Bart Stupak: “Let me just say what they are saying in New Orleans about the COPS Program, that since they have implemented the COPS…”

“Let me just say what they are saying in New Orleans about the COPS Program, that since they have implemented the COPS Program there has been a 15-percent decline in homicides. When the police department, through the COPS Program, opened 24-hour substations in some of the toughest housing projects, murders dropped 74 percent, or maybe even one of the constituents of the gentleman from Louisiana said, Deborah Davis, a mother of four, who has lived in these places, projects, all of her life she said that this is what community should be like. Instead of a killing place, it is now a place where we can see the light of hope. So why would the new majority want to kill the COPS Program? Understand, this program has not one police officer there. Eighty-seven percent of the American public will be served by over 33,000 police officers authorized underneath the COPS Program to date. COPS will fund small towns in rural areas, where I live, like northern Michigan. Half of all funding goes to areas serving jurisdictions under 150,000.”