[Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1996, Book II)]
[July 17, 1996]
[Pages 1138-1140]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]



Remarks Announcing the Donation of Cellular Telephones to Neighborhood 
Watch Groups
July 17, 1996

    Thank you very much. Thank you, Matt, for your introduction and for 
your years of community leadership, for doing this before it was popular 
and making sure it becomes more popular. We are grateful to you.
    I thank all of those who have come today. I'm especially glad to see 
Senator Heflin and Congressman Kennedy, Congresswoman Lofgren, Secretary 
Kantor, and Joe Brann who runs our COPS program at the Justice 
Department. His told me that we have now funded 44,000 of those 100,000 
police officers, so we're ahead of schedule and we intend to stay that 
way. I thank Tom Wheeler for being here and the Community Policing 
Consortium executive director, Bill Matthews, and all the rest of you.
    Before I begin my remarks today I just have to take a moment to 
express my outrage and I know the outrage of all Americans at the Nazi 
swastikas which were painted on the doors of African-Americans living in 
the Army Special Forces barracks at Fort Bragg. No one in America should 
be subject to such vile acts. But these men and women of our Armed 
Forces have committed themselves to the highest level of dedication to 
our security. They dedicate their lives to protecting our freedom. They 
embody our commitment to tolerance and liberty. And they do not deserve 
this kind of abuse.
    We are taking immediate action to get to the bottom of this 
incident. We intend to punish those who are responsible. We have a zero 
tolerance for racism in our military, and make no mistake, we intend to 
apply it. I know that I will have your support and the support of all 
Americans in maintaining this position.
    We are joined today by another group of courageous Americans who are 
taking responsibility in their own communities to protect the American 
way of life. There are about 100 neighborhood watch leaders with us here 
today. They represent all the neighborhood watch participants all across 
America. In the last 15 years, as you've just heard, neighborhood 
watches have sprung up on block after block. Every time another American 
puts on an orange hat our streets become a little safer.
    Today there are more than 20,000 neighborhood watch groups in 
America. They're in every State, and they all make a difference. Just 
before coming in I saw some very impressive statistics from Salt Lake 
City and Chicago and Dade County. I recently had the opportunity to 
visit with neighborhood watch activists in San Diego, and they have been 
extremely instrumental in giving that community one of the lowest crime 
rates of any major city in the United States.
    When I lived in Little Rock we had a very active neighborhood watch 
group in my neighborhood. And it was fascinating because if the crime 
rate got too low and the neighborhood watch folks got a little relaxed, 
the crime rate went up. But as soon as they went back on the street it 
went back down again, which was, I guess, the ultimate test of the 
success of the neighborhood watch.
    As the Vice President said, as a nation we have finally begun to 
push crime back. When I ran for President I was struck by two things 
that seemed to me directly in conflict. I was struck by how many 
Americans just had taken for granted that we'd have to put up with an 
unacceptable crime rate forever; how many people just sort of assumed 
that we could never make our streets safe again; that our kids could 
never feel secure walking to and from school again; that we would always 
be worried about being the victims of violent crime. They just sort of 
took it for granted.
    But underneath that it was clear to me, as I traveled around the 
country, that in community after community after community, with 
community policing strategies, with prevention efforts, with 
neighborhood watches, the crime rate was actually beginning to go down, 
in some places, dramatically. And it was the experience

[[Page 1139]]

