tv Key Capitol Hill Hearings CSPAN December 5, 2014 10:30am-12:31pm EST
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there are a couple of different ways that the criminal use of stripped of the ability of the criminal law to address it. so if you can put that into the hands of people that wouldn't have the technical capability to do it for themselves. there is an area that needs some attention and that is that the statute has been criticized for the reading that allows the trivial violations of things like website terms of services services into the department believes the congress needs to step up to address this problem. let me see if i can frame the issue. outsiders were breaking into computers but it also has a provision that deals with people
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who are authorized to use the system but exceed that and also act as a website that exceeds the authorization the website owner has provided to them and so this is important in the employment context you have for example a police officer that is about and authorized to access sensitive databases about american citizens that exceeds the authorization because he's looking at the database to do something impermissible. we think that those up to be prosecuted offenses because the computer fraud and abuse as we read it would permit the prosecution of those things. however there have been criticisms of the statute because a classic example is the
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dating website you agree to the terms of service but you lie about your age and finally the term of service and are arguably now not authorized to use the site. >> isn't there a perception the that that's what is going on? [laughter] >> even though the department of justice has absolutely zero interest in prosecuting people in that sort of term of service the reading is enough to include those and now we have two circuits who because of that concern has read the statute much more narrowly and in fact in such a way that would prevent us from the other case i mentioned the privacy violating police officer to the pitcher meant to protect privacy so what we would like to see is for the congress to address the
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situation. we would like to see a way of human and aiding those cases that we have no interest in and nobody wants us to be prosecuting but permitting us to bring the criminal violators but i think most people would like us to see are currently. there is a shadow on this whole theory across the country. >> is there a way to deal with the trivial ones so that it would lead to some monetary damage? >> i don't have a particular legislative proposal to launch but ideas like that are the kind of things that could help restrict the statute to the
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things that matter although of course the police officer's data have to be careful in the way that we constructed so that we keep the good stuff while eliminating things that really shouldn't be in there. if you have a statute that has these problems and if you are looking at this as entirely lawful. >> in terms of the idea we've seen that that government has done it in the case when logging into my space which is a horrible tragedy but i don't think that it is a crime but
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they've made clear that it only counts if you are circumventing a technology meant to control access dot has the result of the security of the research for fear the researcher may be prosecuted or perhaps more likely being sued civilly by someone other than the government. the government at this point has any prosecution for a service violation into private actors certainly haven't and so that is still always a threat when someone is attempting a way that doesn't circumvent any measure. that is one of the reasons why right now there is a petition to the white house to address this
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concern by the cybersecurity researchers it's one of the reasons there was the introduction two years ago who committed suicide in the midst of the prosecution and was basically codify the president saying only if you are circumventing the measure to prevent a new violating the law and i think it's important richard raises the issue of the thread where someone steals or misuses the data in a way that violates their employment contract or something else. i understand that is a problem and we want to find out ways to criminalize the data but if we are creating a new regime of the
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law grade data theft law we need to discuss that rather than put a square peg into a round hole and make this apply to the data that they are authorized to access. >> if i can just jump in for a second and get some perspective on this, while it would certainly have the effect of taking care of those cases it would have done nothing to save the case it would be clear we have to absolutely be clear about that so if you think that his life would have been saved it's simply not so. if you are a prosecutor like myself and andrew when you are a
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prosecutor and you look at the cases that you have and people say this is terrible the reaction is are you kidding me look at the cases i have. and it's not until you leave the prosecution that they get a glimpse of what it is. they are talking about the problems of controlling the law enforcement discretion. of course we are not going to prosecute anybody for lying on a dating why e-money dating site but all of a sudden the warrior comes along and commits a terrible crime and there is an uproar about the crime she committed and the law enforcement officials are answerable to the public and they are screaming why didn't you do something about this woman that helped us grow killed herself into the have to take actions they can grasp so when
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you have a statute what happens is you have an important individual who might hack into the site to look around then it becomes how much damage did he do. now you are on trial and now the judges for making the determination. what happens is the discretion of the law-enforcement expands and there is no rule that can keep you out of trouble and that's where people have some discomfort with this and that's where it needs to go. >> when you look at why the cases have come out they talk precisely about the question
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which it is about the discretion. it is a constitutional problem with the statute that ends up being able to analyze anything that is a violation and when you add to that whether or not they prosecute, they can still investigate. so all of the surveillance issues that we talked about our something that can be alleged and will justify the surveillance. second, they have the liability and it's one of those funny things about these dual statutes where the doj has a particular vision of how they want the statute to work and they will arrange in a way that doesn't want the case and the soulful
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civil servant you end up with interesting patterns that go in a different trajectory and they create much more chaos and when it is this open-ended it lends itself to abuse. >> i'm going to have to stop you because i need to give you enough time. questions. if you have any questions for the panelists and if you don't. >> my question goes to the issue that you were just discussing in terms of the police officer looking at the data that we shouldn't be looking at any given the general nature of today's discussions i understand why he picked that.
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i don't see that problem as often. what i see is i have to tell a lawyer who has an employee who on his way out the door store a whole lot of data. that may not be a trade secret and i have to tell them i'm sorry that there is nothing i can do for you. and then on kevin's point we do need a statute that covers it and it shouldn't be whether the person is authorized or unauthorized but to focus on what is the state of mind because if they are accessing to do the deed that everybody thinks that is this is funny because they are accessing it to steal we all grew up learning that stealing was a bad. and it seems to me that it needs to be amended, not to focus on
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what they mean by the unauthorized exceeding which i agree is very vague and i agree with you if you need to focus on the frame of mind of the perpetrator. >> there is a good point the requirement is an important one that we understand in the analogies as we have. there is a difference between somebody that walks into a restaurant to take a look at the menu selection which they may not be allowed to do because they are not planning to eat their day just went to look at the menu and that is a trespass, isn't it?
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there's a difference and there may be a difference in the cyber world as well and that is where congress should be and that's where it may put its efforts. >> i would say they would support that distinction differentiating what your intent is. >> if i can just respond very quickly, it sounds like we are in agreement that the congress needs to act to address the scope of the provision. so maybe we might have different solutions to the problem but it's certainly one that should be brought up in the next congress. >> one of my questions would be why does this need to involve federal law enforcement if someone is stealing the property of the company that is a crime. they can be prosecuted and they
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could also be sued so why is that not adequate? >> the district attorneys in my area it's in the philadelphia office anybody but to philadelphia knows that they don't just focus on that. but i have the resources and biscuits with the law-enforcement agencies to do the investigation and the alternative is that nobody gets prosecuted for stealing. >> if everyone agrees it should be criminal whether it should be federal and just state.
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it can't just be intent. the intent is to take something that somebody was making money on and it should be free to the public. the real issue should be the law so if a building block i'm not authorized by breaking in and i steal it and i commit a crime but that doesn't entitle me when they are open for business that i can walk into the store and walk out with everything and it shouldn't matter whether my intent is to be robin hood or to go sell it down the alley so i think that there needs to be more focused on however it happens because the loss of the victim or the company. >> the way that they damage those things are calculated and it's a very strange sort of thing at all sorts of things that you do to mitigate end up figuring into the calculation.
