communities
whole again.
Yet, there are things in this bill that we can all agree
on, but there are things in this bill that I wish we would take
a little more time with, that we would just sit back and say,
what is this going to happen?
We've had task forces set up with the Justice Action
Network, COVID-19 Emergency Justice Task Force, that looked at
how we deal with our prison populations. A solicitor from my
hometown, Stephanie Woodard, was a part of that. Others have
been a part. This is a time for conversations to find good
answers without unintended consequences.
Mr. Bongino, I have a question for you, and it's been sort
of intimated. Are there things about this that concern you, not
that they're not ideas that need to be discussed, but when you
look at some of the issues around qualified immunity, some of
the micromanagement in this bill, what concerns you when you
see this from a law enforcement perspective?
Mr. Bongino. Well, as the great Thomas Sowell says often,
it's not what you do, it's asking, ``And then what?''
Listen, I get it. There are serious issues with qualified
immunity. Nobody on the panel is wrong or the Witnesses either
bringing them up. There's no question about that. We're in full
agreement.
The problem is, if you were to repeal qualified immunity,
have you considered the, ``And then what?''
Have you considered the fact that police officers' legal
bills, some who may, in fact, deserve it for doing an awful
job, but some who may not, will be so oppressive that you won't
have police officers?
Have you considered the fact that some of these police
officers, out of fear of the rather litigious society we live
in now, unfortunately, will now be afraid in the street to go
and do their jobs and be proactive in communities that need it
most? I mean, has anybody asked that question, or are we just
gaffing that off to create an interesting sound bite?
The ``Then What?'' matters here, folks. Qualified immunity
has issues. You can work around the edges, but the margins
matter here.
Mr. Collins. I think what we're bringing up here is not an
issue that we don't need to discuss. When we were discussing
this through our police working group, we went to these
communities.
I appreciate what you said, that it has to go both ways.
The community and the police have to have these conversations
both ways.
I am concerned here, and I appreciate that concern, because
this is heading to where I know it always heads here. This is
the hearing. Next week we mark up a bill. Next week it goes to
the floor. Then we hope the Senate does something. Then we sort
of go back and forth and hope that it gets right.
My hope is that, Mr. Chair, we get this right. We did it
before, let's make it happen again, and take the comments of
these committees on both sides, Mr. Crump and everybody.
We can work on this. I've done it before. This Committee
has a history of working together. Let's do this, and let's get
with the President and the Senate and make a difference so that
lives are valued.
Yield back.
Chair Nadler. The time of the gentleman has expired.
Mr. Deutch.
Mr. Deutch. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thanks to all our
Witnesses for being here today. Ms. Underwood Jacobs, I'm sorry
for your loss. Mr. Floyd, I'm sorry for your loss.
We're here today because of the long and growing list of
Black Americans whose lives were taken from us prematurely at
the hands of police. That's why we're here. George Floyd is the
latest. Breonna Taylor, Sandra Bland, Philando Castile, Michael
Brown, Tamir Rice, Eric Garner, and far, far too many others.
We're here today to keep this list from getting even one
name longer. In this moment, we must dedicate and rededicate
ourselves to working toward a more just and inclusive country.
The violence and disregard for human life is what people
were sickened by when they saw that awful video, Mr. Floyd. The
fact that so many have marched, representing the true diversity
of our country, led by young people, all in the face of a
pandemic to speak out for others shows just how tired our
Nation, our entire Nation, all of us, are of seeing Black
person after Black person killed by the police.
The thousands and thousands of peaceful protesters across
this Nation deserve our attention. They deserve action. The
Justice in Policing Act is comprehensive reform that tackles
the scourge of police brutality that has plagued communities of
color year after year, brutality that undermines and tarnishes
the invaluable contributions of the honorable law enforcement
officers who are just as heartsick as the rest of us at this
problem.
What we saw in the video of George Floyd's murder was the
complete indifference to pain. Mr. Floyd was experiencing pain,
and it was indifference to that human suffering, indifference
to a death that was taking place in plain view. The
indifference was cultivated by a culture without consequences.
That's why we must provide accountability.
We need better data collection on police misconduct and use
of force. We need fair and thorough investigations by DOJ's
Civil Rights Division that starts by giving them subpoena power
to investigate allegations of police misconduct. We need to
know that police officers who violate the civil rights of Black
Americans can be held accountable for their actions in a court
of law.
For Breonna Taylor, who was shot in her own home while the
actual suspects the police were looking for were in police
custody, we need to end the practice of no-knock warrants. For
Sandra Bland, who was found dead in a jail cell 3 days after
being stopped for a minor traffic violation, and for Philando
Castile, who was shot five times while seated in his car during
a traffic stop, we need to require police officers to wear body
cameras and to require police vehicles to use dashboard
cameras.
For Tamir Rice, a child who was shot by police while
playing in a park with a toy gun, we need to help communities
reform public safety and change the culture of law enforcement.
For Eric Garner--and yes, Philonise, for your brother George--
we need to outlaw chokeholds.
The Justice in Policing Act does all this. It will provide
accountability. It will provide transparency.
For our Witnesses, I'd like to focus on what happens when
troubled officers leave or are fired by one agency, they move
to another, a system where police officers evade sanctions
simply by moving jobs. We don't accept this for doctors who
care for us, we don't accept this for lawyers who defend us,
and we shouldn't accept this for officers who protect us.
So, the question I have with respect to Tamir Rice's
killing by an officer who, as we heard earlier, lost his
previous job as a police officer in a nearby suburb of
Cleveland, was deemed emotionally unstable, an unstable recruit
and unfit for duty, Ms. Gupta, what would a newly imagined
registry that would require the law enforcement agency to
report their finding of the officer's fitness for duty look
like in that scenario?
Ms. Gupta. Well, if there was a registry of the kind that
the Justice in Policing Act recommends, you'd have a national
registry of all Federal, State, and local law enforcement
agents that would record misconduct complaints, discipline/
termination records, records of certification. It would be
conditioned if you--law enforcement agencies would need to put
those inputs in, to get some Federal funding. The registry has
to be public.
In the case of Tamir Rice, I will tell you--not just in
Tamir Rice's case, but in many of the cases I remember Justice
Department civil rights prosecutors upset that they didn't have
access to that information not only for prosecutions, but also
police chiefs. Chief Acevedo just spoke to this earlier, about
the importance for chiefs to also have that information
available when making hiring decisions and the like. It
protects the community.
Mr. Deutch. Mr. Chair, this is our civil rights moment. I
pray that our Committee and this body will rise to meet that
moment.
Chair Nadler. We all agree.
The time of the gentleman has expired.
Mr. Buck.
Mr. Buck. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
George Floyd's death was senseless and tragic. I grieve for
the Floyd family and look forward to justice being served.
My heart also goes out to the family of Patrick Underwood.
I thank both of you for being here under these difficult
circum-stances.
Yes, there are a few officers who are attracted to the
uniform for the wrong reasons, who want the authority of
carrying a badge and a gun, but can't handle the
responsibility. Some have anger issues, some mental health
issues. The bad cops are an extremely small percentage of the
police officers in this country.
There's another side of the story. For 25 years I
prosecuted criminals, working closely with great police
officers and Federal agents. Yes, I prosecuted and convicted
some officers. I also was at the bedside of officers after they
had been shot trying to help someone. I've attended funerals
for officers killed because they had the courage to wear the
badge and do their job. I've been in the hospital trying to
comfort one of my employees who learned just moments before of
the death of her husband, a sheriff's deputy killed in the line
of duty.
Don't blame the police. It takes a special kind of courage
to protect those who can't protect themselves, who care so much
for their community they are willing to risk their lives to
save others. When there is gunfire, violence, conflict, a few
brave men and women wearing blue uniforms run toward the danger
while others run away.
Don't blame the police because they didn't create the
policies that cause crime. We all know the root causes of
crime. Some don't like to admit their role in the breakdown of
our society, but the people watching this hearing know.
We commit a grave injustice to those who have died at the
hands of police and those who have died at the hands of violent
criminals if we don't deal with the root causes of crime.
A comprehensive bill, as was discussed earlier, must
recognize the societal impact of single parent families,
substance abuse, mental health issues, failed education system,
and transnational gangs. Defunding the police or otherwise
handcuffing the police has its consequences.
After the death of Freddie Gray in Baltimore, the police
were severely restricted by the mayor and the Obama Department
of Justice. In May 2015 alone, the month after six officers
were charged for crimes a jury found that they did not commit,
Baltimore saw 43 homicides, the city's deadliest month in 40
years.
A New York Times investigation found that Baltimore ended
2015 with 342 homicides, a 62 percent increase from 2014. Let
me repeat that. After Baltimore police were prevented from
doing their jobs, the city suffered a 62 percent increase in
homicides.
There are also indirect consequences to restricting police
enforcement. In 2017, Baltimore had 692 opioid deaths to go
along with the 342 homicides. Chicago recently saw its most
violent day in six decades. Eighteen people were killed on May
31st. While police were responding to riots downtown, residents
of Chicago saw firsthand what happens when police are absent
from the neighborhoods.
To achieve justice for all, we should support investing in
police protection of our most vulnerable neighborhoods, and we
need to change the policies destroying our cities. Let's agree
to empower good police officers to continue to protect and
serve. Everyone deserves to be safe and secure in their home,
on their way to work, walking to school or throwing a ball in
the park. Don't blame the police for our breakdown in society.
They are doing their best to clean up the mess caused by
politicians.
Mr. Bongino, your thoughts about the causes of crime and
the role of our police in this country?
Mr. Bongino. I read an interesting op-ed about 4 or 5 years
ago. In the opinion piece, they compared and contrasted two
different areas of the country, one that voted largely for Mitt
Romney in the election versus Barack Obama, one that voted
largely for Barack Obama. It was an inner city in one case and
an Appalachian region in the other case, both considered failed
by many measures, high crime, poor economy, and poor healthcare
outcomes.
What's interesting is it wasn't the voting patterns. It was
the deeper patterns you're talking about there, broken
families, drug use, and lax law enforcement.
If we ignore that--and believe me, I am not in any way
suggesting accountability for police and reforms are not
necessary, I wouldn't be here if I didn't believe that--but if
we're going to ignore the societal problems and broken families
and all the degradation of the culture and all that and just
scapegoat the police, you will get nothing out of this hearing.
You won't see one Act of real change. You may get some sound
bites, you may get some votes, but you're not going to see a
darn thing change.
Mr. Buck. What I hear you saying is it will be
counterproductive.
Mr. Bongino. It will absolutely be counterproductive. You
will see nothing.
Chair Nadler. The time of the gentleman has expired.
Ms. Bass.
Ms. Bass. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
There are a couple things I wanted to say before I start my
questions. It was said in the opening statement that the mayor
of Los Angeles defunded the police department. I just wanted to
make note that he absolutely did not defund the police
department. He did reduce the budget, and he shifted the funds
to deal with some of the real issues that police departments,
police officers always complain about, because how do they
address some of society's problems, like homelessness and
mental illness? So, he shifted the funding for that reason.
I also wanted to follow up with Mr. Morial, who was
describing a history of lynching. I just wanted to point out
that one of the reasons--although you didn't say this, I would
believe that one of the reasons you were talking about lynching
is because in many of those cases law enforcement officers were
involved in the direct lynching, either getting the person,
killing the person, et cetera. That was the relationship there.
I wanted to also talk about qualified immunity and wanted
to ask Mr. Crump if he would respond to that, because I believe
one of my colleagues was mentioning, what is the issue since it
is qualified, it's not absolute? So, why do we need to do
anything? Why would we need to change that?
Mr. Crump. Too often what we have seen in courtrooms,
especially when police have killed African Americans,
especially Black men, that the courts have interpreted this
qualified immunity to almost give complete impunity to the
police officers.
That's why nobody is ever held accountable when you think
about that long list of Black Lives Matters names that we often
recite to make sure that people know their life mattered. If
there is no accountability, Congresswoman Bass, it will keep
happening. We pray that George Floyd is the last one. If this
great body doesn't act, it's going to happen again, and I
predict it's going to happen in the next 30 days.
Ms. Bass. Wow.
What about some of the other professions that have this? Is
it the same thing? People have raised a concern about child
welfare workers or other people that have qualified immunity.
Mr. Crump. It only seems to be the police that have this
great authority, this power that we've given them, and it goes
unchecked. Every other profession you are kept in check by the
laws that govern this, but the courts have, I believe
unconstitutionally in many ways, given police this absolute
blanket immunity, especially when it comes to Black and brown
people being killed by police.
I mean, it's almost you can count on one hand the people
who actually go to jail for killing Black people. Out of those
thousands of people since Marc Morial said since Trayvon Martin
was killed, I think it was over--almost 1,300, you can
literally count specifically the number of times police have
actually gone to jail. It is horrific, Madam Congresswoman.
Ms. Bass. Mr. Morial, having served as a mayor, I have
often heard you say that you're one of the few folks around
that have actually been involved in addressing this issue with
the police department that you managed. Could you point out
some of the specific things?
Mr. Morial. So, we orchestrated a highly successful reform
of a very broken police department, a city that had 500 murders
a year, a city that led the Nation in the number of civil
rights complaints, a city that has two police officers on death
row.
We had to completely rebuild the department. I said at the
time that we were going to tear it down brick by brick and we
were going to rebuild it brick by brick.
At the end, we had a nationally accredited department. We
took the murder rate down by 60 percent. We brought the civil
rights complaints down to an infinitesimal number. We
instituted community-oriented policing.
So, the idea is obnoxious to me that somehow that if you
hold police accountable you're trying their hands from fighting
crime.
Ms. Bass. Maybe Ms. Gupta could conclude on that to
continue that response.
Do we tie police hands by instituting these reforms?
Ms. Gupta. I actually appreciate this question very much,
because just a few weeks ago Richard Rosenfeld and Joel Wallman
did a long study that they released in May of 2020, found no
evidence for a Ferguson effect linking police killings of Black
citizens to the homicide spike in places like Baltimore and
other places via depolicing.
There's been a lot of statements about that that were very
concerning in the aftermath of Freddie Gray's death in
Baltimore, and there had been no data that had been actually
collected and put out. The study I think is a really important
offering that belies, actually, that notion. This notion that
somehow when you protest racial injustice that that increases
homicide rates in cities, this evidence actually produced says
that's not true.
Chair Nadler. The gentlelady's time is expired.
Ms. Roby.
Ms. Roby. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
There are no adequate words I can say to take away the pain
of those suffering across our country. Now is the time for
understanding, and I am committed to listening and learning.
First, Mr. Floyd and the entire Floyd family and loved
ones, I am deeply sorry for the loss of your brother, family
member, and friend. No actions or words I can say here today
will ever make you whole again, but please know how grateful I
am for your presence here today, and I offer you my deepest
condolences.
Ms. Underwood Jacobs, your brother Pat was proudly
protecting the community he loved, and I am deeply sorry for
your loss as well.
I hope you both will accept my heartfelt grief for you and
your entire family.
To all the families, like the Floyds and the Underwoods,
who have had to suffer the tragedy and sorrow of losing a loved
one due to needless violence, I also want to add my deep
condolences.
Today is a day to set our politics aside and focus on sound
policies for our country.