that I saw manifested in all these communities that led us to the crime 
bill, with its commitment to 100,000 police, with its commitment to 
tougher punishment for repeat offenders, with its commitment to 
prevention programs, with its commitment to the assault weapons ban and 
the Brady bill, and all the other things which have come out of our 
initiatives.
    All of those ideas were not born in the brain of some Washington 
thinker. They were manifested on the streets of America by people who 
proved to me that we could take our streets back, that we could make 
America safe again. One day, as I have said many times, I'll know we've 
got the crime problem in the right position when you flip on the evening 
news and if the lead story is a crime story, you're shocked instead of 
numb to it. That will be the test. And I believe we can find that day in 
America again. I believe we can only do it, however, when crime 
prevention and crime detection is a community enterprise in every 
community, when every citizen believes that he or she has a 
responsibility to support the police, to be involved in it, to identify 
suspicious circumstances, to try to help kids who are coming up in 
troubled homes on troubled streets stay out of trouble themselves and 
build better lives, when every single citizen believes that he or she is 
responsible for that.
    Those of you who work with the police in these community watch 
programs, you are leading the way. And I think we need to do more to 
help you. I appreciated Matt mentioning that at Penn State I challenged 
another million Americans to join these community crime watch programs. 
I had just seen the difference that you are making, and people in your 
communities feel the difference.
    You know, if you think about it, if you don't feel safe in your 
homes and on your streets, in your schools, and in your places of work, 
most of the rest of the things that happen in life don't amount to much. 
But if you do feel safe, if you feel secure, then very often you feel 
that you can conquer the world even if things aren't going so well. This 
is the first condition of a civilized society, and you are helping to 
guarantee it in a difficult and challenging time.
    The announcement that we have to make today is designed to help you 
do your work. Today a coalition of telecommunications leaders is 
determined to join forces with you and with our police. The Cellular 
Telecommunications Industry Association has actually pledged to provide 
every neighborhood watch patrol in America with a cellular phone to use 
on the beat and free air time to go with it. That is a remarkable 
commitment.
    They have set aside an initial 50,000 phones and have promised to 
make sure that every patrol that needs a phone gets what it needs. Their 
board of directors is here today. They met with the Vice President not 
very long ago who issued this challenge and discussed it with them. But 
they made the decision to do it entirely on their own. It is an 
astonishing act of good citizenship and generosity. So I'd like to ask 
the board to stand, and I think we should all give them the hand they 
deserve. Please stand up. [Applause] Thank you. And I want to thank you, 
too, Tom Wheeler, for doing a great job in so many, many ways.
    Communities on phone patrol will connect citizens on the beat to the 
police, the fire, the medical support they need in an emergency. These 
phones will be preprogrammed to local emergency numbers determined by 
local law enforcement officials. To get a phone, established volunteer 
groups will contact the local police chief or the local sheriff. A one-
page application and 72 hours later, the cell phone should be on its 
way.
    Now, when drug dealers wear pagers and gang members have cell 
phones, I think it's time we put high technology on the side of law and 
order. This will help our citizens to have stronger links with law 
enforcement as they work to take back our streets. In the right hands, 
these cell phones will save lives and stop crimes. When citizens are on 
patrol, the cell phone will help to keep them safer. When they see 
something suspicious, the cell phone can bring the police. When they see 
a medical emergency, a cell phone can connect them to the ambulance 
service immediately. From now on help will be just a phone call away.
    From San Francisco to San Antonio, citizens with cell phones are 
already making a difference in the fight against crime. In Dade County, 
Florida, the citizens with cell phones are helping to bring down 
burglaries, robberies, and thefts. In Albany, Oregon, parents are using 
cell phones on patrolling school grounds. San Francisco Police Chief 
Fred Lau says cellular phones help citizens on patrol, quote, ``feel 
safe'' and help

[[Page 1140]]

police officers arrive at the scene quickly, make arrests when 
appropriate.
    Today is a good day for our country. With the support from our 
businesses, commitments from our citizens, and the constant courage of 
our police officers, we're taking another step toward a safer future for 
our children, our families, and our communities. We all know we will 
never be able to eliminate crime completely, but we can--we can--make it 
the exception, not the rule again. We can create conditions in which 
Americans are literally shocked when they hear of serious crimes, not 
simply numb to it. And we must keep working together until we create 
that kind of America for our children.
    Now let me say, right now, I have the privilege of asking a 
neighborhood watch volunteer to come up here and receive the very first 
phone which has the COPP logo on it--Communities on Phone Patrol--COPP 
with two P's. And they also put the Presidential logo on it--
[laughter]--proving that the Vice President is not the only person that 
can handle a piece of high-tech equipment in this administration. 
[Laughter]
    So I'd like to ask Sandy Sparks from Baltimore to come up here. I 
want to thank her for her dedication and make her the first recipient of 
this incredible gift that these folks in the telecommunications industry 
have provided to the citizens of America.
    Thank you.

Note: The President spoke at 11:25 a.m. in Room 450 of the Old Executive 
Office Building. In his remarks, he referred to Matt Peskin, executive 
director, National Association of Town Watch; Tom Wheeler, president, 
Cellular Telecommunications Industry Association; William Matthews, 
executive director, Community Policing Consortium; and Sandy Sparks, 
neighborhood watch volunteer.