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the other part is if you have a statute that ranges across a large number of different things, that the potential penalty even for something that is small and graduated can be highly disproportionate. >> i will add to that. i don't think that it would have prevented the prosecution i think that it would have reduced the number of years that they handled the charging under the csa and i think it would have impacted the case and perhaps saved his life. >> we should keep in mind when we are prosecuting these cases we should be factoring in what the intent of the person is and the damage that's being done. like i said there is tremendous
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and if you see somebody because the press has an involvement in this or you're not really doing the right thing so the question is how much discretion to wake discretion do we give the law-enforcement to handle the issues that the same time it gives people the security and the comfort of knowing if they stray over by mistake they are not going to get hammered so badly that the line is going to be. so i think that they can actually make these changes. i agree a lot with other people than the panel have said. >> thanks to the panelists. [applause]
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>> we will bring you live coverage starting at one:45 on c-span2 we sat and watched him and listened to a group of second graders and they came and interpreted the president and i was stunned. he whispered and nobody interrupts the president even in front of second graders. the president stood and said she had to go and he went into the room and then we heard that there were two planes down for
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two plane crashes in new york. they came out to the pool, the parking lot, i'm sorry can, and they said to stay right here. and i said no there are cameras in the cafeteria. the president has to speak their. but he did go into the cafeteria. we were pushed the board quickly to the door slammed and then the pentagon was hit. >> u.s. attorney attorney for the western district of pennsylvania talks about how law enforcement is pursuing criminals and prosecuting cyber crimes. his remarks or ten minutes. >> thank you for that generous introduction. i'm going to be very direct and to the point. we are going to get out of here
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very quickly. this has been a mixed ordinary conference and i'm very grateful for the invitation to be here and for the honor of closing the conference. we developed a bit of a signature and if you've been paying attention it was a watershed year. we brought the case against the members for economic espionage to the united steelworkers from oregon and then just two weeks later i was back in washington to announce the case that we talked about in detail today. he is max butler and he was prosecuted and pittsburgh that was the largest fraud in history and as alluded to earlier he was a criminal, cooperator and that reflects part of our challenge.
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you hear about the bombing case and i think it's important to hear about this case and i'm going to try to give you the lens of a body of work as a reference point to try to tie together what you heard today because what we do in the and the practicality of handling these cases was addressed in various ways. but it happened right after we had a mass shooting at our principal psychiatric hospital in pittsburgh because of affiliated at the university of pittsburgh and we had over 100 bomb threats that were coming through anonymized or it of the various types through media outlets causing great terror in our flagship university. and i took the step at a time of
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activating the joint terrorism task force which was considered controversial. it also put us out on a limb in terms of whether we could solve what was the solve with was a cyber needle in the haystack problem. but i did so because in pittsburgh, and you may not notice we have some of the best resources in the country to deal with the cyber threat. you heard earlier about the agent on the iceman max butler case. earlier today for a brief period of time, he's now -- he was formerly in western pennsylvania and he was the prosecutor. if you don't want to read the book you can can pull up the american creed and put in the iceman and for 55 minutes you can read all about this and that is kind of the beginning of the story in pennsylvania but with all of that talent and the
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one-of-a-kind public-private partnership i still felt we were going out on a limb but we have no choice. we had a shooting with fatalities and less than a week later, a series of threats against the university and the chancellor was in the position of determining whether or not he evacuated on the cyber-based threats. these cyber-based threats. he also knew what he did each kind and there was pretty much no question but that is that that is exactly what they wanted him to do. this extreme had a tail to it which was to individuals from cincinnati who in another purpose they were threat of activists who use the anonymous to trigger writes the university and without going through all of the details, it involved international cooperation with partners to ireland by me
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because we were to to him for him and make sure that the guard understood how important this was. we were able to identify the individual who has been charged and we were doing everything we could to extradite him to bring him to pittsburgh. he had since been convinced that he did this and i think that was a huge achievement and all of that was going on at the same time since i began at the u.s. attorney attorney in 2010. we were working towards efforts in the case and the chinese espionage case. why does this matter? it matters because -- and this is somewhat lost in the discussion today which is no criticism this far. we need to take as the first
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principles the cyber intrusions and how they affect real people in real ways. our entire approach in pittsburgh as a victim centric. so the comment about how microsoft does its business process needs with me. but in each of the cases that i tell you about, of course we have the whole spindle of cyber cases. we have one of the largest concentrations of that the exploitation of the children's cases involving cybermedia. we have cases involving the effects. we announced one that is in the news today involving the million dollars of theft of a couple that were using the social security numbers at wal-mart, with the 900 victims. so, we are doing this every day and like most of the u.s. attorney's office is a large part of what we are doing you never hear about. but it is victim focused and it's also been done with attention to the fact that we
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embrace the challenge of having to deal with both the security issues in the at the privacy issues. that responsibility in western pennsylvania .-full-stop my shoulders and most u.s. attorneys about the accept and relish the challenge. in all of the conversations about where the legislation into law will go will never take that response ability out of the u.s. attorney's office ultimately. we could have both. it's a false choice that we have to give up one to the other. but i am heartened and take note that we cannot have privacy with security. we have to deal with the threat as it is. so, it is a borderless print. it is in insidious. it involves involves evaporating evidence. when we talk about how slow the government move is when we move in committee and one of my meetings at 9:00 every monday we
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had a dedicated national security and cyber group that we operate the whole world depends on our work and listen to me as a firebreathing dragon saying we need to move faster. we can't just accept that we can do this in a linear fashion like we would do it in a historical crime case. this is a dynamic challenge. and as i said to the fbi director's times two and the leadership and the department of justice if this matters as much as we say that it does, we have to reject all conventions. we have to let the limits of our imagination be the guide to where we go to deal with this difficult problem. you see, because i believe that you have to understand my narrative about pittsburgh, which you think translated tutorial narratives about where you reside, to appreciate how significant this really is. notwithstanding martin's provocative john earlier today, pittsburgh is the center of the
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universe if you did not know that. we were the american industrial revolution. andrew carnegie started, john rockefeller started oil. if you go back and read the book you can get a quick refresher on this. the polio vaccine was discovered in pittsburgh. much of organ transplant technology happened with tom stars. we are evolving into a technical medical mecca. at mcdowell we have the three quarters of the technology in the company and i haven't even begun to talk about the steelers, the pirates and the penguins. [laughter] but you need to understand that this story can be told about any city in the country, but this was the story that was moving me
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the most vulnerable among us, seniors and children who either have their retirement stolen or are exploited online in the most venal way imaginable. this really matters. so i'm very, very grateful for the partnership with all of you. i've been given this new responsibly to help coordinate the great efforts of u.s. attorney component with the department of justice, but i'm here to assure you that as grave as this thread is over the course of the last four and a half years, i've been heartened by the great talent and commitment and will of the people who are working on it. and that now includes all of you. so thank you very much for attending today, and look forward to working with you in the future. thank you. [applause]
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>> find our complete television schedule at c-span.org and let us what you think about the programs ar are watching. call set (202) 626-3400. e-mail us at comments@c-span.org, or send us a tweet at c-span hashtag comments. join the c-span conversation, like us on facebook, follow us on twitter. >> live picture from capitol hill as we are waiting for house minority leader nancy pelosi. she is holding a briefing this morning. house yesterday passed a defense