To all the Witnesses, I have reviewed your written
testimony, I have heard your verbal testimony, and I've
listened to you answer questions from my colleagues. I want you
to know that I am listening, I am learning, and I hear you. I
stand ready. I am hopeful that we can find bipartisan solutions
and policies.
Mr. Floyd and Ms. Underwood Jacobs, I would like to give
each of you the remainder of my time to address the Committee.
Mr. Floyd. Just sitting here, coming to try to tell you
about how I want justice for my brother, I just think about
that video over and over again. It felt like 8 hours and 46
minutes. It hurt seeing my brother plead for his life, watching
that officer just put his knee on his neck.
Every day just looking at it, being like anywhere, that's
all people talk about. The rest of my life, that's all I'll
ever see, somebody looking at the video.
The kids had to watch the video. His kids had to watch the
video. It just hurt. There's a lot of people with a lot of
pain.
My family, they just cry, cry every day and just ask, why,
why? He pleaded for his life. He said he couldn't breathe.
Nobody cared, nobody. People pleaded for him. They still didn't
care.
Justice has to be served. Those officers, they have to be
convicted. Anybody with a heart, they know that's wrong. You
don't do that to a human being. You don't even do that to an
animal.
His life mattered. All our lives matter. Black lives
matter.
I wish I can get him back. Those officers, they get to
live.
Ms. Roby. Mr. Floyd, we grieve with you, and we appreciate
very much your courage to be here with us today.
My time has expired, but may Ms. Underwood Jacobs address
the Committee as well?
Chair Nadler. By all means.
Ms. Roby. Thank you, Mr. Floyd.
Ms. Underwood Jacobs. Thank you very much, Mr. Chair and
Congresswoman Roby.
I have to say that I'm heartbroken. I didn't get a chance
to say good-bye to my brother either before he was killed.
I am also heartbroken for all the other people that are in
this country living every single day and feel unsafe just to
drive to the store. I also have had the talk with my son.
We sit here today at somewhat opposite ends of the spectrum
to a certain degree, but there is so much commonality among
both of us. The heartbreak and the grief is inexplainable,
because it's very, very hard to articulate when your entire
world has been turned upside-down.
I do want to know, though, when I think about all this, is
that my brother wore a uniform and he wore that uniform
proudly. I'm wondering, where is the outrage for a fallen
officer that also happens to be African American?
So, as I'm sitting here and I'm listening to all of you and
us, I truly hope that you take your positions, your offices so
seriously that you want to go back and really work together and
collaborate, because if you can't get it right there's no hope
for the rest of us.
So, when you go back and you convene and you talk through
everything that's going on, I hope that we're not people on
paper, but the fact that you could be able to see our faces and
feel our pain and feel it enough that you want to make change
for all the citizens of the United States of America.
Ms. Roby. Again, we grieve with you both and we thank you
very much for your courage to be with us here today. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I yield back.
Chair Nadler. The gentlelady yields back.
Mr. Richmond.
Mr. Richmond. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Very rarely I'm at a loss of words or know where to start.
I want to start with you, Ms. Angela Underwood Jacobs, and just
say that you have my condolences, my sympathy, and my prayers.
Unfortunately, this was the hearing you were invited to. You
were not invited to the hearings where in Homeland Security we
talk about the threat to our law enforcement officers that put
on blue and Black every day, the fact that we tried to get more
vests for police officers and the other side fought it, the
fact that we wanted to fight sovereign citizens that's killed
more police officers in this country than anybody else and the
other side fought it.
They invited you to this hearing. I just want you to know
that we have fought for increased survivor benefits for the
families of officers and we respect those who serve our
communities.
Then, Mr. Floyd, Philonise, let me just tell you that when
I met with you in Houston and your family, the remarkable thing
is you asked for two things, neither of which was for you,
justice for George and a just society, and that's why we're
here today.
The unfortunate part is in this process we speak, and we
leave. There's one thing that I want to address. Mr. Buck came
and said that it was politicians that has messed up the family
unit in America. That could somewhat be true. For him, how do
you ignore the White man's knee on the neck of Black people for
401 years and Act like that has nothing to do with where we
are?
Part of the reason why I am so encouraged today is more
people are recognizing that now, and the systematic racism and
oppression that has existed, that we're now coming together to
fight and establish a solution.
It was Dr. King in his ``Letter from a Birmingham Jail,''
that he actually responded to his critics for the first time,
because he said that he would assume they were people of good
will with sincere concerns. Over my better judgment, I will
assume the other side is people of good will and sincere
concern in some of these arguments why we can't or shouldn't
pass this bill.
The other part I want you to understand is the outrage that
I have, because it was 1991 when the movie ``Boyz n the Hood''
came out. The last line in the movie said, ``Either they don't
know, don't show, or don't care about what's going on in the
hood.''
Well, if you didn't know, now you know, because the
protesters, the peaceful protesters out there are showing you
what's happening. Video footage is showing us what's happening.
So, then you go to the last line and the real question is,
do we care? I believe that this piece of legislation is a good
piece of legislation that moves the ball forward. It is very
easy to sit on the other side and let perfection be the enemy
of the good or just sit back with inertia and we never move the
ball forward. We have an obligation to the next generation of
kids, to men and women walking the streets now, to make sure we
move the ball forward.
Every once in a while--we've tried it the other way all
this time. We're just asking you to try it our way this time.
Let's pass some legislation. Let's hold the bad police officers
accountable.
We always say bad apples. Well, the saying is, enough bad
apples spoil a bunch. So, let's make sure that we're talking
about it.
Mr. Morial, in 30 seconds, and I know I used up all the
time, I was the beneficiary of your reforms. What you did was
you moved some resources from a constitutional police
department that you created to after school funding and things
that the community can do better than police. Twenty seconds,
can you explain that?
Mr. Chair, I yield back.
Mr. Morial. The disinvestment in those types of programs
over the last 20 years, and some of it's happened in this
Congress, the elimination of a summer youth employment program,
the elimination of supports for children. Baltimore City, no
extracurricular activities in any of the schools.
So, we can fix policing with this, and we need to do some
other things to address those other systemic issues.
You're right, I moved $1 million the first 30 days I was in
office from police overtime to create a summer jobs program,
because there was no money. The summer jobs program and the
camps for kids and the outdoor camps for inner city kids that
didn't cost a dime, that gave kids, a person like you, a chance
to work at LSU Dental School, those made great differences.
Part of this conversation about, quote, ``don't want to
open up Pandora's box,'' unquote, defunding police is really
not about defunding police. It's about funding other things
that have been ignored and forgotten, investing in young people
and youth.
You're a middle-class parent in America today, your kid
wants to go to dance class, you pay. Karate, pay. Little League
baseball, pay. Inner city kid, no opportunity if it's not
provided by the public dollars.
You go back to 1950s and 1960s in America when immigrants
made up the vast majority, European immigrants made up the vast
majority of major American cities, and you had free recreation
programs and free summer camps. On our watch, as these cities
have changed, somehow, some way, a lot of that has gone away.
So, we're there trying to patch together dollars and patch
together work.
So, it's important to understand this bill is about
reforming policing, which is a pillar. There's a separate
discussion and an additional discussion that needs to be had
about how we do all the other things. I want to work with you
on that. Don't confuse the two. I mean, that's the thing.
People want to confuse the two.
Just I'll say, respectfully, a bad family situation didn't
kill George Floyd. Sir, that's an outrage. It's an absolute
outrage to think that a bad family--I am tired of trying to
change the issue, when we have police brutality and police
misconduct, to this rhetoric about bad family situations. It's
an insult and it needs to stop. It needs to stop. I sit, I take
it, I listen, but not at this moment, not at this time.
Let's fix policing in America. Let's focus on that. There's
ample time to do other things. As I said earlier, it's a moral
moment. It's time for that. We're called to act. Yes, figure
out a way to do it in a bipartisan way.
Go back and look. On the other side of this Capitol there
are two office buildings named for United States Senators, both
of whom have a legacy of what we're talking about today. One is
Richard B. Russell, a man who led the filibuster against the
anti-lynching law for decades. The other, Everett McKinley
Dirksen, a Republican from Illinois who provided the courage to
help President Johnson pass the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
That's the moment we're in.
Chair Nadler. The gentleman yields back.
Mr. Johnson.
Mr. Johnson of Louisiana. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I'm struck today by a lot of the testimony and that we're
hearing some of the same recurring themes. It is a moral
moment, Mr. Morial, my friend from Louisiana, as you said.
One of the recurring themes that we've heard many times
this morning from the Members and Witnesses is about the need
to rebuild relationships.
One of the Founders, Henry David Thoreau said ``There are a
thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking
at the root.'' One of those root problems in this moral moment
we face is that we don't know each other anymore. That's kind
of how society and culture have evolved.
We all agree on the objective, obviously, by the comments
this morning, of rebuilding relationships, but I think we need
to drill down a little bit--public policy is one thing, but
this is a hard issue, as we all agree to determine what the
best, most effective methods are to achieve that objective that
we all agree on.
So, I just wanted to ask a couple of our Witnesses,
beginning with Mr. Crump, I appreciate what you said this
morning. We had a little sidebar over here, and I like the
heart that you bring to this issue. I wanted to ask your
opinion on that, because you mentioned that in your remarks
about the need to build relationships.
So, from your experiences and everything you've been doing,
what do you think are some ways we can do that between members
of our communities and law enforcement officials?
Mr. Crump. Certainly. Thank you, Representative Johnson.
I do think we have to work together. At the crux of the
matter, it's a lack of trust, I believe, between communities of
color and law enforcement, because we have to have
transparency, which we haven't had in the police killings of
Black people. As one of the Witnesses said, you go to a secret
grand jury proceeding, like Eric Garner or any other cases,
Michael Brown, Tamir Rice, and they come back after the secret
grand jury and say, no indictment, we didn't find evidence,
even though we all saw it with our eyes.
So, you have to have transparency. Then you have to have
accountability. That's how you get to trust.
I think you said something that I agree with. It's about
transparency, it's about training, and then termination. We've
got to terminate police. We don't do it. I mean, we just don't
do it. We don't send them to jail. We don't even fire them when
they kill Black people.
So, as Philonise said, we've got to care. As Representative
Richmond said, do we care? Because our actions don't construe
that. So, first, we've got to just get to the core. It's
transparency, accountability, and then maybe we can get to
trust.
Because we do see it from the other side, that Black
people, the prison industrial complex, school-to-prison
pipeline, you see it all the time, you're going to jail. Then
when we're the victim, you don't see convictions, like Eric
Garner or any of these other cases.
Mr. Johnson of Louisiana. I appreciate those comments. I
think that it goes even more fundamental than that in that it's
the relationships even in the communities. Before you can get
to building trust with law enforcement, it's with our neighbors
too, right?
I was on the phone last night with the local director of
our YMCA, and he had this idea to host--to use the YMCA
facilities in my community as a neutral forum where he would
have these events, an activities night, Saturday night or maybe
Sunday nights. He'd invite one Black church and one White
church, right? Just put everybody together in the same facility
and let them get to know each other and have fun together. Just
simple things like that, we ought to foster and try to
encourage.
It doesn't have anything to do with the law, really, or
public policy. It's about being good Americans and good
neighbors. I hope we can get back to that, and maybe this is a
flash point to do it.
If Mr. Davis is still with us--I know he was with us
remotely--I'm really interested in his experience at DOJ and
the community-oriented policing services. I know that's a big
function of this as well. I wonder if he could speak to that
issue, if he's still with us on the idea of building those
relationships and community policing as an important function
of that.
Mr. Davis. Yes, Congressman, I am still here, and thank you
very much for the question. I would say, with the COPS Office,
it has a great opportunity to actually do that, to facilitate
community policing, and that's really its charge. It's its
charge to be able to identify the best practices of community
policing, how to engage through our grant program, to
incentivize best practices through our grant programs, our
hiring process. You are hiring in the spirit of service. So, I
think it does help on a lot.
If I can say one thing, Congressman, a key to that is there
are over 16,000 individual police agencies in the country. Most
of them are 25 officers or fewer. So, without the help of the
COPS Office or the Federal Government, it is hard to infuse
those types of training and information and best practices. So,
the COPS Office is the key [inaudible] whether there's two
officers or 4,000, if they have the opportunity for best
practices.
That was our goal, was to advance the policing, and it
still probably should be the goal today. I do say we have
stepped away from that, from a lot of the programs that we were
offering at one time.
Mr. Johnson of Louisiana. Thank you. I'm out of time. I
yield back.
Chair Nadler. The gentleman yields back.
Mr. Jeffries.
Mr. Jeffries. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
The chokehold and other police tactics, such as a knee to
the neck, are inherently dangerous and present an unreasonable
risk of serious bodily injury or death. That is why the Justice
in Policing Act will make such strangulation tactics unlawful
pursuant to our Nation's civil rights laws.
President Davis, the National Organization of Black Law
Enforcement Executives supports criminalizing chokeholds and
other strangulation tactics as a matter of law. Is that
correct?
Mr. Davis. This is for Ron Davis? Yes, sir, it is.
Mr. Jeffries. Ms. Gupta, does the civil rights community
support criminalizing chokeholds and other strangulation
tactics as a matter of Federal law?
Ms. Gupta. We do. In fact, there are departments around the
country that have already banned them. So, this is about making
that the national standard.
Mr. Jeffries. Professor Butler, is it fair to say that the
neck should be off limits during police encounters?
Mr. Butler. Absolutely. When the police use--
Chair Nadler. Use your mike, Mr. Butler, please.
Mr. Butler. Thank you, sir.
When the police use pain compliance techniques like neck
restraints, it prevents blood and oxygen from going to the
lungs and brain. There's a great risk of death.
Mr. Jeffries. Black lives matter, yet month after month,
year after year, decade after decade, the list of tragedy
continues to grow. Amadou Diallo dead, Sean Bell dead, Eric
Garner dead, Tamir Rice dead, Walter Scott dead, Oscar Grant
dead, Yvette Smith dead, Stephon Clark dead, Breonna Taylor
dead, and George Floyd dead.
Mr. Bongino, the police are at times able to show restraint
under very difficult circumstances. Is that correct?
Mr. Bongino. Of course.
Mr. Jeffries. Let's review a few examples.
In 2012, James Holmes entered a movie theater in Aurora,
Colorado, and opened fire on an audience, killing 12 people and
injuring 70. Mr. Holmes was heavily armed with an AR-15, 12-
gauge shotgun, and .40 caliber handgun, yet he was taken into
police custody outside of that very same movie theater without
incident.
Mr. Bongino, James Holmes is white. Is that correct?
Mr. Bongino. I'm not sure of his background. I don't know
James Holmes personally.
Mr. Jeffries. He's white.
In 2014, Dylann Roof massacred nine Black parishioners at
Mother Emanuel AME Church in Charleston. Mr. Roof was heavily
armed with a high-powered Glock, .45 caliber pistol, and 88
rounds. The police somehow arrested Dylann Roof without
incident and even treated him to Burger King.
Mr. Bongino, Dylann Roof is white. Is that correct?
Mr. Bongino. Yeah, I don't know where you're going with
this. So, if he's white, that doesn't make him any better. It
was an awful thing he did, whether he was White or black.
Mr. Jeffries. Correct.
Mr. Bongino. I'm not sure where you're going with this.
Mr. Jeffries. Dylann Roof was white.
