district attorney dependent on that police department for its criminal investigations, past and future. so we need police community partnerships, a state institute to support them, cameras, data collection, and an independent inspector general to investigate police misconduct. the roadmap doesn't end here today at this table. the next part is the most difficult. how do we implement it? the system is broken. we need democrats and republicans to come together to craft a roadmap to justice and figure out how to fund and implement it. only then can we create a stronger community. >> i will begin the questioning and start with you, sheriff clark.

do they want more or less of a police presence? they complain more about the actions of the police or inactions of the police? sheriff clark: they ask for more. they complain about both and i think that is human nature. a want safer neighborhoods. they know they will have to have policing in these high crime areas to get that done. it is situational. they complain about slow calls for service responses. things like that which can have an effect on a person's trust in their law-enforcement agency. in other words, we call but they don't come. it is fluid. it is situational. we deal with that i situational basis. >> do your officers generally

feel welcome comfortable in these communities? sheriff clarke: without a doubt. it is a hallmark of mind to create that relationship. i believe in the milwaukee area anyway, has a great relationship -- we don't have a great relationship with the criminal element. there is no doubt about that. but i think sometimes, this -- i believe it exists, this lack of trust within segments of the community but not as a whole with in the minority community. >> i am glad to your that.

he wrote in her testimony only 5% of the nations agencies participate in accreditation. that really surprised me. what is the biggest obstacle you raise in terms of getting other agencies accredited? >> i think it is a combination of all those things. i think it starts with leadership prerogative about what those organizational leaders think is important to them and they do leader of -- delivery. we hear concerns at the cost is too much. we heard that the cost is difficult because our process requires them to do things that otherwise would not do. i can tell you the process is structured around fundamental sound principles of police service delivery. the process of accreditation doesn't increase the accountability, it measures accountability. it serves as a framework to keep

organizations focused on fundamental areas. it relates to the cost and in-kind services and management of the process. >> is there a problem with legal precedents as it relates to use of force? does it result in second-guessing of an officer's decision? is there a problem with current legal precedent as they relate to use of a force and doesn't result in second-guessing of officers decisions? ms. ramirez: i think it is a problem with the community not fully understanding all of the pressures, procedures, protocols

the police are engaged in, and the police not discussing and educating the community about the things the police have to take into account as they go through a stop and search process. i don't believe this is a legal problem. i think it is a training problem, a problem that would be solved with better community policing. mr. goodlatte: you mention after your organization was called into portland, there was a sharp drop in officer involved shootings, use of force, and citizen complaints without increase in officer injuries. what do you think causes that? mr. barge: i think that, as i said in my testimony, judges and court rooms use a very different

set of rules to guide decision-making. officers on the street -- you don't have the luxury of examining all of the facts as they turned out to be and have to make split-second judgment calls. one thing police agencies can do right now is to ask themselves how do i want our police officers to react in these emerging use of force situations and craft more specific, clear guidance where appropriate and hold their officers accountable to the policies. the policies can do what the courts can not as a condition of an officer being employed in that department. as to portland, i think what we did there was to institute a number of reforms that are very tested. they have been of limited in places where the doj has gone in

the consent decree process. we can double meant those forms in a voluntary capacity that the city wanted us there. it was about instilling mechanisms where, by the police asked them solstice focal -- difficult questions. i think that kind of culture, by the numbers the city auditor found there, really changed the department for the better. mr. goodlatte: the gentleman from michigan is recognized for his question. >> i appreciate that the different contributions from each of the five panelists and i think we are off to a good discussion. i would like you to know that thanks to the chairman and mr.

scott, we have been having hearings on over criminalization . they start out for six months and the chairman added six more months to it. this moves us further along. the fact of the matter is, how do we change this culture? this goes back a long ways. this isn't something -- a recent phenomenon at all. i am thinking about how we get into this infrastructure and architecture that we are trying to move through and i would like

to look at that for a moment. but before we do, i will but to raise the question of police prosecutions. we all know the conundrum, the prosecutor and the police work together much of the time and then all of a sudden the prosecutor's got to decide whether to prosecute one that he's been working with a long time. professor ramirez and any of the rest of you, please, let's look at that for a moment. ms. ramirez: as a former federal prosecutor, i've worked with law enforcement and i know firsthand the difficult and dangerous work that they do but i also believe

that when there has been a civilian who's been shot or police misconduct, it is very hard for a prosecutor who works day in and day out with these law enforcement officers and knows they worked with them in the past and the future to make an independent decision which is why i think we need a process, different from the process that we have now. so i talk about having an independent inspector general make the decision. mr. conyers: yes. ms. ramirez: but also we need more transparency in the decisionmaking process. so right now we have a secret grand jury process. maybe we need something more like an inquest process or some kind of new process in which in these instances we can -- we can develop a way to be more transparent about that pretrial investigation that takes place now by a prosecutor in the grand jury context. and i wanted to say one more

thing about reducing use of force. the studies have shown that in departments where they've used cameras, body cameras and cameras in the car, that there has been a significant decrease in use of force. and it gives us the opportunity to learn from the recorded instances about best practices for de-escalation so when we have cameras and there is an incident we can learn more about it. mr. conyers: what's been your experience, sir, in terms of this problem of more or less where do we go from here? mr. hartley, what do you think? [inaudible] mr. conyers: we can go wider than that.

mr. hartley: and i think that discussion in a little more broad sense, i think the most important thing for any organization to do is to prepare for that bad event. we know that regardless of the best planning, you're still going to have people that are engaged in fundamental decisions around the enforcement of law that have impacts on communities. but the reality of it is that if the preparation takes place in the proper way with the proper folks around the table it relieves those expectations of negativity, if you will, and it promotes organizational confidence in how the process will be managed. i don't feel comfort saying that one size fits all for each agency because i think each jurisdiction brings on different attributes that has to be -- mr. conyers: of course. mr. hartley: but for the public's consideration and for the officers' consideration confidence in the process is important and it has to do with planning for the event from start to finish and include community contacts, media engagement and other processors related to the legal system.