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authorization bill and a measure blocking president obama's executive action on immigration. we expect her to talk about these items when she appears shortly. live coverage here on c-span2. a couple of developments. the labor department announced 321,000 jobs were added last month, the most in three years. it's put this year on track for the strongest hiring since 1999. the unemployment rate remained at 5.8% last month. also, president obama officially named former defense secretary, former deputy defense secretary ashton carter to be the new defense secretary replacing current secretary chuck hagel. chuck hagel decided not to attend today's ceremony. defense official told political he opted not to go to avoid distracting from the proper focus of the day, quote-unquote. we will likely are more about these items during a briefing with democratic leader pelosi in just a couple of moments. also with white house spokesman josh pernice we hold his regular white house briefing set to
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on community policing and retraining of police from this morning's "washington journal." >> a member of the president's 21st century policing task force. the co-chair of the task force is the philadelphia police chief, former d.c. police chief charles ramsey. he joins us on the phone. chief ramsey, what is your primary goal with this task force. >> caller: good morning. my primary goal is to present to the president actionable recommendations, to how we can have an impact and change perception and reality of policing in the united states. build stronger relationships, take a deep dive into our training and policies that need to be in place, and so forth. so we have 90 days which is a whole lot of time, but i think we can come up with some solid recommendations for the president and it probably is
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going to require some more work afterwards because of the easy part is writing a recommendation. hard part is intimating something. but i'm pretty confident we will be able to have something on his desk within a timeframe that he would like to see it. >> host: in your soviets up in philadelphia what's a policy change that you've made up their treachery the use of deadly force, for example. firing at automobiles which a lot departments had a band for years until adobe. we have not done that. we certainly put that in place. that is one that comes to mind immediately as it relates to the use of force. we also made revisions in our trading. i started something back in 1998 when i was chief in washington, d.c., working along with the u.s. holocaust newseum to of officers better understand their role in a democratic society. we sent our recruits through
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that training in philadelphia. we have a philanthropist here who has supported us in that endeavor. but i think it does an awful lot toward helping police officers better understand the unique role they have in our society. >> host: chief ramsey, i asked this question. richard berry of the international association of chiefs of police is on the set with me. i asked him this question. when you view the video of what happened to eric garner, what happened to 12 year old in cleveland, what's your reaction as a police officer? >> guest: first of all, when i saw the video of the garner situation, it's odd is a troubling. i don't know all the information that was presented to the grand jury -- >> good morning, everyone. >> good morning spends all across our country, communities
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are demonstrating their grief over the deaths of eric garner, tamir rice and, of course, michael brown. for the most part these demonstrations have been peaceful. most currently have been peaceful. it is our hope that they will remain so. but the voices are speaking out will be heard. of course, our thoughts, our prayers, our hopes are with the families. and we take our lead from their guidance for peaceful demonstrations as well. i support president obama's recent call for measures to have a trust between lossless and committees, and attorney general holders call for federal investigations. it's very sad. all lives matter. receive the sign saying that all lives matter.
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issued the a given. let's hope that it is. today we have some good news with the jobs report your 321,000 jobs created in november, the 57th consecutive month of private sector job creation. in 2009 in october unemployment hit 10%. it is now under 6%, 5.8%. average monthly job creation this year including today's numbers, 241,000 jobs created. you we are sure you recall when the president took office in terms of the impact of the bush policies and the great recession, we were losing 800,000 jobs a month. now we are gaining over 240,000 jobs a month. more jobs created 11 months this year than in any full calendar year since the late 1990s. we have to do more. we have to do more.
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also some good news on the affordable care act which is of course the main concern of mine. in terms of the quality, patient safety improved bump 2010-2013 in the following way. 1.3 million fewer hospital acquired addition. this is an important part of the legislation to stop infections in hospital conditions that make people worse, resulted in saving 50,000 lives. not only were people saved from the infection, but the condition, improving the conditions saved 50,000 lives and saved $12 billion in health care costs. because of the fact those funds were not needed because of the intervention for quality.
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also in terms of health care cost growth, you heard me say over and over again that if there were no other reason to pass the affordable care act, the sustainability of cost demanded that we do it. cost to an individual, costly family, cost of a small business, corporate america, cost to local, state and federal government. these rising costs were totally unsustainable. so we were pleased to note that one important figure that has come out is there's only 2% increase in benchmarks of health care plans. as i said at the rising cost in premiums, people never knew what their premiums are going to be next year and a significant they would be, 2%, an average of 2% increase for benchmark of health care plan which is the benchmark that we used.
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another figure, the 2013 national health spending group -- grew by 3.6% which is a drastic, the lowest annual increase since the statistics began to be collected in 1960. 3.6%. this is of course has a big impact on reducing our deficit. 2011-2012-2013 are the three lowest years of growth in real per capita national health expenditures on record. so in terms of quality of care, in terms of costs to the individual and to the federal government, the news is very good. yesterday we had really a disastrous bill on the floor of the house, the yoho logic ration
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-- legislation. much of what the republicans do had urged a strong no vote on the legislation but and i took the occasion to quote president reagan come which i can do it again if you wish me to come about the importance when he, in 1984 in his late up to the passage of immigration bill that would follow, he said we're going to have compassion and legalize those who came here sometime ago and have legitimately put down roots and to living as legal residence in our country, though illegal, even though illegal we're going to make them legal. his quotes are beautiful and i could read them to you for a long time. a complete contradiction of what the republicans put on the floor yesterday. i don't know if it will rear its ugly head again, the so-called
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hybrid bill that republicans may be putting forth. we have extended the hand of friendship. once again, let us help as we did to open up the government or to keep it from being shut down come as we did to lift the debts andeaths and come as we did to government the ryan-murray budget into continuing resolution last year. we haven't heard back. we haven't seen the bill, but the are some very destructive writers it would be unacceptable to us, and i think unacceptable to the american people. what have you think of them, they have no place on an appropriations bill when it comes to lowering standards for school lunches come for our children come when it comes to lowering standards for clean water, for our community. why bring these up on an appropriations bill? have a debate -- well, i will answer the question. why bring them up ?-que?-qu of?
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because they can't take the light of day. have this debate in the full view of the world and it shows a big distinction who cares about the nutrition of her children, clean water for our families. it also has -- these are really earmarks for industry. that's what they are. in workplace standards would be lowered making the workplace less safe for our workers. these come again, what have you may think of them, let's debate it outside an appropriations bill, you're not supposed to legislate on an appropriations bill. reputed to see what the bill will be. we look forward to finding common ground. actually important that the republicans not be frivolous once again about shutting down government. but they know that in order to have a bill passed they've have
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to have all the votes if they want hours. we can't support what they're doing on the bill, and they need a presidential signature. so we look forward to shrek now, they talk a lot about transparency but we still haven't seen the bill. it's supposed to be posted by monday evening. hopefully we will see it before then so that we can find our common ground on the bill. any questions? >> walk us through speech why do you let him do this all the time? [laughter] >> i was looking at you. i do know if he was a ventriloquist or what. [laughter] spent i will defer if you want. [inaudible] not fun for the entire year? not cutting off in march or fairport. what all these things?
