Political Quotes

“I thank the distinguished gentlewoman from New Jersey for her very eloquent and passionate remarks. Mr. Speaker, one of the things that we clearly have to grapple with in this country is the fact that the criminal justice system is broken, and there are many components to that. We have got a situation in which far too often a police officer crosses the line, engages in unlawful conduct, and is not held accountable for that conduct. What kind of incentive does that create for good conduct to take place moving forward if, in the overwhelming majority of instances when police officers cross the line, such as in the Eric Garner case, a grand jury or a local prosecutor will often fail to hold them accountable? The other problem that we have got to address is of overcriminalization in America, of mass incarceration. If you look at some of these encounters that have taken place and that have gone wrong and that have resulted in tragedy, they often have begun with what was, really, overly aggressive, unnecessary policing strategy being deployed to tackle, at best, nuisance-like activity. Eric Garner is dead today because he was selling loose cigarettes, and someone at One Police Plaza gave the order to aggressively police this activity. Crime is down in New York, but there are still a couple hundred homicides committed every year. There is still some gang activity. There are still some assaults taking place.…”