Mr. Bongino. He's awful.
Mr. Jeffries. Last year, in El Paso, Texas, Patrick Crusius
killed 23 people and injured dozens during a shooting rampage.
He used an AK-47 and was heavily armed. Yet, somehow he was
arrested without incident.
Mr. Bongino, Patrick Crusius was white. Is that correct?
Mr. Bongino. Sir, I have no idea of his--I don't know his
parentage.
Mr. Jeffries. He was white.
Mr. Bongino. Again, I don't know why you're making a racial
thing out of it.
Mr. Jeffries. Reclaiming my time. Because Black lives
matter, sir.
Mr. Bongino. Yeah. All lives matter, sir. Every single life
matters, white, black, or Asian.
Mr. Jeffries. Professor Butler, you have heavily armed mass
murderers in places like Aurora, Charleston, and El Paso
somehow apprehended by police without incident. That's the
point, sir.
Mr. Bongino. I arrested those people, sir. You didn't.
Mr. Jeffries. Innocent unarmed African Americans are
repeatedly killed in police encounter after police encounter.
Is it fair to say that the difference, which seems explicable,
in police behavior somehow relates, at least in part, to race?
Mr. Butler. In law and in police practices, Black lives do
not have the same value that White lives have.
Mr. Jeffries. All we simply want is for every single
community, regardless of race, to be able to breathe the free
air of liberty and justice for all. That's what the Justice in
Policing Act is all about.
I yield back.
Chair Nadler. The gentleman yields back.
Mr. McClintock.
Mr. McClintock. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
We're here because we've recently suffered multiple
failures of law enforcement, beginning with the killing of
George Floyd. He died because a rogue cop with multiple
complaints for misconduct was allowed to remain on a police
force, as did one of his accomplices.
This has become an intolerable pattern in big city police
forces, and we need to ask how politically powerful police
unions and the politicians they maintain in office protect the
bullies in the system that inevitably lead to atrocities like
this.
The other failure was the decision to withhold police
protection from their citizens by mayors and their appointed
police chiefs. That failure killed Pat Underwood, killed David
Dorn, and so many other innocent victims in the ensuing riots.
Withdrawing police protection from our streets, abandoning
police stations to rioters, turning a blind eye to looting,
arson, and mayhem, all have an incendiary effect on
insurrections.
Without law enforcement there is no law, and without law
there is no civilization. An accounting of the deaths and
destruction caused by these acts of dereliction have yet to be
tallied, but it's going to be staggering.
Now, we meet today to chart a course forward. I think we
can look to no better guide than Sir Robert Peel, the father of
modern policing, who set forth principles of law enforcement
for a free society nearly two centuries ago. When you read
them, you realize how far we have drifted from these moorings.
Central to our discussion is his seventh principle, quote:
``To maintain at all times a relationship with the public that
gives reality to the historic tradition that the police are the
public and that the public are the police, the police being
only Members of the public who are paid to give full-time
attention to duties which are incumbent on every citizen, in
the interests of community welfare and existence,'' end of
quote.
So, how do we get back to these principles? I think there
are many proposals that have been raised in the House that
merit support, and first is the doctrine of qualified immunity.
As it's currently applied, it has no place in a Nation ruled by
laws.
For every right, there must be a remedy, and qualified
immunity prevents a remedy for those whose rights have been
violated by officials holding a public trust. This reform
should apply as much to a rogue cop who targets people because
of their race as it does to IRS or Justice Department officials
who target people on the basis of their politics.
Reforming qualified immunity simply holds public officials
to the same standards as any other citizen exercising the same
powers.
Second, police records must be open to the public. It is a
well-established principle that public servants work for the
public and the public has a right to know what they're doing
with the authority the public has loaned them. Police
departments should be able to dismiss bad officers without
interference from the unions.
By preventing the public from access to these records and
preventing departments from acting on them, we destroy the very
foundation of successful policing in a free society--public
trust and accountability.
Third, turning police departments into paramilitary
organizations is antithetical to the sixth principle laid down
by Peel, quote, ``To use only the minimum degree of physical
force which is necessary on any particular occasion for
achieving a police objective. Weapons that are unique to a
battlefield need to be limited to a battlefield.''
Fourth, no-knock warrants have been proven to be lethal to
citizens and to police officials, for obvious reasons. The
invasion of a person's home is one of the most terrifying
powers the government possesses. Every person in a free society
has the right to take arms against an intruder in their homes.
That means that the authority of the police must be announced
before that intrusion takes place. To do otherwise places every
one of us in mortal peril.
I think these four reforms are legitimate powers for the
Federal Government to uphold the constitutional rights of its
citizens, but it's not within our legitimate power to dictate
training and procedures for every community in the country. As
Peel counsels us, effective law enforcement is a community
endeavor, and every community has different needs and different
circumstances which require different standards. One size fits
all bromides are, at best, ineffective and, at worst,
dangerous.
Then finally, lest we forget, when faithful, dedicated,
honest police officers--and that is the vast, vast majority of
those who serve us--when they are attacked, degraded and
disrespected, demoralized, hamstrung, and withdrawn, those most
at risk are the poor and the defenseless who live and work in
our inner cities.
I yield back.
Chair Nadler. The gentleman yields back.
Ms. Escobar.
Ms. Escobar. Thank you so much, Mr. Chair and Chair Bass.
I'm so grateful for this piece of legislation and for your
leadership.
I want to thank all the panelists who are here with us
today.
Ms. Underwood Jacobs, I want you to know that we hear, and
we feel and we see your pain, and we are praying for justice
for you and your entire family as well. Our sincerest
condolences. Thank you for being here.
Mr. Floyd, thank you for your incredible courage. I cannot
imagine the strength that it took to be here with us today, but
you did it. I want you to know that for those of us who are
mothers, it tore us up to hear your brother call out for your
mother. We heard him and we hear you. We are going to continue
to fight for justice for as long as we can.
People are marching in the streets all over this country
and all over the world, marching for justice, marching to force
us to rise to this moment. It is our obligation and our duty to
rise to this moment.
I have heard from many of my colleagues on the other side
of the aisle their desire to work in a bipartisan nature on
this bill and to achieve an outcome worthy of the American
people who have entrusted us in this moment.
So, my request today of my colleagues, for the remainder of
this hearing, for our markup next week, and for the day that it
comes to the floor, let us focus on what is in the bill, not
what is not in the bill.
I've heard a lot of conversations from this dais about
issues that are being debated outside of this room. Those
debates are important, those debates are healthy, those debates
are part of American democracy, but they're not in the bill.
If we truly are going to come to a bipartisan agreement and
provide for this country the justice that it is seeking, let's
focus on what is in the bill.
Professor Butler, we have heard much about the
disproportionate impact that police brutality has had on the
African American community, and we have also heard much about
the fact that, well, let's focus on family, well, let's focus
on God. No one disputes that, as a country and as a government,
we should be making investments in education, investments in
healthcare, and investments in community.
In terms of fully coming to grips with what is happening in
terms of race and law enforcement in this country, we know that
unarmed Black Americans were five times as likely as unarmed
White Americans to be shot and killed by a police officer.
To what do you attribute that fact? Your microphone,
please, sir.
Mr. Butler. A legacy, Congresswoman, of White supremacy, a
legacy of slavery and Jim Crow segregation, and then an
evolution from the old Jim Crow to the new Jim Crow where the
stereotypes and the biases against people of color don't go
away, but they just take different forms.
Ms. Escobar. That's absolutely correct.
Mr. Floyd, I want to ask you, as a Black man in America, do
you live in fear that you will one day be a target as well?
Mr. Floyd. Yes, ma'am. Every day I walk around, I ask
myself am I next, am I next all the time, because I don't want
to do anything wrong to make anybody think that I'm doing
wrong. So, I just try to live life and just have faith and hope
everything comes out the right way. Basically, that's it, just
a Black man just trying to go to work every day and go back
home safely. That's it. Thank you.
Ms. Escobar. Thank you, Mr. Floyd.
If we are truly to come to an agreement on this
legislation, if we are truly to rise to this moment, we have to
acknowledge the truth that is looking at us in the face every
single day in America. We have to rise to this occasion. We
have to do justice.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I yield back.
Chair Nadler. The gentlelady yields back.
Ms. Lesko.
Ms. Lesko. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Before I start, I'd like to just point out something. When
we started, Mr. Floyd spoke first, and it was very passionate.
I was very moved. Then for some reason you didn't have Ms.
Underwood Jacobs speak about the loss of her brother. It really
surprised me, quite frankly, and I thought it was very
disrespectful. I don't know if that's what you meant, but I
wanted to say that.
I want to thank all of you for coming here, and I am very
sorry for your loss, Mr. Floyd, and for your loss, Ms.
Underwood Jacobs.
I have two Black grandsons. So, I haven't experienced the
discrimination that some of you have experienced that you have
told us about, but I sure don't want them to be discriminated
against. So, this is very important to me.
There's another thing going on here that I just want to
read some tweets. This is very disturbing to me.
First, in early June, Brian Fallon, the Executive Director
of Demand Justice and the former press secretary to Hillary
Clinton's Presidential campaign and spokesman for Attorney
General Eric Holder, tweeted, ``Defund the police.''
On June 5th, Representative Ilhan Omar, who represents
Minneapolis in Congress, tweeted, ``The Minneapolis Police
Department has proven themselves beyond reform. It's time to
disband them and reimagine public safety in Minneapolis.''
Minneapolis City Council Member Jeremiah Ellison, son of
Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison, tweeted, ``We are
going to dismantle the Minneapolis Police Department.''
Lisa Bender, the President of the Minneapolis City Council,
tweeted, ``We are going to dismantle the Minneapolis Police
Department.''
I read that Patrisse Cullors, a cofounder of the Black
Lives Matter movement, wants to see police forces abolished
entirely eventually.
Steve Fletcher, Minnesota City Council member, also stated
that he and the city council President and the chair of the
public safety are calling to disband our police department.
Mr. Bongino, I am a survivor of domestic violence from a
previous marriage, and I remember when my neighbors called the
police. I don't know why, but I disputed. When the police came
to the door, I said, ``oh, I'm fine, nothing happened,
everything's good here.''
If we disband, dismantle, defund, or reduce funding in the
police, what's going to happen to the woman that calls out
who's a victim of domestic violence? What's going to happen to
response time? What's going to happen in that situation, do you
think?
Mr. Bongino. Well, I became a police officer--I wanted to
be a doctor--precisely because in a situation, without
rendering any further embarrassment to people in my family, a
police officer showed up and dissuaded the member of my family
from doing something he shouldn't have been doing. This person
wasn't scared of anything. He was only scared of the police. I
don't mean that in a negative way. I meant he didn't want to go
to jail.
It's the only thing--I was about nine or ten--it's the only
thing that brought peace to me that night. I knew I wanted to
be a cop the moment after that.
This defund the police abomination will lead to a
catastrophe like you've never seen. I can't emphasize that in
strong enough terms.
I worked in a largely minority precinct, East New York
Brooklyn, the 75 Precinct. It's a tough place to work. I was
young. I was in my twenties. The only time I was ever
physically attacked by someone was in a domestic violence
situation.
I have nothing but the utmost respect for social workers,
medics, EMTs, and firemen. I mean that. Running into a burning
building is tough. Saving someone's life and catching a pulse
in the last minutes, that's tough.
When I walked into that house, make no mistake, that man--
and forgive me for not saying my sincere, my heartfelt empathy
with you for having gone through that, having lived through it
myself, I should have opened with that. I mean that.
That man in that house, I'll never forget it, he wasn't
going to be stopped. There was no negotiating. This isn't a
movie, folks, this is real. He wasn't going to be stopped from
attacking his wife.
There was a five- or six-year-old, I don't know the age,
cowering in the corner. I've told this story recently, because
it's so tattooed on my brain, I'll never forget it. You know
what that's like, cowering in the corner, the daddy, stop.
The guy wasn't going to be stopped. He didn't care that we
had guns. You think he's going to care if it's a social worker?
Again, I'm not sure where this ridiculous absurdity of
defunding the police came from, but I didn't come here with
some partisan agenda. Frankly, I'm deeply offended that some
have made it so, including mischaracterizing my comments by Mr.
Morial, which was offensive to me, too. You can pound the table
all you want, but that's not what I said.
Black families matter to me too, that was my point, not
that the tragic death of Mr. Floyd had anything to do with
that. What about Black families that are the subject of
domestic violence? The guy I stopped hit me with an ironing
board, you know that? Luckily, my partner was able to save me
and that woman and that crying five-year old child.
Chair Nadler. The gentlelady's time has expired.
Ms. Lesko. Thank you.
Chair Nadler. Ms. Jayapal.
Ms. Jayapal. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Mr. Floyd, please accept my deepest condolences for your
brother's death. It is one too many deaths that result from
centuries-old pervasive violence and anti-blackness at the
hands of the police.
I promise you that we intend to honor George Floyd with the
most sweeping changes to policing that this House has seen in
recent memory, banning chokeholds, no-knock warrants, making
lynching a Federal crime, and investing in community-based
models that provide community safety for all. That is all we
can do. We cannot bring him back, but we can honor him with
real change.
I want to bring into this room the name of Charleena Lyles,
a pregnant Black woman and mother of five in Seattle, and, with
her, the many Black women across the country who have lost
their lives or their children.
Three years ago, the Seattle Police Department responded to
a call from Ms. Lyles, who had been flagged as someone with
mental health issues. The officers had received crisis
intervention training, and they did know about her mental
health issues. Yet, before attempting nonlethal methods of de-
escalation, they fired seven rounds, killing her in front of
her children. Her 2-year-old son climbed onto her body and laid
in her blood.
This brutal story is one of far too many. It's not enough
just to say Black lives matter; we have to do the work to
cement this essential principle into policy and practice. It's
why we must pass, as a critical first step, the Justice in
Policing Act.
Professor Butler, I want to start with you. Is any amount
of crisis training to teach officers how to interact with
individuals with mental health issues sufficient in and of
itself to overcome what we're calling the warrior mentality
that exists within law enforcement?
Mr. Butler. Congresswoman, if the culture of police
departments isn't shifted away from that warrior mentality,
then no other reform would matter.
Guardianship is the model that President Obama's commission
recommended. If you think about it, if you're applying for a
job as a warrior, you're going to have one resume and one group
of skill sets. If you're applying for a job to be a guardian,
to be a caretaker for your community, you have a different
resume and a different set of skills.
Congresswoman Lesko, thank you so much for sharing your
story. I heard that story as a failure of policing. What I
imagined is, what if responders had shown up who understand
what your experience is like as a survivor? It's too often the
case that survivors don't go to the police or shun the police
because the police aren't going to give them the service that
they need. Imagine, if a guardian had shown up instead, what a
difference that might have made.
Ms. Jayapal. Thank you, Professor Butler.
Mr. Gupta, as you know, the Seattle Police Department is in
its eighth year under a Federal consent decree that was based
upon DOJ's finding that excessive force was most often used
against people of color and those who were either mentally or
chemically impaired. As you know, initially, there were some
wonderful, positive changes that occurred.
However, 8 years later, we have run into some roadblocks,
where reforms recommended by the community police commission
that were set up were ignored by city leaders and not
incorporated into police unit contracts. The recent protests on
the streets here in Seattle have been met by a police force
that uses use of force against peaceful protesters.
