[Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1994, Book I)]
[April 16, 1994]
[Pages 701-702]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]



[[Page 701]]


The President's Radio Address
April 16, 1994

    Good morning. This week we joined in sorrow for those who lost their 
lives in the downing of two of our helicopters over Iraq. I want to 
begin by expressing, again, my condolences to the loved ones of those 
who died. They gave their lives in a high cause, providing comfort to 
Kurdish victims of Saddam Hussein's brutal regime, and we honor the 
sacrifice of those brave individuals.
    Today I want to talk about one of the greatest threats we face right 
here at home: the threat of crime in our communities. In 1991, I visited 
the Rockwell Gardens in the ABLA housing projects in Chicago where I saw 
firsthand what happens to our children who live too long in the shadow 
of fear. Dozens of children rushed out to greet me, eager to have 
someone to tell their stories to. They talked of gunshots and drug 
dealers, of late-night knocks at their doors and hallways where they 
dared not stray. Many of their stories had a common theme: their 
childhoods were being stolen from them.
    Vince Lane, the head of the Chicago Housing Authority, is a genuine 
hero to these children. He's trying to show the children that someone 
cares. To help, he put into effect a search-and-sweep policy to clean 
out Chicago's public housing communities, to find weapons, to get people 
out of those housing projects who didn't belong, to find drugs. But just 
over a week ago a Federal district judge declared Vince Lane's search-
and-sweep policy unconstitutional.
    Every law-abiding American, rich or poor, has the right to raise 
children without the fear of criminals terrorizing where they live. 
That's why, as soon as I heard about the court's decision, I instructed 
Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Henry Cisneros and Attorney 
General Janet Reno to devise a constitutional, effective way to protect 
the residents of America's public housing communities. Secretary 
Cisneros and Attorney General Reno moved quickly. Today I am announcing 
a new policy to help public housing residents take back their homes.
    First, at my direction, Secretary Cisneros is in Chicago to provide 
emergency funds for enforcement and prevention in gang-infested public 
housing. We'll put more police in public housing, crack down on illegal 
gun trafficking, and fill vacant apartments where criminals hide out. 
And we'll provide more programs like midnight basketball leagues to help 
our young people say no to gangs and guns and drugs. Second, we will 
empower residents to build safe neighborhoods, and we'll help to 
organize tenant patrols to ride the elevators and look after the public 
spaces in these high-rise public housing units. Finally, we're going to 
work with residents in high-crime areas to permit the full range of 
searches that the Constitution does allow in common areas, in vacant 
apartments, and in circumstances where residents are in immediate 
danger. We'll encourage more weapons frisks of suspicious persons, and 
we'll ask tenant associations to put clauses in their leases allowing 
searches when crime conditions make it necessary.
    This new policy honors the principles of personal and community 
responsibility at the very heart of this administration's efforts. It 
also shows all Americans that their Government can move swiftly and 
effectively on their behalf.
    Now we must move swiftly on the crime bill before Congress. The bill 
provides the right balance of protection, punishment, and prevention. It 
will put 100,000 more police officers on the streets for community 
policing efforts that work. It will make ``three strikes and you're 
out'' the law of the land and provide money for new prisons. And it will 
pay for a wide variety of prevention programs to give our young people a 
future they can say yes to.
    This is a crucial moment in the crime bill debate. It's time to tell 
Congress you've waited long enough for comprehensive national crime 
legislation, that you don't want political posturing or frivolous 
amendments, and instead, you need help to take back your communities.
    This crime bill is for all our people, but nobody needs it more than 
the people like the mother of three who lives right here in Washington. 
A week ago, this 33-year-old mother came home after celebrating her 10-
year-old daughter's birthday to find a gang of gunmen ransacking her 
apartment. The mother had one plea for the intruders: ``If you believe 
in God, please don't shoot my children. Shoot me.'' The

[[Page 702]]

reply was cold and terrifying. ``I don't believe in God,'' said one of 
the gunmen. Then he shot her daughter dead. Before the gunfire ceased, 
another child and the mother were both shot, and her 3-year-old son 
witnessed the whole thing. The sad fact is, the police now believe the 
shootings were carried out by youths who hang out in the very apartment 
complex where that mother was trying to raise her children.
    There are many rights that our laws and our Constitution guarantee 
to every citizen, but that mother and her children have certain rights 
we are letting slip away. They include the right to go out to the 
playground and the right to sit by an open window, the right to walk to 
the corner without fear of gunfire, the right to go to school safely in 
the morning, and the right to celebrate your tenth birthday without 
coming home to bloodshed and terror. The crime bill will help us take 
back those rights for all of our people, so will our new policy to 
protect public housing residents.
    We must decide we will not tolerate more tragedies like that 
mother's. When we do that, together, we can replace our children's fear 
with hope.
    Thanks for listening.

Note: The address was recorded at 5:20 p.m. on April 15 in the Cabinet 
Room at the White House for broadcast at 10:06 a.m. on April 16.