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>> let's say, but it's going to be a compromise but i expressed concerns about treating the district of columbia in a fair way, respecting home rule. we have all agreed on the topline number. so that's not for debate, but how that money is divided up is interesting to see come and, of course, we want more money to go into research at the national institutes of health because that's a physical power to cure and a good investment job creating. the issues that relate to the nature of the bill. welcome let's just say what form it takes. just a couple days ago is going to be in march. now it is february and i don't know where the time is that, for that now. that's what a national security issue. that's a short-term c.r.,
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continuing resolution. when it comes to national security, it's not a responsible thing to do. but against let's look at the full package. i'm not saying anyone of them is a dealbreaker but i'm saying these are an array of concerns that we have. clean air, good food standards can workplace safety, fairness to the district of columbia, how for top dollar, topline dollar is allocated within the legislation. and as i said i have -- yesterday i had confidence in our ranking member in the negotiations she brings device of our caucus to the table, but we even shouldn't be talking about that many of the same because they don't belong on an appropriations bill. the structure of the bill is meant to be seen, let's see what -- i think they have a sense of responsibility about our national security and hopefully this short-term extension will not be as harmful as it could
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be. but we don't know because we have not seen the language. >> do you feel like it most of the cards a? >> it's not a question of the. they have the majority, they have the votes. if the of 218 votes to go forward with this, so be it. if they keep making it worse in order to get 218 votes, that's a disservice to country. and i remind you of whether it was stopping them from closing government, which we can succeed at the gave them the vote to keep government open. we gave them the vote to open up government. they didn't have the vote. we gave them the vote to support the ryan-murray continuing resolution figure. they didn't have the vote. we gave them the vote to lift the debt ceiling. only 28 republicans voted on it, the full faith and credit of the united states of america earlier this year. so we stand ready even in opening up a government. we did not like the bill. it was their bill but it was
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more important to open up the government. so again we have stood ready to support initiatives that weren't pleasant. i'm not saying on a full faith and credit. that when we proudly did. it's hard though. over 200 republicans vote not to lift the debt ceiling come to undermine the full faith and credit of the united states of america can't have an impact on our credit rating and then go out and use it as a campaign issue. it makes it really more of an issue of courage on the part of our members. so we stand ready to accept some that may not be what we had written but we are not the majority, and that's what i keep reminding my members. let us find our common ground and let's do it soon. because this uncertainty is not a good thing for the american people or for the business community. we talked about that yesterday.
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just get that done. just get it done. >> so to follow up, a reassessment of -- [inaudible] >> what decided members who argue that going along with these things it's making it harder to differentiate themselves? >> as it relates to shutting down the government, totally responsible come and they are not a responsible. that should give me something that is in the mix. not honor the full faith and credit of the united states of america, that shouldn't even be something that is in the mix. let's debate the issues and the priorities. i don't know that our members would say we should let them shut down the government again.
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i don't know that. they haven't told me that because everybody knows that is harmful to our economy and its harmful to our veterans. it's harmful to everything that we have a responsibility to the american people to do. so got to try to find our common ground. we did not like the 988 number that they came up with last year. i tell you all the time, they wouldn't go 41058. that's a number we are operating under now. last year they said they wouldn't go past 988. our members railed against it. how could it be? their own chairman said the 988 would not enable us to honor our responsibility to the american people. chairman rogers said that. the republican chairman. and then harry reid said we will accept it. the president of united states said we will accept it. house democrats said we looks at
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the 980 in or to avoid shutting down government. and i said to the speaker, speaker boehner, we have the votes for you. all you need are 20 votes, and you don't to shut down government. the only people who did not accept the republican house budget number where the republican house members. so they shut down government for 17 days. when it came time to open up government again, they overwhelmingly, they voted to keep it shut down and it required a democratic vote. i don't have the numbers here. it required a massive number of democratic votes to open up the government, but that was our responsibility, even though we didn't like the number. and then, that was until december, and in december we had to vote on the ryan-murray number. more on the subject than most
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people want to know, and that the time they still did not have the votes for the ryan-murray number and we had to supply the vote. we have to be responsible in what we do, and if the risk is to shut down government, we are just not going to be a party to the. the ball is in their court. they write the bills, they have the vote and the responsibility keep government open is theirs. if a bill is anything that we can support, we will. but we are not going to be a party to shutting down the government. >> what impact do you think it might have on policy making? when you think republicans might acknowledge that it actually is on -- [inaudible] >> you would have to ask of them with might acknowledge. i certainly do not speak for
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them, but the fact is that the policies implement it by president obama when he became president, to take us out of the very deep ditch that the republicans have driven us into are beginning to bear fruit. they have been for a while and now more. right from the start, one week and one day after the president's inaugural address asking for us would full of action and to create jobs, the house passed the american recovery and reinvestment act. and that was responsible for saving or creating three and have to 4 million jobs. we proceeded then to an agenda that would job creation including a budget. however, that was can we are able to do that with some republican votes in the senate because you needed 60 votes. but after that any jobs bill
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that was sent over, the republicans rejected because welcome all kinds of things are going on in terms of the 60 votes. there are only 60 votes in the senate for about six months, and then that was gone. so anyway, putting that aside, i would hope that directly to your question, that the republicans would see how we got to where we were in 2008, september 2008 when the great recession was announced, financial meltdown of our financial institutions was announced, that they would understand that in order for our economy to thrive we cannot go back to the policies that got us into the deep ditch to begin with. and that really is the political debate pashtun when i say political, the electoral debate in our country. i hope it wouldn't be partisan or political, but the electoral, but the public should understand what the choices.