You had talked about a phrase, ``Culture eats policy for
lunch.'' Can you explain what that phrase means to you and what
tools within this bill are most important and what else is
needed to truly bring about justice that meets the cries of the
protesters on the streets?
Ms. Gupta. Yeah. I think in the success of any kind of
long-term reform effort or a consent decree, Congresswoman, is
where there's leadership and there's an effort that is
sustained over time to change the culture of policing. It is
what Professor Butler was alluding to just now. It doesn't
happen overnight, but it requires sustained commitment.
I look at the Justice in Policing Act and I look at the
provisions in there that are seeking to ensure accountability.
Because when people feel like their police department can Act
with impunity and no accountability, when police officers feel
like there is no accountability or consequences on the other
side, the culture of a police department becomes very hard to
change.
Mo matter how many policies you change, how much you
overhaul in terms of the policing manual and the like, the
culture of peace is actually the thing that takes the longest
amount of time to shift. It requires constant and persistent
leadership at the top, and it requires a commitment to changing
and reflecting a system of policing that is much more guardian-
oriented than warrior.
I will also say that, right now, there is a hunger in the
streets and in communities around the country to recognize that
people want other options in their communities other than to
call 911 and have a police officer come at the door when people
are in a mental health crisis, for homelessness issues and
school discipline issues.
I've heard this from police chiefs. The International
Association of Chiefs of Police issued a very powerful
statement 2 days ago recognizing the systematic decades of
underinvestment in the kinds of social systems, in housing and
homelessness and education, and how that's all been placed at
the feet of police officers.
So, there also needs to be a holistic evaluation of what
spending priorities have been in communities that have been
saturated with a criminal justice response but underinvested
with resources for education and jobs and the like.
Ms. Jayapal. Thank you, Ms. Gupta.
Mr. Morial, let me end with you. We recognize, as Ms. Gupta
was saying, that too often--has my time expired, Mr. Chair? I
can't see the timer.
Chair Nadler. Your time has expired.
Ms. Jayapal. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I yield back.
Chair Nadler. The gentlelady yields back.
Mr. Jordan.
Mr. Jordan. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
A lot of important things have been said here today, but
maybe the most important--and, frankly, the most succinct was a
statement that Mr. Floyd made earlier at the prompting of the
very first round of questioning from Mr. Gaetz when he asked
Mr. Floyd to respond to something Ms. Underwood Jacobs had said
during her testimony. He said, ``Life is precious.''
Life is precious. George Floyd's life was precious. Pat
Underwood's life is precious. Life is precious.
Our country, the greatest country ever, started on that
premise. The document that launched this experiment in liberty
we call America says this: We are all endowed by our Creator
with certain inalienable rights. Among these are--what? Life,
liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
I think it's interesting to think of the order the Founders
placed the rights they chose to mention. Can you pursue your
goals and dreams and happiness if you first don't have liberty,
if you first don't have freedom? Do you ever have liberty and
freedom if government won't protect your most basic right, your
right to life? Because Mr. Floyd is right; life is precious.
Mr. Bongino, do you agree with that statement, life is
precious?
Mr. Bongino. Absolutely.
Mr. Jordan. You protect it every day in your job--your
previous job. Is that right?
Mr. Bongino. To the best of my ability.
Mr. Jordan. You were a New York City police officer. You
protected life every time you put on that uniform and did your
shift, did your service. Is that right?
Mr. Bongino. Proudly so.
Mr. Jordan. When were you in the Secret Service, you
protected life. You protected some pretty important life.
Mr. Bongino. President Barack Obama and President Bush.
Mr. Jordan. Two Presidents of our great country.
Mr. Bongino. That's correct.
Mr. Jordan. When you protected that life, you actually
risked another precious--you risked your life. Is that
accurate?
Mr. Bongino. That's accurate.
Mr. Jordan. Officers do that every single day, don't they?
Mr. Bongino. Eight hours day, 5 days a week.
Mr. Jordan. Every day.
That is why you have been so strong in your language about
this concept of defunding the police, abolishing the police--a
policy proposal that is not consistent with the statement made,
the best statement made here today, by George Floyd's brother,
which says, life is precious.
I think in your testimony earlier, you said, if police
forces are abolished, if police forces are defunded, it's not
some--I think you used the word ``amorphous mass.'' We're
talking about human beings. We're talking about officers who
put on the uniform and go protect our communities. It will put
their lives at risk, won't it?
Mr. Bongino. There's absolutely no question.
Mr. Jordan. Just as importantly, because life is precious,
it will put people's life at risk in the communities those law
enforcement officers serve. Is that accurate?
Mr. Bongino. That is accurate. Anyone supporting this
should take an oath today to go to the many funerals of the
thousands of Black lives, Hispanic lives, and White lives that
will unquestionably be lost in the chaos that ensues in
depoliced streets. You should commit today and raise your right
hand to go to those funerals and listen to those crying parents
watching their sons and daughters in those caskets.
You want to vote for it? Then you go see the consequences
of it. Because the streets will be chaos. You can't run away
after that. Everyone will know what you did if you choose to go
down this road.
Mr. Jordan. Let's protect life. Let's recognize exactly
what Mr. Floyd said, life is precious, and let's do that.
I yield back, Mr. Chair.
Chair Nadler. The gentleman yields back.
Mr. Swalwell.
Mr. Swalwell. Thank you.
First, to Ms. Underwood Jacobs and Mr. Floyd, my
condolences to you.
Ms. Underwood Jacobs, the Bay Area law enforcement
community grieves with you. My younger brother was working just
two blocks around the corner from where your brother was that
night when we passed. We grieve with you, and we'll work to try
and find his killers.
Mr. Floyd, we know a lot about what happened to your
brother because of citizen video, but let's say we didn't have
the video, just the report. Too often, that's what we're left
with. In that report, a statement issued by the Minneapolis
Police Department, they said that after Mr. Floyd got out, he
physically resisted officers.
You've watched that painful video. Did you ever see your
brother resist officers?
Mr. Floyd. I'm too emotional right now to talk about a lot.
Mr. Swalwell. Yeah.
It also said the officers were able to get the suspect into
handcuffs and noted he was suffering medical distress.
Mr. Crump, did you ever see that? Other than the distress
of an officer's knee on his neck, did you see what was
described in this statement released by the Minneapolis Police
Department?
Mr. Crump. No, sir, we did not. In the video, we saw him
face-down in handcuffs.
Mr. Swalwell. It also said, at no time were weapons of any
type used by anyone involved in this incident.
Well, you had a highly trained and experienced police
officer using his knee. You would agree that that knee, in that
case, was a weapon; is that right?
Mr. Crump. Absolutely, for 8 minutes and 46 seconds.
Mr. Swalwell. A weapon used for 8 minutes and 46 seconds.
To often in our criminal justice system, the deck is
stacked against persons of color because of statements that are
falsely made in police statements and then put out to the
public when there were no cameras, no public footage.
Ms. Gupta, do you believe that the Justice in Policing Act,
by having a body camera requirement, an independent
investigation into misconduct, and a national police misconduct
registry, could go a long way to make sure that we don't have
more false statements?
Ms. Gupta. I think the Justice in Policing Act contains
several provisions that are really, really important to
transforming the culture of policing in America, yes.
Mr. Swalwell. I was consulting with an African-American
member of my community last week at a church, and he told me
something that you've said, Mr. Floyd. It sounded identical. He
said, ``I feel safe two times during the day--when I wake up in
my own home and when I come home from work to my own home. In
between, I drive a nice car that I worked hard for, and people
in my community think I stole it. I often see police officers
pull up behind me and run my license plate and then drive off
because they know I don't have any warrants.''
What was shocking about that statement was, that was a
police captain of one of our biggest law enforcement agencies
in the Bay Area. If he doesn't feel safe, as a police captain,
how can people who don't have the resources that he has feel
safe?
I want to talk about something else that you mentioned, Mr.
Floyd, because we're here because individual tragedies and
institutional tragedies continue to persist, and unless we do
something now, they'll continue. You talked about the officers
there not listening to your brother.
On January 1, 2009, in Oakland, California, unarmed Oscar
Grant laid on his stomach as an officer shot him in the back.
His last words before he died were, ``You shot me. I have a 4-
year-old daughter.''
In July 2014, Eric Garner, in a chokehold, in Staten
Island, gasping to say ``I can't breathe'' before he died. No
one on the scene heard him.
Your brother, Mr. Floyd, on May 25, a police officer with
his knee on his neck, as your brother said, ``I can't breathe.
I want my mama. I can't breathe.'' The officers on that scene
did not hear your brother.
Because of this tragedy, the world is listening now. What
do you want them to hear?
Mr. Floyd. I want them to stop hiring corrupted police
officers. I know there's no way to figure out who's good and
who's bad, but we got to find a way.
Because your heart, it has to be big if you're an officer.
You just can't use the badge to be able to do what you want to
do when you want to do it. You're supposed to serve, and you're
supposed to protect.
I didn't see anybody protecting and serving that day when
my brother was on his front, on his chest, hands behind his
back, pleading, ``Please, please. I can't breathe.'' A grown
man, 46 years of age, crying for his mom.
It just hurt, just looking. All the time, people try to
show it to you, figuring it out. They lynched my brother. That
was a modern-day lynching in broad daylight.
People was out there pleading, ``Please, please, get off.
He can't breathe, he can't breathe.'' People were video-
recording it. Nobody cared. Nobody.
My brother, he lost his life before 8 minutes and 46
seconds. He went unconscious. His life was gone. They just
dragged his body across that concrete, his lifeless body. Every
day, I'm going to have to live with that. My family's going
have to live with that. His kids are going to have to live with
that. I just don't know.
Right now, I'm happy that we are getting one step closer to
justice, but for the time being, I still need time to grieve
with my family, because I haven't had that chance yet.
Mr. Cicilline. [Presiding.] Thank you.
The gentleman's time has expired.
Mr. Swalwell. I yield back.
Mr. Cicilline. Mr. Reschenthaler is recognized for 5
minutes.
Mr. Reschenthaler. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I just want to say thank you to all the Witnesses who came
here to testify today.
Mr. Floyd, Ms. Underwood Jacobs, it takes an incredible
amount of courage to come here and talk about this after losing
a loved one. So, I know I speak for all my colleagues when I
thank you for your willingness to come here and share your
stories with this Committee. As Leader McCarthy said earlier
today, George and Patrick will not be forgotten.
Everyone in this room agrees that police officers who abuse
their power must be held accountable for their crimes. I hope
that we can also agree that the vast majority of law
enforcement officers choose their line of work because they
want to protect their communities. They put themselves in
harm's way every single day, and they do it to keep us and
America safe.
In southwestern Pennsylvania, we've seen firsthand how the
selflessness of the police actually saves lives. In 2018, 11
Jewish worshippers were killed by a hateful, anti-Semitic
madman at the Tree of Life synagogue. The Pittsburgh police and
police from around the region ran into open gunfire, and if it
were not for their heroic efforts, the tragic loss of life
could have been much worse.
So, that's why I'm incredibly alarmed to hear calls from
the left to defund our Nation's police departments. Those on
the left can try to minimize this, but I just heard my
colleague from Arizona go through a litany of statements from
those on the left that are calling for defunding and
dismantling police departments.
I think that, if anything, the murder of George Floyd
demonstrates the need to invest more in our police departments.
We should focus on improving training to promote good police
practices. We should also be providing mental health care,
especially for those that are struggling with PTSD and other
job-related stresses.
Additionally, we should work to build stronger bonds
between law enforcement and the communities they serve. We can
start by having school resource officers in our schools.
I recognize--I'm sorry. We must recognize and we must
empower good police officers while terminating bad actors.
With that said, Mr. Bongino, do you think that defunding
our Nation's police departments is an effective way of
addressing instances of police misconduct?
Mr. Bongino. No. It's a disastrous policy.
I think one of issues that hasn't been considered are the
second-order effects. I mean, obviously, the first-order
effects are quite obvious. Less police on the streets means
more crime. There's simply no deterrent to crime. Unless you
trust in the goodness of every man's heart, which would be
potentially disastrous, you are going to have more crime.
Think about the second-order effects. Has anyone on the
panel considered the brain drain that would happen? You will
have child abuse investigators, who have a very unique ability
they have accumulated over time to look a child in the eye and
know right away when they're trying to protect an abusive
parent because they've been threatened--I've seen it.
What about the child sexual abuse online, where some of
these people, they can look at an image and tell six different
degrees of separation, how that person got there and who is
that abused child? You're going to defund them too?
What about the latent print officer that shows up at your
house for a burglary that's been taking fingerprints for 20
years? You're going to teach someone that in 5 minutes in a
social worker police academy? Again, God bless our social
workers; that's not what they do.
What about the homicide detectives I worked with? When I
was young, rookie Secret Service agent, I couldn't break a guy
on interrogation. I couldn't get him to admit the crime. He
didn't want to admit it. We had a guy walk in--he had
experience. He walked in, knew how to interview. Within 5
minutes, we had a full confession, admitted to everything,
because he'd done it before, and he knew exactly the back-and-
forth of interview and interrogation.
These are skills that are going to be missing from our
streets. You don't understand the catastrophe that would
follow. I can't emphasize in strong enough terms the disaster
this would be if anyone follows through on it.
Mr. Reschenthaler. Thank you, Mr. Bongino.
I want to talk about the effect this would have on the
communities that are most vulnerable. For example, affluent
communities. If police forces were dismantled and defunded,
those affluent communities would just hire private police
firms. In fact, there's anecdotal evidence that that's already
happened in some places.
Could you talk about the effect, the sad irony we would see
if this happened, and what it would have on the most vulnerable
communities?
Mr. Bongino. Yeah. Think about it. With the 75 Precinct in
East New York, Brooklyn, where I worked, a couple of years
before I got there, they had more homicides in that one
precinct in New York City than the entire city of Baltimore had
a few years ago. By the time I got there in the '90s, they had
cut that down to such a point that the entire crime rate in New
York City was almost equivalent to that of Baltimore City, a
city multiple times the size.
This will save real lives, if we increase our police, not
decrease our police budgets. That's insane.
Mr. Reschenthaler. Thank you.
I yield.
Mr. Cicilline. I now recognize Mr. Lieu for his questions
for 5 minutes.
Mr. Lieu. I want to thank Chair Nadler and Subcommittee
Chair Bass for your excellent leadership on this outstanding
legislation.
We are here because Black lives matter. Most Republican
officials have been unable to say those three words. The
President has been unable to say it. The Attorney General
hasn't said it. The overwhelming majority of Republican
Senators and House Members have not said it. Why does this
matter? Because you can't fix the problem if you can't even
identify the problem.
This is not a problem of a few bad apples. This is
systematic, institutional racism against Black Americans.
All life is precious. Black lives are subjected to much
higher risk of brutality from the police than White lives.
That's what the data shows. We know, for example, that Black
Americans are killed at a rate twice as high from police than
White Americans.
Our government murdered George Floyd and countless Black
Americans. It wasn't one rogue cop who put his knee on George
Floyd's neck. There were an additional two police officers who
had their knees on George Floyd's body, and then a fourth
officer who stood as a lookout, and then a Minneapolis Police
Department spokesperson who gave a completely misleading
initial account of what happened. Then there were the officers
and civilians at the department who knew about the 18
misconduct claims against Derek Chauvin and didn't take strong
enough action.
