[Congressional Record Volume 145, Number 48 (Thursday, March 25, 1999)]
[Senate]
[Pages S3319-S3321]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                       PROTECT ME AND RESPECT ME

  Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, like many New Yorkers, I have spent a 
great deal of time in the aftermath of the Amadou Diallo killing 
reflecting about our city, our police, our country, and our people.
  During my career, I think I have been considered a friend of both law 
enforcement and the minority community. But I have always been troubled 
by the rift between minorities and the police. And I have always felt 
that this rift has caused pain and harm to both communities.
  There are men, women and children, black and white, alive today 
because of the work of the New York City Police Department--their fine 
work. New Yorkers are proud of that fact. Most cops are decent, 
honorable, and hardworking--and it is wrong to judge all cops by the 
actions of the bad few.
  But what we all must realize is that the momentous drop in crime and 
the model behavior of many officers does not undo the plain truth that 
black men and women in New York City who have never broken the law and 
who should have absolutely no reason to fear law enforcement, are all 
too often hassled and made to feel like lawbreakers, and that it is 
different for minorities than for the average white person in the city.
  Many whites seem to feel that widespread frisking and patting down is 
a small price to pay for a steep reduction in crime. But most white 
people have never been frisked and have no conception of how pervasive 
the practice is.
  But if you talk to black stockbrokers on Wall Street and black 
lawyers downtown--people who wear a suit and a tie every day--to a 
person they have a story of being stopped, frisked, and harassed by a 
police officer.
  If you talk to minority co-workers or attend services at African 
American churches and ask the men and women from the congregation about 
their interaction with the police--they talk about how they or their 
law-abiding children were stopped, questioned and searched by the 
police.
  And they will tell you, as they have said to me, that they know this 
doesn't happen as often to white people. They know that white people 
are treated differently.
  All people, black and white, want very much for their neighborhoods 
to

[[Page S3320]]

be safe and to feel confident that when they send their children or 
grandchildren to the corner store for a carton of milk they will come 
home safely. But in addition to these feelings, minorities are 
humiliated and angered by the indignity of being treated all too often 
as presumptive criminals.
  And if you take the time to listen, the views of minorities about the 
relationship they want to have with the police can be summed up in five 
words: ``Protect me, and respect me.''
  This poem was left on the shallow doorway where Amidou Diallo was 
killed:

     When you look at me what do you see;
     Am I innocent until proven guilty;
     Am I your enemy;
     Or were you sent here to protect me.