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i don't care if it's democrats or republicans, that they support people who will take us forward rather than back to the policies that contributed to the meltdown in 2008, and which contributes to the income disparity in our country. it's the paycheck. it's the paycheck come and what of the republicans may think of the 47%, they are consumers and we are a consumer economy and we have to have fairness and how we reward work and productivity. adequate help that they would recognize that without just saying these are the so-called job creators. the 1% gets so much of the benefit of her policies as they create jobs. let it trickle down, and as the speaker said at a time when we're having this discussion, they create jobs. that's what we wanted to do. and if they don't, so be it, he
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said. so be it. >> the 1997 budget, our economy was booming, the deficit was long and were able to get a balanced budget agreement that cut taxes and help create programs. are there when wins out of there? >> i think so. we have to remember that in 1993 -- 1993, economic package that was passed on the floor we did with great sacrifice. many democratic members of congress who lost their seats because they voted to increase taxes at the high-end. but that was worth it. we have to do it and it led to what you described and 26 my new jobs created and the rest, very positive for our economy. it will take some courage to do what we need to do but i do believe there is enough common ground and common sense to go forward with initiatives that
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invest in education to keep america number one. we can't have innovation without education, that there would be an initiative to recognize a good paying jobs in the trendy you can reward companies with tax breaks to send jobs overseas. you have to give tax breaks to keep good paying jobs here in the united states and invest in the infrastructure, building, rebuilding infrastructure of our country. that has never been partisan. the infrastructure issue has never been a partisan issue until recently. and i think we have, the public understands that issue, and hopefully in clarity of prioritizing, because that's what we have to do, we can make the case to the public and return to a nonpartisan approach to how we build the infrastructure of america. as we grow the economy by rebuilding our infrastructure, make it in america as mr. hoyer would say, that we would also,
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recognizing the importance of education that we would also go to a place that recognizes the value of work and does not have the bottom line of corporate america go big because of the exploitation of the worker in terms of their compensation. so i do think that in the past we've had common ground on many of these issues. president book -- president bush signed or minimum wage bill. ssa can infrastructure and transportation issues have never been partisan in the past. >> it sounds like the speaker is not going to let the parties attach language to define president obama's immigration order to the bill. that's a change what happened. doesn't make you any more hopeful about the rules with a larger majority next your? >> understand the hybrid, the
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hybrid build undermining the president's position on immigration by just making a short-term, a matter of weeks, a six-week homeland security bill. homeland security bill is about border security. it's about fema. it's about many things, about the safety of the american people. so there is a tailoring to this to go to the place but we'll see what it says. i don't know about you but i really like to talk about what i know what i'm talking about in terms of what the bill actually is. one good piece of news and so can we have bipartisan support i'm very excited about is tim walz bill, the veterans suicide prevention legislation but it will come to the fore in a bipartisan way on tuesday is my understanding, and then
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hopefully they will write to the senate and be signed by the president in time for the holidays for our veterans. and, of course, we owe them so much and they suffer when the shutdown government and that's why when i was speaker i was so pleased to pass legislation that would have forward funny for them so they didn't get caught in all of these kinds of fights. the shutdown is a separate thing. that hurts everybody, but this legislation under the leadership of tim walz supported by the iraq afghanistan veterans is so well thought out and so needed and so urgent, do something that will have strong bipartisan support. we are getting ready for the new congress which hopefully will be very exciting but in the meantime, we'll keep you posted on our views on what we see when we see what is in the bill. my inclination is obviously it
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is to be hopeful that the legislation we something that we can accept and support. thank you all very much. >> thank you. >> house democratic leader nancy pelosi's weekly briefing. the house out today. they will be back on monday at 2 p.m. for legislative work and the would be taking up ago pertain to leader pelosi's home state, the california drug bill. lawmakers are working on a bill that would fund the government past december 11. live coverage of the house starting monday at noon for morning our speeches on our companion network c-span. minority leader pelosi also talking today about the latest job numbers that show 321,000 new jobs created in november. house speaker john been issued a statement in response to the labor department figures released this morning. while it's welcome news more people found work --
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>> more on the jobs numbers government funding and other issues today, let on as white house press secretary josh earnest holds a briefing. live coverage of that starting at 1 p.m. eastern time on c-span. meanwhile, here on c-span2 live at 1:45 p.m. a forum on korea to the social change in that country and journalist talk about some of the challenges of reporting on north korea. president obama has asked philadelphia police commissioner charles ramsey to co-chair the 21st century leasing task force. we talked with him this morning on c-span's "washington journa journal." >> chief gary is a number of the presidents 21st century policing task force, the co-chair of the task force is
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the philadelphia police chief, former d.c. police chief charles ramsey. he joins us on the phone now. chief ramsey, what is your primary goal with this task force? >> guest: well, good morning. my primary goal is to present to the president actionable recommendations as to how we can have an impact and change perception and reality of policing in the united states. build stronger relationships, take a deep dive into our training and policies that need to be in place and so forth. so we have 90 days which is a lot of time but i think that we can come up with some solid recommendations for the president, and it probably is going to require some more work afterwards. because the easy part is writing a recommendation to the hard part is implementing something. but i'm pretty confident that we will be able to have something on his desk within the timeframe
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he would like to see it. >> host: in your soviets up in philadelphia, what's a policy change that you've made up there? >> guest: the use of deadly force, for example, firing at automobiles which a lot of departments had banned for years. here in philadelphia we have not done that. we certainly put that in place. that is one that comes to mind immediately as it relates to use of force. we also made some revisions in our training. i start something back in 1998 when i was chief in washington, d.c. working along with the u.s. holocaust newseum memorial to help officers better understand the role in a democratic society. we sent our recruits through that training in philadelphia. we have a philanthropist here who has supported us in that endeavor. but i think it does an awful lot toward helping police officers better understand the unique
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role they have in our society. >> host: chief ramsey, i asked this question, richard berry of the international association of chiefs of police is on the set with me. i asked him this question. when you view the video of what happened to eric garner come of what happened to 12 year-old tamir rice in cleveland, what's your reaction as a police officer? >> caller: first of all when i saw the video of the carter situation from its obviously troublesome. i did all the information that was presented to the grand jury. so they obviously have access to more than i certainly did by watching a clip on television, but certainly it is troubling especially when you consider a relatively minor offense in the first place. of the person was resisting. i think one of the things people have to realize is that taking people into custody that do not want to go into custody is not a
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pretty sight, if you see it on tape. so unique in all the facts and circumstances surrounding it. when i saw the cleveland situation, the first thing that crossed my mind was poor tactics. because they pulled right up on the person, the young man, which is something that basic training would tell you not to do because you have no time to really take cover, to react, to give commands, to do anything when you pull right up on someone. that was just not a good situation in terms of the tactics used that started it off on a very bad footing. >> host: chief ramsey, when can we expect to hear an initial report from the task force? >> caller: well, 90 days is what the president gave us and we will present to the president within that timeframe. it's up to the white house to determine when they will release anything or if they release anything publicly. i'm sure they will but that's
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going to be their decision, not my. >> host: you've been a police officer for a long time. last question. have you changed your mind? have you changed your view on policing over the years? >> caller: sure. listen, i started my career in 1968. a lot has happened since 1968. there's been an evolution. this whole notion of community policing. no one talked about that in the '60s or 70s. police thought they could do it all. if you have a crime problem, hire a few more cops and we'll take care of it. community was viewed as santa eyes and ears. if you have a problem, call us. that even predates the three digits 911 when i started. so yeah, it's changed a great deal. in terms of the profession and me personally, coming to have a more, a better understanding, a deeper understanunderstan ding of what it means to be a police
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officer and that our responsibility includes protecting the constitutional rights of people. i can't say i felt that in 1968, but i certainly do now and i have for sometime. so yeah, we all evolve. we all change. we all grow close to charles ramsey, chief of police in philadelphia and co-chair of the 21st century leasing task force. thank you for your times are? >> caller: thank you. >> more now on law enforcement with a discussion on policing and use of force. the memorial fund and the national law enforcement newseum posted this on wednesday just after newark city officials said it would not be an indictment for the officers involved in the death of eric garner. panelists also discussed flaws in the justice system, the militarization of local police department's and distrust between police and african-american communities.