It takes a village to allow for the persistent, systematic
murder of Black Americans by our government, and this has got
to stop.
The Justice in Policing Act is a critical step to stopping
the state-sanctioned police brutality against Black Americans.
It has a lot of great provisions. The first one I would like to
focus on is training.
Now, is training going to stop bad cops from doing bad
things? No. It might help good cops from doing bad things.
I note for the record that, in terms of training hours,
according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, police recruits
spend, on average, 840 hours in basic training and 500 hours in
field training, for a total of 1,340 hours. In California, to
be a licensed cosmetologist requires 1,600 hours. So, in other
words, it takes more training hours to be a hairdresser than to
be a police officer.
Now, just as important as the number of hours is how we
train our officers. I'm very pleased that this legislation
requires training in racial bias and racial profiling and in
procedural justice.
My first question today is to Mr. Davis.
Mr. Davis, when you testified before this Committee last
September, you talked about procedural justice. Can you explain
what procedural justice training is and why it's so important?
Mr. Davis. Thank you, Congressman. Yes, I can.
The basic concept of procedural justice is, the evidence
that shows people comply with the law not because they're
afraid of the police or even going into custody; they comply
with the law because they're given a voice, they believe the
law is fair and equitably applied, and that the process will be
fair to them.
We know this over the years when people get tickets and we
survey them. How they're treated determines their view about
that process more than whether or not they got the ticket.
So, this idea of procedural justice is a way to obtain
compliance, how to get people to [inaudible] but to comply. It
should be trained so that officers know how to gain compliance,
how to give people a voice, how to recognize how they treat
people has a greater impact on how they respond to that
authority than anything else.
Mr. Lieu. Thank you very much.
My second question is to Ms. Ifill.
Recently, Attorney General Bill Barr stated that he didn't
think there was systematic racism in law enforcement systems.
Do you agree with him that this is just an issue of a few rogue
cops rather than the systems we currently have in place?
Ms. Ifill. Not only do I disagree with him, but if Attorney
General Barr would consult the reports issued by his own
department in pattern-and-practice investigations in over two
dozen jurisdictions throughout the country, he would learn that
systemic racism actually exists in police departments around
the country. That has been fully investigated and found by the
Department of Justice, who sued those jurisdictions and put
them under consent decree.
The bad-apple theory of policing reform is a failure. It
looks only at individual officers instead of the system in
which they operate. If we want to change culture, if we want to
change relationships, then we have to change the rules that
govern that system.
There is no change that happened in this country,
especially culture change, that happened because of midnight
basketball or that happened because we all got in a room and
ate together. We didn't end racial discrimination and
segregation in schools by all getting together and having a
meeting. It actually required law to make it happen. We didn't
end the barring of women from being hired in certain
professions by having a conference. It required the law.
Now we have found a systemic problem that has been with us
for decades that required law to actually change the context in
which policing happens in this country and to give us a chance
to make [inaudible] and to look at public safety more broadly
than we've done in the past and to make police officers
accountable within that system of public safety.
Mr. Cicilline. Thank you very much.
The time of the gentleman has expired.
I now recognize Mr. Cline for 5 minutes.
Mr. Cline. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Across the street from the Capitol, above the Supreme Court
is inscribed ``Equal Justice Under Law.'' Today I stand with
fellow Americans in condemning the brutal killing of George
Floyd and so many others who have been denied that equal
justice under the law.
Mr. Floyd, Ms. Underwood Jacobs, we grieve with you, and we
mourn with you. You have our sincere condolences for your loss.
Mr. Floyd's killing was an outrageous Act of violence
committed by a member of law enforcement with a long record of
over a dozen citizen complaints. With the recent arrest of the
former officers involved, I look forward to justice being
served and being served quickly. For so many others, they will
not see that justice served.
In the time that has passed since Mr. Floyd's murder, many
more examples of injustice across the Nation have had the
spotlight shone upon them, including Breonna Taylor in
Louisville, who was killed by officers in her apartment when a
no-knock warrant was served at her residence by officers
looking suspects.
American justice should be served in a court of law, but,
sadly, many have been denied this right, having been killed
while being brought into custody.
Mr. Chair, in my district office, I have a copy of one of
Norman Rockwell's ``Four Freedoms,'' the ``Freedom of
Speech''--one of the freedoms given to us by our Creator and a
cornerstone of American democracy.
As we mourn the death of George Floyd, we're also
witnessing Americans who continue to exercise their First
Amendment rights to peaceably assemble to protest Mr. Floyd's
death and highlight other instances of police violence across
the country and the need for significant, real reform.
Congress should continue to work together to find solutions
to these pervasive problems and ensure that all Americans are
being afforded access to equal justice under the law. I believe
there are many ways we can continue to work together, rather
than put forward policies that divide us.
This Committee has a long history of working together to
find bipartisan solutions on issues facing our justice system.
The FIRST STEP Act, just 2 years ago, reformed our Federal
criminal justice system. This Act included provisions focused
on reducing recidivism, reforming incarceration policy,
correctional reforms, sentencing reforms, and improved
oversight.
Many of the policies included in Chair Bass's bill are
ideas that can achieve that bipartisan consensus once again.
Increased data collection about officer-involved shootings,
body cameras, outlawing chokeholds, making lynching a Federal
crime, demilitarizing our police forces are all areas where we
can potentially find that bipartisan consensus.
Although we may need to review certain tactics and methods
used by law enforcement, we cannot continue to consider the
irrational and ridiculous notion of defunding, disbanding, or
eliminating our police departments. The rule of law is
foundational in the United States, and we must advance
solutions that provide fair access to justice while enforcing
our laws. As John Adams said, we are a Nation of laws, not of
men.
The vast majority of those who serve and protect are good
people and stand firmly against the violent and hateful actions
of bad officers. At the same time, we cannot ignore the need to
have dialogue and understanding when confronting difficult
issues like the ones before us today.
We must also look at the departmental policies that are
keeping bad officers in their positions. A substantial number
of collective bargaining agreements among police departments
limit officer interrogations after alleged misconduct, mandate
the destruction of disciplinary records, ban civilian
oversight, prevent anonymous civilian complaints, indemnify
officers in the event of civil suits, and limit the length of
internal investigations.
Instead of efforts pursued by the majority to expand police
unions, we should be limiting the scope of their collective
bargaining and ensure that laws already on the books aren't
hampered by contracts that they've negotiated, such as the
Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act, whose
effectiveness has been diluted because DOJ's attempt to reform
police departments must work around the terms of collective
bargaining agreements.
Mr. Floyd, you just said we might know be able to tell the
good cops from the bad. We should be able to keep the bad ones
from coming back.
This is a time for personal and national reflection on how
we can be better neighbors and better citizens of the greatest
Nation on Earth. I truly hope we can seize this moment in time
so that Americans can come together. I hope, as legislators, we
can come together to craft solutions to make our communities
safe, strengthen the bonds that unite us, and ensure that we
can live out God's direction in Micah chapter 6, verse 8, to
Act justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with our God.
I yield back.
Mr. Cicilline. The gentleman yields back.
I now recognize the gentleman from Maryland, Mr. Raskin,
for 5 minutes.
Mr. Raskin. Thank you.
Mr. Floyd, I have a brother too, whom I love very much, and
I cannot imagine your pain right now. My heart goes out to you.
I want to say you've been a wonderful brother to your brother
and a great citizen today. So, thank you for sticking with us.
Professor Butler, the whole point of the social contract is
that we'll be safer inside of it rather than outside of it, in
the State of nature, State of war. That's why our Constitution
protects life, liberty, and property against arbitrary
deprivation by the government.
Now, this legislation that we're looking at today, the
Justice in Policing Act, will ban chokeholds, strangleholds,
no-knock warrants, racial and ethnic profiling. It will
criminalize lynching. It will end the militarization of local
police departments. It creates a national police misconduct
registry. It strengthens the standards of police
accountability.
My question for you is, given that you're someone who
studies this for a living and teaches about it, is the social
contract working for African Americans today with respect to
policing? If not, will this legislation actually vindicate the
value of human life that Members on both sides of the aisle
have spoken about?
Mr. Butler. Indeed, Congressman, I was so moved by Mr.
Johnson's introduction when he talked about the dignity of
every human life. Then we heard Ranking Member Jordan echo Mr.
Floyd's heartfelt plea that life is precious.
The justice Act of 2020 reaffirms the sanctity of life. It
establishes a national standard for when the police can legally
kill people and requires officers to employ de-escalation
techniques. The Act states that cops could only kill people as
a last resort and requires them to try to de-escalate the
situation before resorting to deadly force. This is common
sense, but it's not the law now.
Mr. Raskin. Thank you.
Ms. Gupta, do you agree with Mr. Crump that we should
impose the traditional doctrine of respondeat superior, let the
master answer for the employee, on police departments so that
they have the proper incentives to carefully train and
supervise and monitor their officers?
Ms. Gupta. Yes, I do.
Mr. Raskin. Ms. Ifill, Mayor Morial spoke of the history of
lynching and racism and the cycles of American history. There
have two other moments in our history when America moved
aggressively to try to transcend the original curse of violent
White supremacy. One was Reconstruction, which lasted 12 years
after the Civil War before it was undone by racism. The second
was the modern civil rights movement, the so-called Second
Reconstruction, when the blood sacrifice of Dr. King and
Schwerner, Chaney, and Goodman and Medgar Evers and Bob Moses
and our colleague John Lewis and many others gave us the Civil
Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. This
civil rights movement, this Second Reconstruction, also faced a
violent backlash.
What are our prospects for a third and enduring
Reconstruction today, Ms. Ifill? What needs to happen for us to
transcend the nightmare of racist violence and injustice that
we seem to have been trapped in?
Ms. Ifill. Thank you.
Well, for purposes of this hearing, every Member of this
body has to take responsibility for what is happening in this
country and decide that they will put behind them their
election prospects, their sound bites for FOX News or for any
other news network. They have to decide that they want to get
their hands around this problem.
That means working together to try and solve what the
people in cities in every State in this country have told them
over the last 2 weeks is a problem that people will not
tolerate anymore.
It takes courage. It is going to take a lot of work for all
of you in that body to come together. This bill has provisions
that I believe you can agree on, from what I've heard today. I
would encourage people to read the bill.
This bill does not repeal qualified immunity, for example.
It actually changes the standard that courts have distorted
over time.
Read the bill. There is nothing in this bill that should
objectionable to anyone who cares about public safety truly,
who cares about antidiscrimination and pledges themselves to
it, who cares about the rule of law, and who cares about this
country, and who believes, as many have said today, that they
owe something to Mr. Floyd and his family and even to Ms.
Jacobs and her family, because police officers are made unsafe
by the current system.
Mr. Raskin. Thank you.
Ms. Ifill. So, I would encourage people to read the bill,
and I would encourage people to step up with courage, not only
in this body but in State and local governments as well, and to
decide that they want to work together to solve this problem
that the people have said cannot wait anymore.
Mr. Raskin. Thank you, Ms. Ifill.
Mr. Chair, I have a unanimous consent request that I would
like to propose, if that's all right.
Chair Nadler. [Presiding.] Go ahead.
Mr. Raskin. A number of our colleagues have denounced
several episodes of violence that have marred the beautiful and
massive nonviolent protests that are transforming America
today. I ask unanimous consent to enter into the record the
following articles: ``White Supremacists and Other Extremists
Exploiting This Moment'' in the Richmond Times-Dispatch; ``Far-
Right Infiltrators and Agitators in George Floyd Protests:
Indicators of White Supremacists,'' in Just Security; and
``Facebook Removes Nearly 200 Accounts Tied to Hate Groups''
encouraging Members to attend protests over police killings,
and that is in ABC News.
Chair Nadler. Without objection.
[The information follows:]
MR. RASKIN FOR THE RECORD
=======================================================================
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Chair Nadler. The gentleman's time has expired.
Mr. Raskin. Thank you.
Chair Nadler. Mr. Steube.
Mr. Steube. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Mr. Floyd, I would offer my personal condolence to you in
the loss of your brother. I can't imagine having to watch your
family member die a needless and merciless passing. I feel
confident that not only justice will be served for him, but I
think that significant and necessary reforms will come of this
tragic incident.
I wish Ms. Underwood Jacobs was still here, but I also want
to give my condolence to her. Hopefully she'll watch the video.
I have brother and a father-in-law enforcement, and I
cannot imagine the pain that you are experiencing, knowing that
someone intentionally targeted him simply because he was an
officer. I'm very sorry for your loss, and my prayers are with
you and your family and with Mr. Floyd's family. In my prayers
this morning, Philippians 4:13 came to mind. So, I hope that
you can reflect on that.
This is a dangerous, dangerous time for law enforcement and
their families. Just in the conversation I had with my brother
yesterday, he said he had two of his deputies quit because of
all the issues that they are facing: Threats, targeting, being
reconned on their homes, their vehicles being looted and broken
into at their homes.
Speaking of law enforcement officers, I also would like to
give condolences to the family of the retired police captain
David Dorn, who was fatally shot last week trying to prevent a
pawn shop from being looted during what the left is calling a
peaceful protest. His life mattered as well, and I commend his
service to his community as a law enforcement officer and wish
that there was a member of his family here represented today to
give their remarks in his passing.
While officers like David Dorn and David Underwood have
been targeted and murdered during these so-called protests, it
is extremely troubling that many of my colleagues on the left
have failed to condemn the violence and rioting in our cities
and communities across the country.
Protests are peaceful. Looting, killing, stealing,
destruction, and burning some of the very cities where their
leaders just weeks ago were arresting people for violating
stay-at-home orders is absolute lawlessness.
The hypocrisy of these leaders arresting those violating
stay-at-home orders for, say, going surfing or other
activities--gathering in a synagogue with 10 or more people--
the hypocrisy of these leaders arresting those individuals for
violating stay-at-home orders but sitting by while their cities
burn is outlandish to me.
On one day alone, on May 31, in Chicago, one city, on one
day, saw 18 people murdered due to rioting in one night--the
deadliest day in Chicago in 60 years. There were over 65,000
911 calls. Can you imagine if we abolished the police
department? Those 65,000 people would be calling, and nobody
would be there to come to their rescue.
That is not America. That is anarchy.
When your leaders talk about disbanding police departments,
you are emboldening criminals to continue to commit crime,
knowing that there will be no one to stop them.
I talked to my brother yesterday, and they had an incident
at a Walmart where there were 30 individuals looting the
Walmart--the Walmart that my wife and I go to on a pretty
regular basis. They only had 3 officers respond to 30
individuals who had weapons. Well, they're not going to use 3
officers to respond to 30 individuals because of the safety
risk incurred to those officers, so those 30 individuals got
away.
I thought that Pastor Scott had a great statement today in
his opening comment.
Pastor, you said, ``The prospect of defunding or
dismantling our police forces is one of the most unwise,
irresponsible proposals made by American politicians.'' I would
agree.
There are issues in this proposal that we can all agree
upon: A law against lynching, which I supported and this House
passed months ago, which we voted for earlier this year.
Ensuring bad cops don't get hired at different agencies.
