Political Quotes

“As many of you know, the promotion of best practices and oversight of state and local law enforcement have been legislative priorities during my tenure as a Judiciary Committee member. My Pattern And Practice statute, passed as part of the 1994 crime bill, has served at the dominant tool used by the Department of Justice to address the myriad of policing controversies dating back the LAPD, New Orleans and most recently Seattle, Cleveland and Ferguson, Missouri police departments. Over the past two decades, tensions between police and communities of color have grown as allegations of bias-based policing by law enforcement agents, sometimes supported by data collection efforts and video evidence, have increased in number and frequency. Recent events in the wake of Ferguson, Missouri demonstrate that racial profiling and bias-based policing remain divisive issues in communities across the nation that strikes at the very foundation of our democracy. The deaths of Walter L. Scott--arising from a traffic stop--Michael Brown, Eric Garner, and Antonio Zambrano-Montes--all at the hands of police officers--highlight the links between the issues of race and reasonable suspicion of criminal conduct. Ultimately, these men are tragic examples of the risk of being victimized by a perception of criminality simply because of their race, ethnicity, religion or national origin.…”