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>> [inaudible conversations] >> ladies and gentlemen, my name is craig floyd and i want to welcome all of you to the national law enforcement museum's new series called conversations on law-enforcement, and the series focuses on topic long for the issues on the minds of many. tonight conversation is entitled when police shoot, a dialogue on the use of force. we are proud to be jointly hosting tonight's event with a new and hopefully long-term partner, the memorial foundation, builders of the magnificent martin luther king, jr. memorial. want to begin by thanking our event sponsor at target corporation which has been one of our top supporters over many, many years. several of the target officials
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have traveled from their headquarters in minneapolis to be with us tonight, and we are very grateful. they are deeply committed to promoting safe communities across the united states, and tonight's discussion is intended to help foster the very important goal. for those of you not only with our organization, the national law enforcement officers memorial fund heads up the national law enforcement museum. we're a nonprofit organization formed in 1984. our mission is to tell the story of american law enforcement and make it safer for those who serve. our mission is to inspire all citizens to value law-enforcement. in 1991 we established a national monument here in washington, d.c. to honor the service and sacrifice of our peace officers. it is located just a few blocks from here in the historic judiciary square. the names of more than 20,000
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officers who have sacrificed their lives in law enforcement service are inscribed on the walls of that monument. we are now in the midst of building a national law enforcement museum right across the street from the monument to the museum is intended to help our citizens better understand and appreciate the vital role of policing in america. with its high-tech interactive exhibits, the museum will allow visitors to walk in the shoes of a police officer and better understand what they do and how and why they do it. one of the major exhibits planned for the museum is the use of force judgment training simulator that allows visitors to experience a virtual situation that involve life-threatening, split-second decisions, just like our officers sometimes have to make. in recent months there have been several high profile events involving the use of lethal
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force by law enforcement professionals. each time the same questions were asked. wasn't there another option? why not shoot to wound rather than kill? why were so many shots fired? tonight we will pose these questions and others to a couple of hundred law enforcement professionals, and we will examine the impact of police shooting, especially ones that end in death and have on the community in which it occurs. u.s. department of justice tells us that among the millions of persons who come in contact with an officer, force is used or threatened by law enforcement less than 2% of the time. in fact the passenger to please professionals will go their entire career without ever firing their weapon in the line of duty. but to most americans who watch the news, and the cop shows and movies, that is not common perception. according to the fbi, 461 people
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were justifiably killed by law enforcement officers in 2013. all but three by gunfire. some look at those numbers and look at the number of violent offenders confronted by police each year and argue that this figure shows great restraint. others are mortified that so many lives are taken each year by trained professionals. but no matter what the number, every time an officer is compelled to shoot and kill someone, it is a terrible tragedy for all involved. tonight we will explore the many issues surrounding the use of force by law enforcement. the increased use of body cameras and less lethal weaponry but officers will be discussed, as well as community oriented policing. but most of all we want to have an open-minded conversation that will lead to a stronger public
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safety partnership between law enforcement officers and the citizens they serve. now at this time i am very pleased and proud to introduce my new good friend harry johnson, president of the memorial foundation. [applause] >> great, thank you so much. good evening. what a joy it is for me to stand here on this evening as we talk about, you know, why police shoot. you know, ou on behalf of the memorial foundation, the builders of the martin came memorial, yes, a memorial that embraces the mall here in washington, d.c., where dr. king's stands together with the jefferson the more, the lincoln memorial, and, of course, the washington monument. before we built the memorial it was done so the world would have a place to honor and visit one of our heroes of our great majestic country.
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the first memorial to a man of peace, a man of color, and on president to be situated in such a prominent place on our national mall but also in the great pantheon of the other great leaders of our country. we build the memorial not just to recognize the life and legacy of dr. king but also to accentuate the four major themes of the memorial. those themes being justice, hope, democracy, and love. so tonight, how proud we are to be and partner with craig floyd of the law enforcement museum in target, to have a dialogue about when police shoot, and a dialogue on the use of force. and hopefully bring to the forefront those for tenants of the king memorial. those for tenants, justice, the belief that we all are due justice under law law regardless of color, ethnicity or gender. hope, the believe that we as
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americans have a confident expectation that we can be better, that we can expect better, and we can do better for ourselves and for our future. love, the universal doctrine that we all are god's people and that we should love, as much as we love those who we have within us. and then finally we understand that ferguson is not an island unto itself, but in reality every -- if we apply the four tenets of the memorial, we will, in fact, help make better families, better communities, better cities, better states and, indeed, have a better nation in the world. god bless ya lets get together tonight. i now bring to the podium the one and only mr. jeff johnson, a world-renowned author, commentator and a good friend of the memorial. jeff johnson, it is your show. lee's welcome jeff johnson. [applause]
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>> thank you. the check is in the mail. [laughter] i did know who he was talking about at first. it's an honor and privilege to be your and moderate the discussion i'm not going to stay at the podium. i'm going to join our panelists sitting down, but i do want to frame, i don't think there's ever been a panel that i've moderated that needs less framing in lieu of i think what our country is looking at, and many of us have listened on the way over all of the commentary and the reviewing of what's happening in new york even right now as a grand jury has failed to indict officers in the eric garner killing. and it seems as if you are very sharp lines that have been drawn in the commute is all over the country, and whether it's in new york or whether it's in ferguson or whether even now in cleveland, as city officials and public safety officials are
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determining what the next steps are as relates to investigations abound a police shooting of 12 year old tamir rice. the country continues to be forced to do with something where often there isn't a lot of reasonable conversation. and so i'm hoping that the conversation that we have tonight will not only be reasonable, but it will be a conversation that begins to point at the practice of the we're seeing in certain parts of the country, potential solutions, and even the framework of how those of us who are in this room serve as ambassadors for how we move forward to in creating more effective policing, practices, the mobilization for more effective policy, and greater relationships. but it's not even talk about how we allow there to be a level of engagement. that sometimes helps those things come about. because as a former activist and
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national youth director of the naacp we understand that though some policy works well some time, as a opportunity to see a better policy. sometimes that only comes when there is unrest. what does that unrest look like? how does it become effective and when does it become counter productive? i hope we can have an honest discussion. i hope you are involved in that honest discussion. as a moderator i hate payrolls. their way into the last five minutes to open up the floor to discussion to the audience. and then you hurry up and try to get 35 questions in two minutes and 16 seconds. it never works. so my goal is to involve you in the discussion as quickly as we can. because i think we have a more robust and true community conversation when that happens. we have a great panel that is with us and i like to introduce them before i take my seat. to my immediate right, or to my
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immediate left is thomas streicher. he is a principal with greenwood streicher. former colonel in chief of the cincinnati police department, a great deal of which will talk about thi this evening. and tyco especially youth council, national youth director when it was a great deal of strife in cincinnati or the killing of a young man and protests ensued and is a great deal of unrest in the city. under colonel streicher's leadership. he now touts the country as a consultant engaging communities and best practices and how did you effective collaborative policies as well as government accountability. please come and round of applause for tom streicher. to his left is cedric alexander,
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ceo, decal county police. he also has a rich history prior to that. he was working with as a federal security director with tsn also has worked with the state of new york. lee's give him a round of applause. [applause] >> last the survey not least is the reverend tom watson. he is the chief minister passionate that means faster -- pastor. watson memorial training ministry in new orleans, louisiana. is an activist and manifest of prophetic words. those of you don't know what that means, he operates in speaking the words so that we can move and engaged in communities. he comes from i think the legacy
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of men and women of god that understand the we can't afford to be apolitical, but it is sensitive for churches to engage in the communities that exist in, that they help bring about the change that's necessary. please give him a round of applause. [applause] >> if i can join you all. turn one, i'd like to start with you. i think that there's so many directions that we can go in with this conversation, in the first when we start talking about why do police shoot, why do officers to shoot. talk a little bit about, for those in the audience who don't understand, what training do your officers receive, and by and large can we assume that officers receive as relates to the use of force and the discharge of their weapons in particular. >> there's a lot of different