  Protect me and respect me.
  Whatever facts emerge from the killing of Amidou Diallo, or for that 
matter, the killing of a Syracuse man, Johnny Gammage, by the 
Pittsburgh police--whether it is guilty, not guilty, suspension, or 
removal--our society must deal with the underlying problem of race and 
law enforcement.
  There has been a great deal of rhetoric and anger in the aftermath of 
the Diallo shooting, I can understand why. But I wish to take a 
different approach.
  I offer today, what I believe are constructive solutions that 
transcend any one set of circumstances and will allow both the 
``protect me and respect me'' parts of the equation to coexist and even 
flourish.
  First, for the sake of the city and for the sake of the police force, 
the NYPD must immediately put in place a system that more quickly gets 
bad cops off the street.
  It was well known among police, for example, that Justin Volpe, one 
of the cops who turtured Abner Louima was a bad, bad seed with multiple 
complaints against him. It was well known that officer Francis Livoti 
was a ticking time bomb for years before he strangled Anthony Baez in 
1994.
  The force knew it and did nothing about it. That attitude of silence, 
protecting your own, sweeping problems under the rug has got to end, 
not only for the sake of future victims, but for the police department 
itself.
  The tens of thousands of good, honest, hardworking officers pay a 
price when the Volpes are not removed. For that reason, it is in their 
interest to end any policy of silence.
  The mayor, the police chief, police union leaders, community leaders 
and church leaders should all urge police officers to come forward when 
there is a bad element on the force. It should be an honorable action, 
not a shameful action, to come forward.
  Second, minority recruitment at the NYPD must improve. The force is 
more than two-thirds white; the city is nearly three-fifths minority.
  When mostly white cops patrol high-density, minority neighborhoods 
resentment is bound to follow.
  The city should at last fully fund the Cadet Corps to recruit 
qualified, college educated minority applicants through the City 
University. The program is on the books, but until this crisis was 
basically ignored.
  Also, the city should take advantage of a program created last year 
by Reverend Johnny Ray Youngblood and me to recruit and train young 
minority applicants through the churches and to help them become police 
officers who will patrol the neighborhood from where they came.
  Next, beyond minority recruitment, New York City should look to what 
works in other places.
  Two efforts stand out: Boston's Ten-Point Coalition and the 
military's Defense Equal Opportunity Management Institute.
  Boston had the same problems as New York: a rift between police and 
the African-American community; several high profile incidents of abuse 
by certain officers; and clergy that took on the role of police 
critics.
  Their hatred exploded into the open with the stabbing death of Carol 
Stuart, a pregnant white woman. The husband, Charles Stuart, told 
police that a black man committed the crime.
  The Boston Police hit the streets in full force. They stopped and 
searched every black male that fit the general description. The 
neighborhood residents complained about the tactics, but the crime was 
so horrible no one listened.
  They arrested William Bennett, a black man. Carol Stuart's husband, 
it was learned months later, was the killer. Bennett was innocent.
  And Boston was on the verge of a meltdown.
  With no place else to go, the police and the clergy agreed to stop 
fighting and to sit down to develop a plan to stop crime on the one 
hand, and preserve dignity on the other.
  They initiated a five-point contract.
  The heart of it was this: The ministers and respected community 
leaders agreed to help identify those in the neighborhood who were the 
real troublemakers. They took the responsibility of telling the police 
who was dealing drugs and committing violent crime.
  The flip side is that when ministers and community leaders took 
responsibility and identified the troublemakers, others were left 
alone. And because most crime in each neighborhood is caused by just a 
few people, the use of the standard stop in frisk procedure that the 
community found so oppressive greatly diminished.
  If an officer is abusive or disrespectful, ministers and community 
leaders have an open line to the police. If the police did not act, or 
if they refused to address the problem, the ministers and community 
leaders were free to go to the media.
  The plan worked. The crime rate in Boston has dropped even faster 
than in New York. Serious youth crime is almost non-existent. And the 
important but difficult relationship between police and the minority 
community is vastly improved.
  Last month in the Bronx, 100 members of the clergy met in the office 
of the Bronx Borough President and said they have always wanted to work 
with the police. They said, ``We could be a resource. But they're not 
using us. The police don't even know us. They don't come and talk to 
us.''
  The Boston model will work in New York and we should move quickly to 
implement it here.
  The military--and our prayers are with the American soldiers fighting 
over Kosovo--has also found a way to confront bigotry while increasing 
effectiveness.
  The Defense Equal Opportunity Management Institute, developed in the 
early 1970s to confront segregation and racial hostility among soldiers 
in Vietnam, is one of the reasons that the armed forces is the most 
integrated institution in America.
  The military learned that unless bigotry was ended in the armed 
forces, America could not have an effective military. So by necessity 
they developed a program that lasts to this day.
  Officers and supervisors take a course to confront their own 
stereotypes and to identify problems within their unit. They have a 
simple goal: change people's behavior. The rule is that if you've got a 
problem with race, it better not show up in your words or actions.
  The thrust of the program is this: DEOMI, as it is called, 
continuously surveys enlisted soldiers and officers about race 
relations on their base. The results are made known only to the 
commanding officer and to people at DEOMI. When there is a problem on a 
base, a mobile team of trainers moves in to solve it.
  The model has been so successful that DEOMI has signed contracts to 
work with police organizations. New York City should sign a contract as 
soon as possible.
  In conclusion, this has been one of the most trying and emotional 
times in New York in years. We are a city, right now, divided. No good 
has ever come from divisiveness. No job was ever created. No street 
made safer. No school made better by pulling ourselves apart.
  I worry about two things:
  First, is that division in ours, the most diverse city on earth, has 
the potential to pull us down.
  Second, failure to deal with this problem will ultimately weaken our 
efforts to fight crime and perhaps, forfeit the gains we made in crime 
reduction. That is unacceptable and unnecessary given that options 
abound if we choose them.
  New York City is undoubtedly a safer place in every neighborhood from 
the far end of the Bronx to the tip of the Rockaways. But it is not 
necessarily a better place for every neighborhood.
  Dr. Martin Luther King taught us that ``we are tied together in the 
single garment of destiny, caught in an inescapable network of 
mutuality. And

[[Page S3321]]

whatever affects one directly affects all directly.''
  The killing of Amdiou Diallo; the killing of Johnny Gammage affects 
us all directly.
  We all love our city. Let's each side--as hard as it is to do--put 
aside our frustration and distrust so we can move past confrontation 
and collaborate constructively on solutions that protect and respect.
  I again thank the Chairman and my colleagues for their consideration 
and I yield the floor.
  Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, I want to commend the Senator from New 
York on his maiden speech here in the Senate Chamber. The first speech 
by any member is one of the most important, and I think the Senator 
from New York chose well when he chose this subject. Obviously, it is a 
matter of urgent concern in New York, and the Senator has spoken 
movingly and persuasively about what must be done to respond to the 
crisis there. I want to thank the Senator from New York for bringing 
this to the attention of his colleagues and for doing a masterful job 
of informing us of what is facing the people of New York.
  I again thank and commend the Senator on his initial speech here in 
the Chamber. In my 12 years in the Senate, I believe the Senator from 
New York is one of the most impressive new members and we are very 
happy to have him here.
  Mr. SCHUMER. I thank the Senator from North Dakota.

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