On the recordMay 18, 2017
As they state, in part, in the letter: ``We are deeply troubled by recent legislative and executive actions that support this divisive `law and order' rhetoric and that chip away at our hard-fought efforts to sustain long-term trust between our communities and law enforcement agencies.'' This letter is signed by many current and former police chiefs, sheriffs, and other law enforcement officials. In the letter that I included in the Record, which will now appear for the world to see, law enforcement professionals say that instead of pushing forward with this bill that we are being asked to consider under a closed and restrictive rule, we should focus on mental health and trauma services for officers to support them, programs and policies for de-escalation and crises intervention training, better staffing for our police agencies and probation officers, programs and policies that incorporate implicit bias training into police training and probation office training, and community-oriented policing. These are the types of policies that Democrats, and myself, would love to put forward during National Police Week to support our law enforcement professionals and to keep our communities safe. Why aren't we focusing on those kinds of ideas, rather than a solution in search of a problem?…
