[Congressional Record Volume 162, Number 135 (Thursday, September 8, 2016)]
[House]
[Page H5167]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                  OBAMA ADMINISTRATION'S WAR ON POLICE

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Alabama (Mr. Brooks) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. BROOKS of Alabama. Mr. Speaker, never has an American President 
been so willing to shoot first and ask questions later when a police 
officer uses deadly force in self-defense or to protect innocent lives. 
Never in American history has a President's legacy been a consistent 
disregard for the rule of law.
  Time after time, after police shootings of African Americans, the 
Obama administration's knee-jerk, racially divisive strategy has been 
to paint a disturbingly false image of racial bias in police shootings 
that conflicts with a recent 2016 Harvard University study that found 
that police are 24 percent less likely to fire upon African Americans 
than Caucasian Americans.
  For emphasis, let me repeat that. A 2016 Harvard University study by 
African American Professor Roland Fryer, Jr., found that police fire 
upon African Americans 24 percent less often than police fire upon 
Caucasian Americans.
  On July 7, well before the facts of two police shootings of African 
Americans were known, President Obama, again, stoked racial prejudice 
flames by claiming that ``Black folks are more vulnerable to these 
kinds of incidents.'' President Obama even defended subsequent, 
sometimes violent, protests as rather benign ``expressions of 
outrage.''
  Shortly after the Obama administration attacked the motives of 
America's law enforcement officers and, perhaps, helped inspire even 
more violence against police, a Dallas sniper gunned down five police 
officers and injured many others during a Black Lives Matter protest. 
The shooter justified his murders by stating he was upset by police 
shootings, referenced Black Lives Matter, and stated that he wanted to 
kill White people, especially White police officers.
  Three days later, after these horrific murders of police officers, 
President Obama reiterated his politically motivated, racial division 
narrative by blaming the attacks, in part, on a racial prejudice 
problem that police must fix because ``that is what's going to 
ultimately help make the job of being a cop a lot safer.''
  Showing great hutzpah at the Dallas memorial ceremony for the slain 
officers, Obama, again, publicly blamed police racial bias as a 
contributing cause of police assassinations.
  Mr. Speaker, when tearful Americans seek solace and unification, the 
Obama administration dishes out racism and antipolice profiling that 
helps inspire even more violence against police.
  The result of the Obama administration's politics of racial division 
and hatred?
  So far this year, as of September 2, firearms-related deaths of 
American law enforcement officers are up 56 percent.
  The Obama administration's relationship with police has deteriorated 
so badly that William Johnson, the executive director of the National 
Association of Police Organizations, accuses Barack Obama of engaging 
in a ``war on police,'' adding that the Obama administration's 
``continued appeasements at the Federal level with the Department of 
Justice, their appeasement of violent criminals, their refusal to 
condemn movements like Black Lives Matter actively calling for the 
death of police officers, that type of thing, all the while blaming 
police for the problems in this country, has led directly to the 
climate that has made Dallas possible.''
  Mr. Speaker, no one condones illegal shootings by police. Police who 
illegally use excessive force should be, and are, prosecuted criminally 
and civilly to the fullest extent of the law. But the Obama 
administration repeatedly pours gasoline on an open fire, rushing to 
antipolice judgment before the facts are known, and justice had, 
thereby helping to incite murders and assassinations of American police 
who dedicate their lives to our protection.
  The solution, Mr. Speaker, is generating more respect for law and 
order and those who enforce it. That solution is absent in Obama 
administration pronouncements.
  Mr. Speaker, I want the public to know that I stand with the rule of 
law. I stand with America's brave police officers who protect the 
rights and lives of all Americans. And I here and now publicly thank 
America's law enforcement officers for risking their lives to protect 
law-abiding Americans from crime and anarchy.

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