Claire McCaskill

I urge the Committee to assure this small agency is given the funds needed to do its job.

I welcome this opportunity to appear before you today to strongly endorse several important bills that have been introduced to address these defects in the law and deficiencies by NHTSA including Chairman McCaskill's comprehensive six-year…

It seems to me there is a better way to monitor a crowd that is peacefully protesting than pointing mounted sniper weapons at them under those circumstances.

One of the things that I witnessed in Ferguson... was the chicken and egg situation that really occurred...

We are pushing, in wholesale fashion, military equipment to local police departments.

They have no idea. And by the way, Justice Department said they do. They just know what they are buying with it.

I would certainly ask Mr. Bueermann and Mr. Lomax for you to begin working on what you think, based on your knowledge of the police community in this country, what would be reasonable changes in policy that would begin to get us back to a…

Why can we not begin to do more with--if we are going to give you money, we are going to make you jump through a few hoops.

Why are we giving them away to police departments before we give them to the Guard?

So, are you comfortable with the fact that Texas has received 73 MRAPs in 3 years while the entire National Guard of Texas only has six?

Does it make you uncomfortable that there are States where the National Guard has no MRAPs, but police departments have them everywhere?

Which has nothing to do with risk.

I find it ironic that at the same time we are embracing those tactics as strong evidence of progress against a counterinsurgency, we are, in fact, underlining the militarization of our domestic police departments.

I am confident that militarized policing tactics are not consistent with the peaceful exercise of First Amendment rights of free speech and free assembly.

The great people of Ferguson deserve to have a police department that they feel comfortable with, and so, there is a lot of work yet to do.

I am assuming tactical officers receive training about when putting in this kind of military presence during daylight hours when you have lots of children and elderly?

There is no question in my mind that the idea that all of this equipment was brought out early in the week contributed to a mentality among the peaceful protesters that they were being treated as the enemy.

MRAPs can be very dangerous, correct, Mr. Estevez? They flip?

That is going to drive me crazy.

Those lawful, peaceful protesters on that Wednesday afternoon in Ferguson, Missouri, did not deserve to be treated like enemy combatants.

I think we need to get to the bottom of that.

How in the world are we buying that--and, by the way, we are going to--I guarantee you when I get this list--and I will, because this will not be the last hearing we have on this.

I question whether State and local law enforcement agencies need this kind of equipment and certainly whether they need it more than our States' National Guards.

How in the world can anyone say that this program has one lick of oversight if those two things are in existence?

Has there been a discussion about perhaps saying the first thing that we would fund before we begin to fund anything else, not a Federal mandate but, rather, the first on your list must be body cams?