Absolutely, that's an incredible idea. Reporting use of force
in an FBI database. Creating a commission on social status of
Black men and boys based on a Florida program that I
participated in as a Florida Senator in the State of Florida. I
was proud to be a part of that program.
There are proposals in this bill that are extremely
dangerous for those who protect our communities. Removing
qualified immunity is only--qualified immunity is only a
protection if officers follow their training and protocols. If
they don't follow the training and protocols, they don't get to
use the immunity, because it's qualified.
If officers don't have qualified immunity to follow their
training and protocols, I don't know a single person who would
want to become a law enforcement officer in today's world,
knowing that they may or may not be able to use the training
and protocols that they were used to be able to apprehend a
suspect who is not complying with them. Maybe that's the goal
of the majority: To get less and less people to join our law
enforcement offices.
One quick point, in the little time I have left, is
military equipment--or, as Mr. Raskin calls it, the
militarization of our police departments. They use bulletproof
vests and bulletproof shields to protect our officers who
protect our communities. By stripping them of that ability and
stripping them of their ability to use weapons to protect
themselves is a dangerous, dangerous path to go down. I don't
think that our country supports that.
Mr. Floyd, I think, said it best.
You said, ``Life is precious.'' I would agree with you. I
would contend that all life is precious, and it all deserves
protection.
I yield back.
Chair Nadler. The gentleman yields back.
Ms. Demings.
Ms. Demings. Thank you so much, Mr. Chair.
I also want to mention our Subcommittee Chair and thank
Chair Bass for her leadership.
Thank you to all the Witnesses and for your endurance. It's
worth it.
Mr. Floyd, my family and I, along with my constituents in
Florida, join you in grieving the death of your brother,
George.
I know that Ms. Underwood Jacobs is not here any longer,
but my family and I and my constituents also join her in the
death of her brother, Patrick. I have attended many law
enforcement funerals, more than I care admit.
We are outraged about both deaths. Let me say this, as law
enforcement officers, they are held to a higher standard. I'm
sure Ms. Patrick's--or Ms. Underwood Jacobs's brother deserved
to wear the uniform. Everybody does not. That's why we are here
today.
I come before you as the mother of three beautiful Black
sons. I also come before you as a former social worker and a
former police chief.
Many have tried to frame this tragic event as an us-versus-
them situation. That's not what this is. This is not about the
community being against the police or the police being about
the community. It's much bigger than that. This moment is about
what's right, and this moment is about what's wrong.
This is not a Black issue or a White issue. It's not a
Democratic issue or a Republican issue. This is an American
issue that has turned into yet another American tragedy. We are
all have to get this right. Lord knows I want to get this
right.
While the actions of one brutally murdered, took the life
of your brother, Mr. Floyd, three other officers did nothing
about it for 8 minutes and 46 seconds. I have been on the
street, and I know what it feels like to be waiting for backup
to come. Eight minutes and 46 seconds feels like a lifetime.
That's a long time. While one officer took the life of Mr.
Floyd, three others stood by and did nothing for 8 minutes and
46 seconds.
Chief Davis, would you talk for just a moment of an
officer's duty to act? In general. An officer's duty to act.
For example, if they received a call for service, does an
officer have the ability to simply refuse to go to that call?
Certainly, when they see a crime in progress, a wrongdoing
being perpetrated by a fellow officer, please talk about their
obligation to intervene and also report to the agency that bad
behavior.
Chief Davis?
Mr. Davis. Thank you, Congresswoman.
I agree with you 100 percent. That is why one of the things
I asked for earlier was the reaffirmation of the oath of
office, because the officer takes the oath to the Constitution
to protect and serve, and they have a duty to serve. We say
against all enemies, foreign and domestic.
They have the duty to take the calls that they're sent to.
They have the duty to enforce the law. Most policies require
the duty to intervene. So, they were morally obligated, they
were procedurally obligated, they were legally obligated to
intervene with Mr. Floyd's murder.
They're legally obligated to respond to the calls. We
expect them to go to active shooters. We expect them to go to
bank robberies, domestic violence. We also expect them to be
consistent. So, anyone that's violating the law should be held
accountable, and there's not a pass because you wear the badge.
As you know as a chief, as I just spent 9 years as a chief,
you should be held to a much higher standard. That standard
includes a duty to intervene, a duty to report misconduct, and
a duty to render first aid, because those are the high
standards of this profession.
Ms. Demings. Thank you so much, Chief Davis.
Mr. Chair, I yield back.
Chair Nadler. The gentlelady yields back.
Mr. Armstrong.
Mr. Armstrong. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I'm not sure that an at-large Representative from a State
that is 89 percent White and 100 percent rural is always the
best person to address these issues, and I don't pretend to be.
We neighbor Minnesota. Minneapolis is the city that is, far and
away, the closest to North Dakotans' hearts. On May 25, we
watched in abject horror as your brother was brutally murdered.
On May 27, our entire State mourned because Officer Cody
Holte was killed trying to save another officer who been
wounded, independent of anything else that is going on in the
rest of the country.
The very next Tuesday, we buried Officer Cody Holte, and it
was an incredibly beautiful and incredibly tragic funeral.
Yesterday, I watched your brother's funeral, and it was
incredibly beautiful and incredibly tragic.
You know what I found through the whole course of all this?
None of it was binary. I agree with Congresswoman Demings; this
is not an us-against-them. This is not that situation.
We can do reform. We've done it before. We've done it in
States like North Dakota. I hope, when we go through a markup,
that we are willing to work through this. Because I think
you'll find there are a lot of people on my side of the aisle
that agree with a lot of the concepts on the other side of the
aisle.
I will view this bill the same way I view every other bill:
How does it work at 2:30 on the side of road in a State where
it's often one officer--and, by the way, not just for the
officer, for the officer and the person being detained. How
does it work at 2:30 on the side of a road where backup is
measured in hours and not minutes?
Because my concern with these things is always: I don't
pretend to know how to police in urban districts. I don't live
in an urban district. You have to recognize that, as we intend
to do these things, we have a high turnover rate. We have a
hard time hiring law enforcement as it is in North Dakota. We
have to make sure that it can work everywhere.
If it comes to holding bad cops accountable and bad
departments accountable, I'm all in. Because once they wash out
everywhere else, they might end up where I'm at, and we don't
want that either.
After that, I think I would go with: I hope I can give some
people some hope. Because regardless of how this works next
week and regardless of what we mark up, what we move forward,
we shouldn't be done. We should continue to work towards other
things. Those things are disparities in sentencing, disparities
in pretrial release--things that we quantifiably can show
exist.
In 2016, and this is primarily in State court, because it's
about 88 percent of the prison population in the United States
is in State court--Black prisoners serve essentially a 5-1
prison sentence on drug crimes than White prisoners. Now,
that's down from 16-1 in 2000, but it's pretty hard to pat
yourself on a back for something that shouldn't exist in the
first place.
What we found is that, as we move forward and we dealt with
minimum mandatory sentencing--and minimum mandatory sentencing
was supposed to be to get rid of disparity in these sentences.
What we found is blacks are almost twice as likely to be
charged with a minimum mandatory offense as whites. So, instead
of taking it out of the courts' hands and the judges' hands,
we've moved it into prosecutors' hands.
Pretrial release. As we continue to do this--States have
done this; North Dakota has done this--working towards issues
that allow for people to be released based on risk assessment,
not monetary value. Those types of things work.
This matters on the street, because if you know if you're
going to get arrested that you're not going to get out, the
likelihood of you resisting, absconding, all those different
things go up significantly. We can do that.
We should look at policies that are racially neutral on
their face but have a historically disparate racial impact.
School zone enhancement for drug crimes. As we've seen this go
on years after years, these enhancements have gotten larger and
larger, and they also tend to be in highly urban, densely
populated, poor neighborhoods that are predominantly African
American. Those enhancements need reform.
We need to look at those things. Those are things we can
continue to do and I will continue to do with everybody on the
other side of the aisle.
My point to this is not to deflect. We've heard all these
different things today. I want my friends on the other side of
the aisle to know that we can do this. I know we can do it
because we did it in North Dakota. If we can do it in North
Dakota, we can do it absolutely anywhere. It takes working with
each other, and it takes working with each other on both sides
of the aisle.
So, no matter how we move forward on this and continue to
work, I want you to know, there are people on our side of the
aisle that are committed to working on these issues that will
have real, positive impact for people across this country. It's
not just about what we have going on now; it's how we continue
to work in the future. So, reach out, ask us. We're here to
help.
Thank you.
Chair Nadler. The gentleman yields back.
Mr. Correa.
Mr. Correa. Thank you, Mr. Chair Nadler and Chair Bass, for
holding this most important hearing.
Mr. Floyd, I want to thank you for being here today in this
very difficult moment for you and your family. The murder of
your brother, George Floyd, reminds us of all that the
relationship between public safety and those who they are sworn
to protect can't be assumed to always be one that's a healthy
relationship.
In my district, the new Ellis Island of the United States,
we're diverse and we're always changing. New Americans live
side-by-side with the Greatest Generation.
We have to remember that we are not a police state, and we
are not a police country and that, for public safety officers
to do their job, trust and cooperation are essential.
We've worked really hard over decades, the last few
decades, to bring that trust into being. That's why it is so
sad to see again another murder, another tragedy in our
streets. This is exactly why this bill has to become law.
When I was at California legislature, this issue kept
popping up over and over again. In my work with the autism
community, this issue again resurfaced about a decade ago. As
police began to confront the tidal wave of maturing autistic
children, we soon realized that police officers were not
trained to deal with autistic adults. Autistic individuals, not
capable of following directions, were considered to be
uncooperative. Soon, violent confrontations arose and were
reported in the press.
My work in this area in updating California police officer
standards was soon brought to the attention of a retired police
chief in the Midwest, the father of an autistic adult who was
also trying to address the issue of autism and public safety.
This clearly shows that police training is not a local issue
but a national issue. Again, this shows why this bill must
become law.
The Justice in Policing Act of 2020 improves police
training and practices by creating law enforcement development
programs to develop policies, best practices, among others.
My legislation, H.R. 5251, Improving Community Safety Task
Force, directs the Attorney General to also establish a task
force seeking ways to reduce violent clashes between
communities and public safety officers.
Mr. Chair, at this point, I would like to submit for the
record a letter from Brian Marvel, President of the Peace
Officers Research Association of California, discussing how
they support reforms.
Chair Nadler. Without objection.
[The information follows:]
MR. CORREA FOR THE RECORD
=======================================================================
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Mr. Correa. Mayor Underwood, I want to let you know that
your family's loss, your brother, will also not go forgotten.
I have a question for Professor Butler.
Welcome, first, sir.
Welcome, to all the Witnesses.
Mr. Butler. Thank you, sir.
Mr. Correa. I'd like to take a moment to discuss arrest
disparities.
The ACLU has said African Americans are almost four times
more likely to be arrested for cannabis possession. For
Washington, DC, you have stated that African Americans are
about 50 percent of those that use cannabis, yet they account
for 90 percent of the people who are charged with marijuana
crimes. Is that correct, sir?
Mr. Butler. Yes, sir.
Mr. Correa. How do you think the legalization of cannabis
will help with social justice in this Nation?
Mr. Butler. We think it would help create equal justice
under the law.
We know that, for drug crimes, African Americans don't
disproportionately commit those crimes. The National Institutes
of Health says that we don't disproportionately possess drugs.
Most people report buying drugs from someone of their own race.
If you go from NIH in Bethesda to the Bureau of Justice
Statistics in DC, they'll tell you 60 percent of people locked
up for drug crimes are Black--about 15 percent of people who do
the crime, 60 percent of people who do the time. That's unequal
justice under the law.
Mr. Correa. So, would you say that we're mixing criminal
justice with social issues, with medical issues, when it comes
to our national drug policy?
Mr. Butler. The drug addiction issue is an issue of public
health, as is the issue of the epidemic of violence in
communities. It's a public health issue, not exclusively a
criminal law issue.
Mr. Correa. Thank you very much.
Mr. Chair, I yield.
Chair Nadler. The gentleman yields back.
Ms. Scanlon.
Ms. Scanlon. Thank you.
First, of course, I wanted to join my colleagues in
expressing our condolences to your family, Mr. Floyd. I cannot
begin to imagine the pain of having to relive that video over
and over again.
I just want to thank you for having the strength to speak
here today to share George's story and his spirit and his words
with this Committee but also with the country. I'm sure that
your brother would be proud of you.
Our hearts and those of every thinking and feeling American
are with you and your family, and we're committed to making the
changes that we need to ensure that you, your family, and every
family in this country receives the equal justice and the
security that our Constitution and our most essential American
values demand.
We're here to listen and to confront the harsh truths about
racism in our country and the law enforcement practices that
for too long have allowed police violence against communities
of color and especially Black individuals.
The murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery,
Tony McDade, and on and on have once again brought these truths
to the surface: That centuries of systemic racism and inaction
have resulted in a justice system that harms Black communities
and policing practices that disproportionately kill Black
Americans.
This is unacceptable. We must change. America must change.
Americans have taken to the streets in peaceful protest, all
across this great Nation, in big cities and small towns, to
demand that change. We are witnessing a long-overdue moral
reckoning in our country, and each of us must examine how to be
agents of that change, because we have a lot of work to do.
Change must come at the local, State, and Federal level.
Just as cities and States are reckoning with ways to protect
communities and hold law enforcement accountable, Congress must
do the same.
I want to thank all our Witnesses for helping us understand
the changes we need to make to achieve justice for all
Americans, particularly which ones are uniquely crying out for
Federal solutions.
Having worked for decades as a public interest lawyer, I'm
particularly interested in some of the legal fixes that this
bill provides. I know that, sometimes, small changes in a
statute can have enormous implications for holding powerful
institutions accountable. The bill we're considering contains a
few of those.
Ms. Gupta, one of the ways that police officers can be held
accountable is a Federal law that makes it a crime to violate
someone's civil rights, including by using excessive force as a
police officer. In its current form, it's very difficult to get
a conviction under that law, because it requires proving that
the police officer willfully violated a person's civil rights.
Can you explain how changing the statute to require a
reckless standard instead of willfulness would improve police
accountability?
Ms. Gupta. Yeah. So, the Justice Department currently only
has one law that they can use to prosecute police misconduct,
and, as you said, it has the highest mens rea requirement there
is in criminal law, requiring not only that prosecutors prove
that the officer used unreasonable force but, actually, also,
that the officer knew that what he or she was doing was in
violation of the law and did it anyway. That is actually a very
high burden. So, for years, there have been case after case
that the Justice Department has been unable to reach because of
how high this burden is.
There are many criminal civil rights prosecutors that for
years have also wanted the change that is being proposed in the
Justice in Policing Act because I think it would enhance the
Justice Department's credibility in these matters to be able to
hold officers who violate Federal civil rights laws
accountable.
So, the Justice in Policing Act asks--it changed the mens
rea standard to ``knowingly or with reckless disregard.'' It's
a slightly lower standard, so more cases will be charged.
It also, really importantly, broadens the language of the
Federal civil rights statute by including in its definition of
a death resulting from an officer's action any Act that was a
substantial factor contributing to death. I know many, many
former U.S. attorneys that are eager to see this change as
well.
Ms. Scanlon. I actually was approached by one of those
former U.S. attorneys at my train station this week, saying
this was probably one of the key provisions.
