Political Quotes

“I would like to point out, my colleague, the gentlewoman from Texas [Ms. Jackson-Lee], had talked about gang violence and what the difference is when the community police officers get into that community and learn that community. When I was assistant district attorney in Middlesex County I got a call one afternoon. It was about 2:15 one afternoon, and the State Police informed me that a 15-year-old boy from Lowell, MA, had been shot in the head, a culmination of what was gang activity in the city of Lowell during that time period. We had had an influx of Asian immigrants into the city, many of whom had been victims of crime, Asian crime on Asian crime, where the people, immigrants from other cultures who came from a culture where they did not necessarily trust authority and did not know what the role of the police department was, whose side the police department was really on. It was very difficult for us in the DA's office to get witnesses of crime to participate and to tell us what happened in a crime, because they did not know whether to trust us or whether to trust the police, so they did not trust anyone.”