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training, and in north america and the goes into this and it's not something that is specific for the use of force only. agencies that do it properly actually teach decision-making and that's something that has to be woven through the very fabric of all the training that all other officers receive. i have to be able to make a decision about whether or not i'm going to approach you based on constitutional grounds, am i here to approach you choose to preach and to introduce myself? am i here for an official reason? is an unofficial reason? what's the reason or the context of this stop? and is at a stop? are you free to leave if i walk up to you? to a have a reason to hold your? thesthese are the things were to look at going all the way back before the actual use of force occurs. if it's a shots fired incident, if it's a use of chemical irritant in whatever district we have good salmon, teach offices that make those decisions in context of their position as a police officer, a public official if he was an enormous amount of authority and power. i would say to you and amount of
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authority and power that no one else in the united states as. no one has more than a police officer have. but even the president. that's a frightening thought on the one hand, and on the other hand, it's something that we all know and understand that we need in this nation if we are to protect the rights and liberties of everyone. so we've got this person or these people, group of people with this enormous amount of authority and power that have to be able to make decisions from the very beginning of a stop, the context of that stop, all the way through to the point where there is interaction between an officer and a person. and if the interaction goes awry, how does an officer make that decision but it's not just old boy, something happened, i get to use force now. there has to be a decision making process that unfolds very quickly. one of her host, craig floyd here said it very aptly in the beginning, that this is some that can happen in a split
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second. so a decision has to be made and then a decision about what type of force an actual force that is used to afterwards which the review process? how do we learn from these? do we just say this is justified or not justified? but we go back and look at the situations, take a look at what happened. because they don't happen in a vacuum. they happen over and over. we have to extract from these exactly what occurred, what lessons are there, how can we apply those lessons to the training to help the decision-making process in the future so hopefully we can alleviate the need for an officer to have to use force and we can come to a reasonable conclusion without using force. that's the ultimate goal. it should be the ultimate goal of any police agency. >> mr. alexander, let me build on that because what i find interesting is i want to stay with this training thread a little bit before we go on to other parts of the conversation. because of someone who is trained people, i understand
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that through a training process i realized that there are certain people i am training that don't necessarily have the skills necessary to do what it is i am training them to do. how often do we find in these types of trainings through assessment processes that these people that mr. streicher says probably has more responsibility than almost anybody in the job that they do, that they just don't have the decision-making skills necessary? do we find within a police a training that there are those that are assessed to say, wait a minute, you really don't do that. the decision-making skills possible, necessary to be in those life-and-death situations, those serious situations. and as a result you don't pass the training course, you don't make it to the academy. is that a litmus for success or failure in the academy? if it a litmus for the ability to remain on the street?
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and if not, should it be? >> well, let me say this. when we think about, when we think about police training and we send a young man, a young woman through six months of the police academy, on average, that's what it is in this country, on average about six months. and when you think about that, there is a piece of this training that requires self-defense tactics, fire arm tactics, if you will. ..
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40. so at the end of today you may have 24 or 25 of the candidates to graduate from your academy and you send them off into a training program and then once they complete that process then he or she are assigned to go out on patrol and you have trained them by state standards, not by my standards but by state standards and those standards are generally pretty high. and throughout the course of their career i have seen a young man or woman police officer who was in the first week on the job are engaged in a shooting and i've seen people do 35 years and never had to draw their weapons. so, you have this training to her three times a year to the firearms qualification in many
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each incident that occurs they are so different and that is what makes it complicated because there are so many variables that go into the time that you pulled that trigger but do we train? yes. the question actually going forward. my question is this in light of everything that is happening are we training in math and are we training young men and women as well to be critical thinkers because i think that is the real key is to make split-second decisions.
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we have to make a decision and those are in the moment kind of decisions can we train them better. even if we had all of the training in the world, there is still perceptions that officers are bringing to the situations similar to what we all bring into the situations and those perceptions help drive the decision-making so how are the police department are we speaking on the undeniable biases that they bring into policing. >> i think part of what is going to have to happen is i think that it is the recruitment process. i think that we are going to have to find in recruiting the
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police offices are a very tough job by the way. everybody wants to be a police officer. there's something to be said about that. and you trained them to a standard. but here's what i know and here's what i've been saying for some years now. we have to think differently about the jobs because when you really think about it is really 80% public-relations and 20% everything else. it's not 80% running after -- >> i want you to stay right there for a second and deal with do the police departments currently deal with the bias that we as individuals have in the training academy or with officers that are currently in
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the ranks. >> be all come with biases. you and i do, too and it may be not around race. it could be around gender or orientation or around religion. it could be around a number of variables. the important piece i think what we have to do in the training academies that we have not been doing it is that we've got to bring into those classrooms into those scenarios and even part of the selection process opportunities for us to begin to confront the bias.
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i'm the moderator. so i am in a unique position where for once i got more power than you. and i agree with you, but i think it is important to make sure that we deal with the fact that those that are overtly racist or equally as scary, when in many cases those that are overtly racist and carry over our policing the communities of people. so can we accept the fact that we do have problems when the decision-making and whether it is accepted or processing threats is affected but we don't have the problems dealing with it. how can we begin whether it is a policy standpoint, training
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standpoint as i think we have eluted too. what are the correct way is for us to begin dealing with these biases and not allowing them to be the 800-pound gorilla in the room that we fail to talk about when the shootings take place? >> the number one answer is there is no option quite frankly they create bias and policing especially in the position as we talked about already where people hold so much power and authority. i used to think training and i still think training is a big aspect of it but who does the training and what is the training is more critical. what about this here, how many people in the room have something to offer, new police agencies train and a vacuum or do they train in their community, so to address the
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police officers or somebody that has 40 years of experience have 30 or 40 years of experience can really learn from having a true dialogue with people about that 800-pound gorilla. i can tell you that in 2001 in cincinnati we were sitting that happy and lazy that things were going along good and everything was seemingly fine. suddenly we have incident where an officer shoots and kills a young man, like about killing the young man and the next thing you know, we are headlines on cnn and around the world. how can it be two days ago we were fat, happy and lazy and today we are confronting an issue that nobody wants to confront and that is a problem people do not want to confront this because it is uncomfortable. so, the solution that we found in the aftermath of that and our
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dealing with the community is that the relationships we have in the community that we thought were very good and very powerful they found out and came to realize that they were actually superficial relationships. we didn't have true relationships with the people in our community and this is something that we found it takes real work and a tremendous amount of effort. we have to have a lot of thick skin especially if you were in the position that perhaps isn't that crosshairs if you will. good you to listen to what people want to say. that is just an excuse. the reality is these are excuses that exists and that is
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something that requires constant vigilance not just by a police agency but more so in fact buy an entire community. look at the reaction that we have around the country from a singular incident and think about how powerful that incident is. the world has to change. my father -- >> [inaudible] [laughter]
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>> let's not even go there. my dad lived in cincinnati at that time and i think that there was a huge dichotomy. it would have quite the opposite now. so i think that there's always truth in this perception. in the police department before and after katrina as it relates to the levels of brutality and misconduct. it's almost sometimes having to jar the police department to say us into the things that you're not listening to and then help the community members understand what real policing looks like whether they like it or not. how do you help find that
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as you know the cops go out and wonder if they will survive getting all. as an african-american male i feel that way sometimes often i feel haunted into that as a personal kind of thing that i would hope isn't stopped by the police for something silly and ends up in another direction, both collectively and collaboratively with the done is we have engaged levels of government, mayor's office, city council, state senators and the like can the congressman in the second congressional district and faith leaders and everyday grassroots leaders and our mantra is to say that the connect is going to happen, the trust is going to happen between the police into the and the community it must be bottom-up. it cannot be top down. it cannot be the nadir or the governor. it cannot be elected officials giving a mandate on how to fix this.