Ms. Gupta. There you go.
Ms. Scanlon. It looks like my time has expired, so I yield
back. Thank you.
Chair Nadler. The gentlelady yields back.
Ms. Garcia.
Ms. Garcia. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you to all the Witnesses. I thank you for your
patience. I know it's been a long day, but, certainly, the
topic is worthy of that time and probably more times of
discussion before we ultimately vote.
To Mr. Floyd and Ms. Underwood Jacobs, we certainly
accompany in your grief.
I know you and I visited just a little bit at the funeral
yesterday in Houston. Please know that you have my heartfelt
condolences. I have five brothers. Sometimes they beat up on me
a little bit, and sometimes they were helpful, and sometimes
they were just brothers. So, I know how important that is. So,
I grieve with you.
Mr. Chair, I wish that we were here today under different
circumstances. Instead, we're here because our Nation is
struggling to heal after witnessing the horrific murder of
George Floyd.
As a person of faith, I was taught at an early age that
we're all children of God. George Floyd was not treated as a
child of God during his final moments on this Earth.
Mr. Floyd, I stand with you and your family, and I stand
with Black and brown Americans and all Americans across the
country who just want to live and breathe without fear.
I stand with my colleagues in the Congressional Black
Caucus as we demand for America to live up to its values. We
can no longer continue living in an America that says during
the Pledge of Allegiance ``justice for all,'' but then not
actually guarantee justice for all.
We must put an end to police brutality, racial profiling,
White supremacy, and racism in America. We are here today
because our laws must boldly affirm that Black lives matter.
I want to get to the topic of the case itself, the
investigation and what may or may not happen, because I think
that the Justice in Policing Act addresses a lot of the issues
that I've seen as a lawyer, a former judge, when some of these
cases are handled.
I also might add that I served as the first chair of the
Independent Police Oversight Board in Houston. I helped Mayor
Parker put that together; then she made me chair for 2 years.
So, I've seen some of these cases, and some of them are tough
to make.
In your case, Mr. Floyd, I think it was good that there was
swift action. The police officer was arrested. It took a little
time before they arrested the others. In many cases--the Arbery
case. He was out jogging. Seventy-four days before an arrest.
Just recently, we saw in the video that was just released
in Williamson County an incident that happened in March of
2019. The arrest was actually delayed, and the video was even
more delayed. They just released it last week although it
happened in March of 2019, a year later.
So, sometimes it's not quick enough, and then we wonder
why.
So, I wanted to ask first Ms. Ifill, if she's still with us
by video: In terms of investigations, are we adequately
addressing the need for an independent investigation in the
Justice in Policing Act?
Ms. Ifill. Yes. This is one of the most important parts of
the legislation. It is critical that police feel that these
killings and these abuses are investigated by someone who is
independent, who is not connected with the local prosecutor's
office, and who can bring fresh eyes to bear on whether there
was a violation of the Constitution or violation of criminal
law.
In too many places around the country, we have seen these
incidents where prosecutors have demonstrated that they are
unwilling to robustly lean into an investigation, unwilling to
arrest, unwilling to indict, or if they bring the case before
the grand jury, we then hear later that the presentation was
lackluster and was not the kind of presentation we would expect
of a prosecutor. So, we need independence.
Ms. Garcia. Thank you. I want to move quickly, if we can--
Ms. Ifill. There is a colossal lack of confidence right now
in the justice system, and it is deserved. As a lawyer, I can
say it pains me, because I have dedicated my life, as a civil
rights lawyer, to using the law to effect change.
What you are seeing on the streets of this country, all
over this country, is a colossal lack of confidence in the
justice system.
It is incumbent upon this body, in this legislation, to put
together the means of restoring that confidence. That
confidence only comes back if the justice system can be said to
be fair, can be said to be legitimate, and can be said to
produce just results. When it comes to cases of police killing
unarmed African Americans at this point, we do not have those
three.
Ms. Garcia. Thank you.
Mr. Chair, I did have a question for Mr. Crump and Ms.
Gupta, but I'll submit them in writing. I yield back my time.
Chair Nadler. The gentlelady yields back.
Mr. Neguse.
Mr. Neguse. Thank you, Chair Nadler. Thank you, Chair Bass,
Members of the Committee, and my fellow members of the
Congressional Black Caucus, for your leadership on this issue.
I want to express my deepest condolences to you, Mr. Floyd,
and to Ms. Underwood Jacobs as well. I know all of us will
continue to keep you and your families in our prayers.
What happened to your brother, Mr. Floyd, and what happened
to Breonna Taylor is truly an outrage. I pray that, together,
we can meet the moment and we can honor their memories by
passing the Justice in Policing Act. Not just to honor their
memories, but the memories of so many others across the
country.
In 2016, here in Colorado, Michael Marshall, a 50-year-old,
112-pound Black man, was killed by jail deputies. While
enduring a psychiatric episode in jail, he was restrained in
the prone position by five deputies for over 13 minutes, in
which time he aspirated on his own vomit and went in and out of
consciousness.
More recently, in August of 2019, Elijah McClain, a 23-
year-old unarmed Black man, died after a physical encounter
with the Aurora Police Department while walking home one night.
After initially not responding to police, McClain was tackled
to the ground by officers, placed in a chokehold, and vomited.
He was later given ketamine, suffered a heart attack on the way
to the hospital, and ultimately died. On the body camera
recording, you can clearly hear Elijah say, ``I can't
breathe.''
These are the same words that we heard Eric Garner say over
6 years ago as he was put in a chokehold by an NYPD officer.
They are the same words spoken by Mr. Floyd, who had a knee to
his neck for 8 minutes and 46 seconds.
It is past time that Congress banned chokeholds and other
harmful police tactics that have led to far too many deaths.
That is why the Justice in Policing Act is so important.
I will say that I'm very encouraged by the broad base of
support this legislation has received, including from the
American Psychological Association.
With unanimous consent, Mr. Chair, I'd ask to submit their
statement of support into the record.
Chair Nadler. Without objection.
[The information follows:]
MR. NEGUSE FOR THE RECORD
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[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Mr. Neguse. As you may know--or, rather, I know the Chair
is well aware, but as many I'm sure are aware also, data on
policing has been particularly deficient for quite some time.
As a result, it has hindered our understanding and our ability
to hold law enforcement accountable in real-time.
We don't know this week how many times an officer used a
Taser or fired their weapon or how many times individuals were
injured while they were in police custody. This is basic
information, and its critical information to ensuring that such
actions are regulated.
That brings me to my first question, for Ms. Gupta, which
is: How does the mostly volunteer system that we currently have
on data collection fail to capture these data points? Second,
how does requiring State and local law enforcement to report
that data improve accountability?
Ms. Gupta. Thank you, Congressman.
It is a real shame that in 2020 we still do not have
adequate data collection on use of force in this country. We
have had to rely for several years on journalists putting this
stuff together at The Washington Post and at The Guardian.
The FBI has started to try to more systematically collect
it, but this bill, the Justice in Policing Act, actually
includes a requirement for States to report use-of-force data
to the Justice Department, including the reason that force was
used.
Technical assistance grants are established in this bill to
assist agencies that have fewer than 100 employees with
compliance. That was often the reason that police agencies were
not reporting on this.
It, also, requires the Attorney General to collect data on
traffic stops, searches, uses of deadly force by Federal,
State, and local law enforcement agencies, and to disaggregate
that data by race, ethnicity, and gender.
There should be no reason why, in the United States of
America in 2020, we aren't able to collect that kind of data.
These incentives are going to be really important to making
sure that we have that data, can learn from it, and can improve
and change the culture of policing from it as well.
Mr. Neguse. Thank you, Ms. Gupta. Your testimony certainly
underscores why the Justice in Policing Act is so necessary.
Thank you again to each of our Witnesses for being here
today and for testifying.
With that, I'll yield back, Mr. Chair.
Chair Nadler. The gentleman yields back.
Ms. McBath.
Ms. McBath. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I want to thank all our Witnesses that are still left.
Thank you for being here for so long today. It's really vitally
important that we hear from you.
Most specifically, I want to say to you, Mr. Floyd, and to
Ms. Underwood Jacobs, I offer you my deepest condolences.
Because I know exactly how you feel. I know your pain. I can't
sit here and say, ``I can only imagine.'' I know what you are
going through.
Mr. Floyd, I was so grateful to be able to go to your
brother's funeral in Fayetteville, North Carolina. I am so
sorry that you are here testifying over the loss of your
brother.
We come to this hearing today as a result of deep, morally
painful wounds and events that happen in this country again and
again and again. We come to remember George Floyd and Breonna
Taylor and the many lives that have been lost to violence at
the hands of those with a sworn duty to protect and serve us.
We have lost too many of our brothers and our sisters and
our mothers and fathers under these incidents of law
enforcement. We know that these recent tragedies are part of a
system of racial disparities that have been harming people of
color for 400 years.
In Georgia, where I represent Georgia's Sixth Congressional
District, we recently lost the life of Ahmaud Arbery, who was
pursued by three men and chased by two pickup trucks and
murdered in the streets just miles from his home.
As Georgia investigators testified last week, Ahmaud's
killer used the ``N'' word as Ahmaud lay dying in the street.
The investigator testified that the killer's father, a former
police officer, carried a handgun during the pursuit, a handgun
that was issued to him by his police department, a handgun that
he carried as a police officer, still bearing the initials of
the department.
I grieve every day for these continued losses. I grieve as
a mother who lost her own child to the very same violence that
we're talking about today and tomorrow and next week and next
month and next year.
I lost my son, Jordan, by a man who called him a thug for
simply playing loud music in his car. Jordan's tragedy is
shockingly, shockingly similar to Ahmaud Arbery's: Being Black
while being in your own community.
I feel the pain experienced by too many families every
single day. Every single day it happens, it's like a sucker
punch in my heart and my gut. Because when is it going to stop?
I pray every single day for our Nation. I pray every single
day for every family. I pray that today we finally do something
about it.
I know that my time is going to be up, so I'm going to just
ask one very quick question.
Professor Butler, very briefly, do you think a commission
that I have been working on, a commission that would study the
social determinants and the effects of young Black men and boys
in this country, do you believe that that would be justified in
creating research and data for this very legislation that we're
talking about today?
Mr. Butler. I think African-American boys and girls
desperately need interventions that don't blame them for
problems that society causes. So, I think that that kind of
commission is key.
Ms. McBath. Thank you very, very much.
I know that my time is up, but I am begging everyone here
today, I am begging you to stand in the gap. I am begging you
to speak up. I am begging you to be a part of solving the
problems of all the young Black men and women in this country
that die every single day. Because if you do not, you are
complicit.
I yield back the balance of my time.
Chair Nadler. The gentlelady yields back.
Mr. Stanton?
Mr. Stanton. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you for moving
quickly to hold this necessary hearing during a time of
significant pain for our Nation.
I want to recognize and thank Congresswoman Bass for her
leadership to heal that pain. The Justice in Policing Act is an
essential first step.
Mr. Floyd, I offer my deepest condolences to you and your
family. I can't imagine how difficult the last 2 weeks have
been, and it is courageous that you are here today.
Just yesterday, you laid your brother to rest, but his
murder is a tragic reminder that we cannot rest. We have work
to do so that George Floyd and Eric Garner, Philando Castile,
Walter Scott, Antonio Arce, and too many others will not have
died in vain and have their lives spur us to action.
It's been more than 400 years since enslaved Africans were
first brought to America's shores, shackled, and sold. We are
in the midst of a reckoning and facing a very difficult truth:
That, since that moment, there has not been a single day in
which the maxim that our Founders knew to be self-evident, that
all men are created equal, has been fully recognized by our
country for Black Americans, not a single day in which equal
justice under the law has been fully experienced by Black
Americans. There is no greater tragedy in our history.
Our generation has a choice: We can sustain America's
original sin, or we can redeem her and be repairers of the
breach.
I recognize that the ability to end racism in our country
is beyond the reach of this committee. We don't have the power
to change every person's heart and mind. What we can do is
address structural racism and enact tangible measures of
transparency and accountability in policing that can help make
everyone safe.
This is a charge that every level of government must take
up, from those of us in Congress to everyone who serves on a
city council.
During my time as the mayor of my hometown, we started a
community policing trust initiative which earned the
recognition from the Obama Administration's Department of
Justice. We enhanced de-escalation training for our officers.
We rewrote the guidelines for interacting with our immigrant
community. We started putting body-worn cameras on officers on
patrol, and then, when we saw the positive results, we budgeted
for every officer on the beat to wear a camera.
I'll be the first to tell you, there is more work to do, in
every State, in every city, in every community in America.
So, I want to ask our distinguished panelists specifically
about body-worn cameras. In 2014, research by Arizona State
University found that officers wearing body cameras were more
aware of their actions and sensitive to the scrutiny of the
footage by their superiors. I believe that every police officer
on patrol in America ought to be wearing a body-worn camera.
Professor Butler, do you believe that body-worn cameras
help make members of the public and the police officers safer?
Mr. Butler. Absolutely. Without body-worn cameras, there
would be four killer cops who remained on the police force of
Minneapolis.
Mr. Stanton. President Davis, how can body-worn cameras
improve training for police officers?
Mr. Davis. Thank you for the question.
In addition to capturing what happens, it allows the police
department to go back and look at everyday encounter--car
stops, traffic stops, pedestrian stops--and evaluate the kind
of conduct.
There's a good study out of Oakland that Stanford did that
showed how officers engaged men and women of color was
completely different than how they were engaging nonminorities.
So, there's a lot to be learned just by watching the day-
to-day activities, in addition to capturing the critical
incidents that we're talking about.
Mr. Stanton. Thank you.
Ms. Ifill, one of the main challenges of body-worn cameras
is that they can be expensive to implement, not just the camera
itself but capturing all the information that they provide.
In your view, are they a wise and worthwhile investment for
law enforcement agencies?
Ms. Ifill. I think body-worn cameras are vitally important.
I would caution that it is necessary to do more than just
impose body-worn cameras. That means that there does need to be
attention to the laws that govern who gets to look at that
film. In jurisdictions where law enforcement officers get to
look at the film before they have to answer questions, then the
body-worn camera film is just another tool that assists law
enforcement officers in [inaudible].
I think you also have to pay attention to jurisdictions
that are embedding facial recognition technology in their body-
worn cameras. This presents a very serious privacy concern for
communities and particularly African-American communities.
So, they're important. They're not the be-all and end-all,
because we've seen film--we saw film with Eric Garner, we saw
film with Walter Scott, the officer who killed Walter Scott,
who was originally acquitted, or the jury was hung. We know
that film is not the be-all and end-all. It is vital, for all
the reasons that have been suggested.
I do want to flag, however, those cautions about what
happens with that film is also a question that I would
encourage you to think about answering on the front end.
Mr. Stanton. Thank you so much.
I yield back.
Chair Nadler. The gentleman yields back.
Ms. Dean.
Ms. Dean. Thank you, Chair Nadler, and thank you, Chair
Bass, for bringing us together and for bringing forward this
powerful piece of legislation at a time when our country
desperately needs it.
I thank all our Witnesses today. I pray that our words and
our actions will be worthy of this moment.
