Bill Clinton: “Hello. Mayor Daley, Mayor White, Mayor Rice, Mayor Minor, welcome to the telephone conversation. I'm here with the…”

“Hello. Mayor Daley, Mayor White, Mayor Rice, Mayor Minor, welcome to the telephone conversation. I'm here with the Attorney General and with our Director of Drug Policy, Lee Brown. And we're glad to visit with you. Today I'm happy to announce that the four cities you represent and 30 others and towns across our country will receive the second round of grants to put more police on the street and to expand community policing. The Justice Department has now received applications from 3,000 communities across the country and awarded grants in more than 100 cities and towns. It's obvious that every community in our country is coming to the same conclusion, that more police officers on the street, properly trained and properly placed, will reduce the crime rate. And these grants today are another downpayment on our pledge to put 100,000 new officers on the streets. I've asked Congress, as I think all of you know, to send me a comprehensive crime bill as soon as possible that does that, that puts 100,000 police officers on the street, bans assault weapons, expands boot camps, prisons, and drug courts, and says to violent offenders, ``Three strikes and you're out.'' I've also provided funding for that crime bill in this budget through the 5-year, $22 billion violent crime reduction trust fund that takes the money we're going to save from reducing the Federal bureaucracy by 250,000 over 5 years and pays for the police officers. Earlier today, Lee Brown and I announced our new drug control strategy, which expands drug treatment programs as well as provides more police officers on the street. These two items in our budget got bigger increases than almost anything else. Community policing went up $1.7 billion. The drug budget went up $1 billion, even though we were cutting half the Government Departments and 60 percent of the line items in the budget. So I am very encouraged that at least we're beginning to make our contribution to this effort. I want to thank all of you for what you're doing to fight crime in your communities. I want to give you a chance to be heard today. And as I said, Lee Brown and Janet Reno and I are here, we want to support you, and we want to do everything we can to help you succeed. Mayor Daley. [At this point, Mayor Richard M. Daley of Chicago, IL, and Mayor Michael White of Cleveland, OH, spoke in support of community policing, and Mayor White expressed support for the President's crime bill.]”