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so what we have done over the years and i have a report that i've brought with me i wouldn't mind sharing with the audience when it's appropriate on how we brought together law enforcement , community leaders, everyday leaders to hash out and to dialogue together in think tanks that go on for 48 hours so to speak in a couple of things we do if not consistently 48 hours the point i'm making is that it is a matter of connecting those voices that are never heard and are protesting at a screening of hollering and then somewhat politically engaged, bringing them together to have this kind of dialogue but beyond the dialogue, putting some reasonable productive bullets together, take away his that we can work with police and let me give you one example if you don't mind. in 1994, new orleans had about
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4,000 citizens of course before katrina but we were cold and still get cold at the murder capital of the world if you will and that's based on a per capita population. in 1994 lead we had over 420 murders on the streets where my storefront church where i started out. so at the storefront level we were at a neighborhood near a major housing development. what our church did and nonprofit we did a protest on the city hall that was peaceful for jobs but what we did as a result of that we sat down with community leaders come up with the chief of police and other elected officials and community leaders and we were able to through the police department and local city governments to bring a police substation right in the neighborhood to begin to build trust.
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between the everyday citizens. so my point is that we have engaged the community at the grassroots level to connect to the police department. it's not an easy task but it is one worth doing. and beyond the protest can you have to have some measurable ways that you're going to work through these processes so that you're in it for the long haul. it's easy to protest but you have to have some long and short-term goals. the folks that are now processing in those, those that
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were in other cities don't do this isolated incident at all. so it is an incident, connected incident, connected incident and what often happens when these discussions take place, is there seems to be a very defensive nature taken by law enforcement and got defensive feature in some cases because they are legal issues at hand and they are dealing with a specific incident that will result in an indictment sometimes supersedes the disconnect of the community from the police department and when we hear people talk about 2% and in the shooting but still too many and we know that to be too many. we often also see time after time -- and i'm sorry for the
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long setup for the question we see police officers not being indicted, we see processes that we don't feel that prosecutors are doing their job. if you like there is grand juries that haven't been given the right information and the belief that it doesn't work for us in certain communities. how have you seen us deal with those realities and conversations so i don't feel like they are prepared to hear lipservice in the name of creating relationships if we are not dealing with some of those real issues. so why are they held accountable for shooting black kids? if you google what is happening in new orleans, we have been
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notorious. it's never been isolated in my lifetime from choking, shooting. after katrina for instance, if you google his name he was not only shocked as an unarmed citizen trying to survive after the storm but his body was burned. of the five or so officers, maybe for, they are all free through appeals. about one officer that shot him is on appeal. the officer that burned him is doing 17 years but still going through the appeal. how do you think the feeling of community blacks new orleans is never isolated.
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police chief that is african-american and he's trying hard to begin to mend the fences but it's never isolated in my community, and i believe the biggest crisis coupled with training is one of credible leadership. when that leader of the police department and the mayor can be trusted and they are transparent and we are people of feeling then things begin to get a little bit better but it's never been an isolated instance so there is no easy answer to this
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and they lifted the principle where there is no confrontation there is no resolution so we have to continue to come from the issues collectively and beyond the protesting to have that kind of purposeful intervention and prevention of initiatives that can begin to turn some of this around. >> i don't disagree with with what is and i'm this and i'm going to clarify something. my point wasn't to say an isolated incident this only happens once in a while. my point was that this issue of distrust between police agencies and some segments of our communities is so enormous and has been in place for so long a singular incident can set something off like this. that tells me come come into this is at a critical point in america. i think even calling it a
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singular incident in many cases create -- >> i understand that and that's why i want to clarify that. i'm not isolating anything at all but who would expect this in ferguson misery? with the rest of the world have expected this in ferguson and that is the issue most people probably didn't even know there was a ferguson misery, who knew where sanford florida was? we like to believe people knew where cincinnati was and that is one of the questions we ask people into the question needs to be asked is argued that comfortable in your community that you believe it's something that will happen somewhere else. it won't happen here. if that's the case then you probably are not in the position of a position of power or authority and need to get out of the way and let someone else moving here and realize it is something that dramatically affects each and every one of us as americans. there are no two ways about it.
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>> if this is going to continue to be a conference with its situation, still as a nation we started talking about race. if we look at policing in this country and you put it in a historical context that we are talking about has been going on since the beginning and those names of people that have lost their lives we've forgotten them but we remember those that we are talking about today but there were those before i was born, before you were born sometimes even more violently so this is a long-standing issue in particular with the communities of color so when you start something you said three early
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on some of it is perception and some of it is reality. it all depends on where you stand and where you sit in america but a lot of it is reality, so there is this history and legacies and stories that have been told from generation to generation so when it became integrated 40, 50 years ago we still have the same problems of in the largest cities in the country but part of the issue is training coming yes, but it's also leadership in a lot of departments because you have to set an expectation to the men and women that work for you. you train them well but you also have expectations. but you cannot predict if you've got 1200, 1300 people that work for you i can't promise that anybody's going to go out and do
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something foolish. hopefully they don't or won't, but we can't guarantee that. we have policies and those employees must know what the philosophies of the chief is an expectations when it comes to treatment the treatment of all people. >> i don't think that any citizen is looking for police leadership to say that they can't promise that others won't do anything. i think that what they are looking for is to know that accountability will come to that officer in the event something does and if they don't feel like officers will be able to hide behind the blue shield before they are forced into the level of accountability. >> the reason that exists is because there is a community called policing and then a community in which they served. then what you have here is a paternity. an organization where people take care of each other and they go out and confront dangerous
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things every day and it builds a relationship and it will take a margarita like no other. you do depend on each other but you also have a community over here. it's not when i got on the radio and called for help but if the citizens saw me getting my butt kicked, they would help me out because they are going to see it and they are going to get to me first grade but i have a relationship and what happened in ferguson misery, and i note this because i was there a week after it occurred and i sat down and talked to the chief as the president. from the time of the shooting until i got there, they never met with the community. but some community members and he rounded some folks upset they
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never met with the community. that's evident of a community in a police department that is totally disconnected but let me tell you another piece and then i will stop the day of shooting you have to remember that is a small town of 23,000 people. whether they are white or black 55 police officers, that's all. maybe 30 of them are in uniform control. how is that i should know virtually everybody in the community of 24,001 that shooting took place, no one in the community was able to name the officer was. how many people did did we see on the scene and how long did deren wilson said on the scene
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but we went weeks without knowing his name. in the community oriented police, they would have been able to say that was alexander. or that was striker or that was, you know, the officer that comes through here all the time. they couldn't even relate to it was so that is a total disconnect. >> they are dealing with the fact that it's a whole lot harder to shoot somebody you know. it's a lot harder to shoot somebody and you were able in the decision-making peace of who is a threat and who is not a threat when you know the people in the community. and so i talk to folks when the police officers know this kid is a baby and he might be 6 feet tall at 13, but he's not going to hurt anybody. and this this kid is fourth with three t
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