If anybody has a doubt as to systemic racism in this
country, as to inequality based on race in this country, you
can look no further than between me and my friend and
colleague, Ms. McBath. I'm the mother of three White sons. I've
never had to have ``the talk.''
You were the mother of beautiful Jordan Davis. You had to
have ``the talk.''
If you doubt there is racism, look no further than the
inequality of our life experience.
I mourn with you.
My sincere sympathy to Ms. Underwood Jacobs and her family
for the loss of her brother.
Mr. Floyd, it is heartbreaking, it is soul-crushing, what
we witnessed 2\1/2\ weeks ago as the depraved murder of your
brother. My sympathy is with you, but, more, my words and my
actions will be with you. The world is watching.
Ms. Gupta, I'd like to talk first about the issue of the
national registry. There's been some conversation about it.
I remember the horror of Tamir Rice's murder in 2014, the
anger that we all felt, the dismay, of a police officer who
killed a beautiful little boy. That police officer had been
deemed emotionally unstable and unfit for duty by the police
department he had worked at before joining the Cleveland
Police. He never disclosed that information in his application.
The Cleveland Police never reviewed his previous personnel file
before hiring him.
We must expect agents of government entrusted with the
awesome responsibility of protecting and serving but also
capable of using brutal and deadly force to be hired under
rigorous standards.
Do we know how pervasive this problem is of not knowing the
background of police officers as they are hired?
Ms. Gupta. There are some registries that associations,
regional associations, have created, but there is no national
registry of the sort that is being proposed in this really
important legislation.
This is why it is high time that this provision and the
Justice in Policing Act be passed. It's time to have a national
registry that has this information that could save lives and
frankly, also promote community trust.
This national registry would have misconduct complaints, it
would have discipline/termination records, it would have
records of certification. It contains conditions for money, for
funds, so that agencies actually have to put in inputs before
they can access Federal money.
It is high time for this to happen.
Ms. Dean. I was talking this week with my own attorney
general, Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania, about the issue of a
national registry. He, too, supports that. I do know that he
has also, as attorney general, worked with and announced that
he wishes to establish and have the legislature in Pennsylvania
establish a State registry. I think it's important that my home
State is considering that.
Should the tracking of disciplinary and performance records
of law enforcement be left to the States alone? Is that
sufficient? Or does it mean that we should do both?
Ms. Gupta. If you just have a patchwork of States that do
this--and it's good that States are standing up, because right
now is a moment where people are demanding change, and so
States are beginning to take action. You will end up with a
patchwork that will not be sufficient to actually achieve the
bottom-line goal of having a registry that would be national.
People move around.
Ms. Dean. Right.
Ms. Gupta. They look at jobs in other jurisdictions. So, it
isn't enough to have this patchwork. It's time for Congress to
Act and to create a national rubric for this.
Ms. Dean. Absolutely.
Mr. Floyd, I'd like to end with you, to thank you for your
strength, for being here today. We can't imagine the
exhaustion, the fatigue and grief. We are here with you, and
the world supports you. I hope that offers you some
consolation.
Your brother will be remembered worldwide for a very, very,
very long time to come. As your niece and his daughter said,
``My daddy changed the world.'' He has and I'm confident he
will.
I'd like to give you an opportunity to tell us not about
his death but about his life. What did you know and love about
your big brother? What should we know about his life?
Mr. Floyd. He was a role model for me and a lot of guys
coming out the neighborhood because he was the first one to get
a scholarship. We all wanted scholarships, and he was the first
one, because it was just hard. You had to get an either
academic scholarship or you would get one playing sports. He
had got a scholarship, and it made everybody else feel like
they could get one too.
Ms. Dean. He was a talented athlete.
Mr. Floyd. Yes, ma'am.
Ms. Dean. I think he was a coach to people, wasn't he?
Mr. Floyd. Yes, ma'am, he was a coach.
There's just so much about him. Talking with [inaudible]--I
don't know if you know him, but anyway. He talked to a lot of
kids. He went to a lot of different places, met a lot of
people. He went to China and played with Yao Ming--against Yao
Ming.
He did a lot of different things. He'd come back, and he'd
share information with us. We'd get excited to see him every
time, because he showed us so much. He was just a big, gentle
giant.
He took us to a lot of places. We went to Orlando, went
down there, and watched basketball games. He had a lot of
friends that's athletes. We just vibed and he showed us that
there's other places in life besides being in the neighborhood.
Ms. Dean. Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you, Mr. Floyd. I
see my time has expired.
Mr. Floyd. Yes, ma'am.
Chair Nadler. The gentlelady yields back.
Ms. Mucarsel-Powell.
Ms. Mucarsel-Powell. Thank you so much, Mr. Chair.
I want to start my 5 minutes with a video that I came
across, and it really struck a chord. This happened in Miami.
The women in the video were worried. They had been threatened
by a neighbor who had a shotgun and was making racist slurs.
They called 911 for safety and for protection. Instead, they
were met with force.
[Video played.]
Video is available at the following link:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/45jeoq8bypylqi2/6%20Mucarsel%20
Powell%20Video.mp4?dl=0
Ms. Mucarsel-Powell. Conduct like this is never acceptable.
The woman was unarmed. She called 911 because she felt
threatened. She called 911 hoping that police officers would
come to protect her. Instead--you saw those images.
The officer in this video later lied about what happened on
the police report and is now facing charges of misconduct and
battery.
Let me tell you, this happened only 2 months ago. There was
no reason to subject someone to excessive force because of the
color of their skin.
The reality is that people of color live and face these
prejudices throughout their entire lives. They face
discrimination. It's ingrained in our culture since the very
founding of our country. We have to confront this crisis head-
on.
Currently, right now, there is absolutely no national
standard to require police officers to deescalate and avoid the
use of excessive force.
We have to eliminate the injustices that Black men and
women and communities of color face everywhere--in our
government, in our society, in our healthcare system, and,
specifically, in the police systems that we have seen for
decades.
I can also tell you that, from my own personal experience,
this is not representative of every police officer. I have very
close relationships with law enforcement in Miami. Officer Tuks
Makambe (ph), Officer Tams (ph), they are part of the
community. They have earned the trust of the community.
We have to start by accepting that there is racial bias in
our police system. We have to accept that. I continue to hear
from Members of this Administration that there's no racism,
that there's no racial bias. That is not true. Racism is
systemic, and we have to hold our police departments
accountable and demand transparency.
To do that, we have to engage with the community through
civilian oversight. Civilian oversight boards build bridges
between police and communities by giving the people a voice in
the policies that affect them. They ensure officer
accountability through fair and open investigation. Over time,
they build trust.
Civilian oversight has to be done correctly, however. They
have to be independent. They have to have subpoena power. They
must have the authority to conduct investigations into police
misconduct.
Most importantly, civilian oversight boards have to
represent the diversity in the community. Its seats need to be
filled not by political appointees but with local citizens and
the leaders of local organizations focused on community
policing and accountability.
So, I'm proud that the Justice in Policing Act promotes
civilian oversight and allows Federal funding to go toward
building civilian review boards.
So, my first question is to Mr. Ron Davis.
I wanted to ask you, you mentioned in your testimony the
need for police to collaborate with the community to redefine
and reimagine policing. That includes a new system that fosters
civilian oversight.
Can you please explain why civilian oversight is an
important factor in preventing police brutality and is
effective in holding police accountable?
Mr. Davis. Yes, Congresswoman, and thank you for the call.
I'll refer back to, I think as one of your colleagues
mentioned, Sir Robert Peel, the 10 principles, or some call it
the 9 principles of law enforcement. One of them says that
police can only use their authority with the consent of people.
The best way to have consent is you need the checks and
balances to make sure that those, our police officers, myself
included when I was serving, that have such enormous and
awesome power, the power to take freedom, the power to take
life, are held accountable with a check-and-balance system so
that there is trust that there's legitimacy and that there's
accountability.
So, civilian oversight provides that extra layer, the same
way we want independent prosecutors, independent
investigations. To have an independent civilian oversight body
is the checks and balance so that the awesome power that the
police are given by the community is accountable, we're
accountable for that, and that we then police with the consent
of the people, and that's the only way we can be effective.
So, there are varying models with it, but in general, the
core principles of civilian oversight does go towards community
policing. It makes the police in the community, which produces
the public safety--both responsible, both being accountable.
That's the best form of oversight that you can have.
Ms. Mucarsel-Powell. Thank you, Mr. Davis.
Mr. Floyd, thank you so much for joining us today. Losing
someone in a violent manner and having footage of that has to
be the most devastating way of losing someone. So, I share with
all my colleagues here today my deepest condolences to you and
the family. We're here for anything that you need.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I yield back.
Chair Nadler. The gentlelady yields back.
Mr. Cicilline.
Mr. Cicilline. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you to all the Witnesses who appeared today.
I, too, extend my condolences to Ms. Underwood Jacobs on
the loss of her brother and to you, Mr. Floyd, on the loss of
your brother and will continue to keep you and your family in
my thoughts and prayers.
I hope you recognize, Mr. Floyd, that the brutal murder of
your brother has awakened the conscience of this country. It
has resulted in people all across America raising their voices
and demanding an end to racial injustice, an end to police
brutality, particularly against Black Americans and other
communities of color, and for the creation of a safe, effective
policing model for every single person in this country that
will improve public safety and also the safety and
effectiveness of police work.
The tragedy is that these are not new problems that we're
experiencing. Your brother's death is only the most recent
example of ugly racism and police brutality that have been a
stain on the soul of this Nation since our founding.
I think everyone in this hearing brings their own
experiences. So, before I was in politics, I was a civil rights
lawyer, and most of my cases were police brutality cases. So,
many of the hurdles that I faced in bringing those cases and
seeking justice are addressed in the Justice in Policing Act.
I then became mayor of the city of Providence and inherited
a police department that was under a pattern-or-practice
investigation by the Department of Justice, a police department
that was really at war with the community. Crime was on the
increase, and the public had lost confidence in that community.
One of the things that was so effective in turning around
that was the participation of the community, working in
partnership with the police. We produced the lowest crime rate
in 40 years. We became a fully accredited police department.
The police officers became integrated into the communities they
served.
So, one of the things that I'm really concerned about is,
the Trump Administration has changed the policies about these
patterns-or-practice investigations. It was one of the things
that we were able to use to force change that the chief of the
department and I, as the mayor, wanted.
Under the Obama Administration, the Justice Department
opened 25 investigations into police departments, signed and
enforced over a dozen consent decrees in places as diverse as
Ferguson, Seattle, New Orleans, and had several open
investigations. The Trump Administration then came in and
really changed positions on that.
I know, Ms. Gupta, you're familiar with that. What has been
the impact of the decision of the Trump Administration not to
pursue patterns-and-practice investigations?
This legislation not only strengthens the ability of DOJ to
do that but also gives that responsibility to the State
Attorneys General. Can you speak a little bit about why that's
necessary and why this is such a powerful mechanism for
changing police departments and reforming police departments?
Ms. Gupta. Yeah. The Trump DOJ has essentially abandoned
and abdicated a mandate that was given by Congress in 1994 to
investigate patterns and practices of systemic unconstitutional
policing in police departments around the country.
Since the Administration began, there has been the opening
only of 1, on a very tiny issue in a police department out of
Springfield, Massachusetts, compared to 25 in the Obama
Administration and many others in Republican and Democratic
Administrations prior to that.
So, what that has meant is that the tool of these
investigations, the tool of the consent decrees, has just been
lying dormant.
Typically, when I oversaw the Civil Rights Division, we had
mayors and police chiefs that really, in numerous instances,
were actually asking the Justice Department to come in because
they needed Federal help in very bad situations. So,
jurisdictions have not been able to rely anymore on the Justice
Department to support these efforts.
I think this bill, Justice in Policing, does a lot to
strengthen the Civil Rights Division's authority, giving it
subpoena power, giving it resources. It also gives State
Attorneys General the ability to do these pattern-and-
practices, where they have already State laws that allow them
to do it as well. That's, of course, in this moment, with a
Justice Department that is very disengaged from these issues,
an important thing.
Mr. Cicilline. Thank you.
For Mr. Butler, very quickly, because I only have a little
time left, I'm also very interested in the accreditation model,
because I think that's a way to help transform police
departments across the country quickly.
I'm wondering whether or not you have a view as to whether
or not the provisions that provide for training to end racial
bias and to end racial profiling, whether there are really
high-quality components of an accreditation system that can
really effect systematic change?
Mr. Butler. I think they're essential. We've gotten away
from being tough on crime; we're now about being smart on
crime. It's evidence-based practices. The evidence suggests
that police can do better with appropriate training.
Mr. Cicilline. Thank you.
Mr. Chair, I have a unanimous consent request. I ask
unanimous consent that an article entitled, ``It's Official:
The Trump Administration Will `Pull Back' from Investigating
Police Abuses'' be made part of the record.
Another article, entitled, ``The Trump Administration Gave
Up on Federal Oversight of Police Agencies--Just as It was
Starting to Work.''
A final article, entitled, ``Trump and Sessions Released
Cops from Federal Oversight. Now We See the Results.''
Chair Nadler. Without objection.
[The information follows:]
MR. CICILLINE FOR THE RECORD
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[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Mr. Cicilline. With that, Mr. Chair, I just want to end
where I began, with deep gratitude to Mr. Floyd for the courage
and the grace that you have shown and for being such an
inspiration to us.
I only pray and hope that my colleagues in the Congress of
the United States will have the same courage and will be
inspired to do the right thing and to respond in this historic
way to really change the way communities and police relate and
that it will all be done to honor the life and legacy of your
brother.
With that, Mr. Chair, I yield back.
Chair Nadler. The gentleman yields back.
Without objection, the following materials concerning the
Justice in Policing Act and related issues, which have been
submitted to the Committee's electronic repository, will be
included in the record. A number of leading civil rights
organizations, statements by the Fraternal Order of Police, the
Constitutional Accountability Center, the Players Coalition,
the YWCA, Adobe, Third Way, the National Partnership for Women
and Families, the Blue Dog Coalition, and articles in Reuters
and Boston Globe will be admitted into the record, without
objection.
[The information follows:]
MR. NADLER FOR THE RECORD
=======================================================================
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Chair Nadler. I want to thank our Witnesses for
participating in today's hearing, in particular, Mr. Floyd,
with whom we have the greatest sympathy. Thanks.
That concludes today's hearing.
Without objection, all Members will have 5 legislative days
to submit additional written questions for the Witnesses or
additional materials for the record.
Chair Nadler. Without objection, the hearing is adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 4:49 p.m., the Committee was adjourned.]
APPENDIX
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QUESTIONS FOR THE RECORD
=======================================================================
The Honorable Steve Cohen, Chair
Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights, and Civil
Liberties House Committee on the Judiciary
Questions for the Record for the Oversight Hearing on Policing
Practices and Law Enforcement Accountability
June 10, 2020
Question for Mr. Ben Crump
1. LMr. Crump, at the hearing I informed you that I planned
to introduce a bill to amend 42 U.S.C. 1983 to allow
individuals to bring claims against a law enforcement officer's
employer based on a theory of respondeat superior liability.
You agreed that, in addition to removing qualified immunity for
law enforcement officers, such a change would improve police
accountability.
a. LCan you please further elaborate on why permitting
claims based on respondeat superior under section 1983
will improve police accountability for unconstitutional
miscon-
duct?