mr. conyers: thank you very much. ms. rahr, just in closing, do you see some hope in president obama's recent statements on the subject when he was in camden yesterday? ms. rahr: i do. i think that there are a number of recommendations that will be helpful to every police department in the nation for some departments, they will be able to follow many of those recommendations. i hope that as time goes on the distribution of federal funding and resources will take into account the cooperation of agencies that are doing their best to follow those recommendations. mr. conyers: thank you. mr. goodlatte: chair thanks the gentleman. the chair recognizes the gentleman from south carolina, mr. gowdy, for five minutes. mr. gowdy: thank you. professor ramirez, you mentioned

a couple of cases in your opening statement and i know time is short when you only have five minutes and you were not able to address other cases. i wanted to ask you whether or not you were familiar with a few other cases. sandy rogers and scottie richardson from akin, south carolina, you familiar with that case? ms. ramirez: no, sir. mr. gowdy: how about roger day o' rice from ryan, south carolina, are you familiar with that case? ms. rahr: -- ms. ramirez: no, sir. mr. gowdy: russ sorrow from greenville, south carolina? ms. ramirez: no, sir. mr. gowdy: or kevin carper from spartanburg, south carolina? ms. ramirez: no, sir. mr. gowdy: professor, those are just a handful of the more than 340 police officers who were killed in the line of duty in south carolina. and kevin carper's case is most instructive because his partner did c.p.r. on the suspect that killed kevin trying to save his life. let me ask you another way. are you familiar with the case of ricky samuel? ms. ramirez: no, sir. mr. gowdy: how about tamika,

houston? ms. ramirez: no, sir. mr. gowdy: nell lindsey, santiago rios? ms. ramirez: no, sir. mr. gowdy: those are all folks that were the victim of intraracial homicides in south carolina. and i hasten to add, they were not protest either with those police officer killings or any of the intraracial killings, and i suspect you agree with me, professor, that all lives matter whether you're killed by a police officer or your next door neighbor, you're every bit as dead, aren't you? ms. ramirez: yes, sir. i actually as a former prosecutor and someone who's worked with police officers have the deepest respect for them. mr. gowdy: so do i. and despite that deep respect, professor, i still maintain the objectivity of prosecuting police officers if there is misconduct. recusal which is what some of us

did in every single one of our officer-involved shootings, we recused it to another prosecutor so he or she could make that decision so there is a process in place. you called for a process, there is one. it's called recusal. do you know as a former prosecutor or can you dane what may have been the biggest impediment to our being able to successfully prosecute homicide cases, particularly homicide cases involving victims of color? in my criminal justice jurisdiction, do you know what the biggest impediment was? ms. ramirez: in massachusetts one of the biggest impediments is trying to get witnesses to come forward. mr. gowdy: you're exactly right. you're exactly right. you have a victim of color and we had trouble getting witnesses to cooperate with law

enforcement and prosecutors which then, as you know, diminishes the quality of that case and your ability to prosecute it which may result in a lesser plea bargain because you don't have the facts which may then result in what you said in your opening statement which is people have a tendency to treat black lives differently than white when the reality is the case wasn't quite as good. isn't that a possibility too? ms. ramirez: for every prosecutor who's out there, this is a serious problem and you are correct in pointing that out sir. mr. gowdy: right. and it wasn't just me pointing it out, professor. i happen to have a fantastic chief of police when i was the d.a. fantastic man by the name of tony fisher who happened to be an african-american chief of police, and he lamented the exact same thing you and i are talking about is the loss of life in his community and the refusal of people to cooperate even in a drive-by shooting of an 8-year-old at a birthday party, a drive-by shooting outdoors where the whole world saw the car drive by and nobody would cooperate with the

prosecution in the murder of an 8-year-old. so i hope that part of this 21st century police strategy conversation that we're having includes getting people to cooperate with law enforcement so you can hold people to the exact same standard regardless of the race of the victim. and i want to say this, too. i want to thank my friend, ced richmond and hakeem jefferies and others who are working on this issue because they want a justice system that is colorblind. after all, it's respected by a woman wearing a blindfold so let's go ahead and make it colorblind and both of those guys have worked really, really hard and will continue to do so because let me tell what you my goal is my goal is for witnesses to feel comfortable cooperating, but here's my other goal, and i'm out of time but i'm going to

share it with you. i want to get to the point where we lament the death, the murder of a black female like nell lindsey just as much if it's at the hand of an abusive husband which it was, as we would if it would have been if it was at the hand of a white cop. i want to get to the point where we're equally outraged at the loss of life and i hope we can get there. with that i would yield back. mr. goodlatte: the chair thanks the gentleman. recognize the gentlewoman from texas, ms. jackson lee, for five minutes. ms. jackson lee: mr. chairman, thank you so very much and let me thank both you and the ranking member, my ranking member for listening and engaging and leading and i was delighted to participate in the process and i'd like to say to my colleagues that this effort of criminal justice reform is going to be a committee effort. every member's input and assessment and analysis and legislative initiatives will stand equal, i believe, in the eyes of the ranking member and the chairman and certainly those

of us who serve as the chairperson and ranking member of the crime subcommittee, as i do. america will not be responded to unless this committee works together and that our efforts are in unison and collective responding, of course, to the many witnesses that will come before us. so this is the first year, and i think america should recognize the very large step that we are making. sheriff clarke, let me thank you for your service. we may agree to disagree but there is no disagreement with your service and the sacrifice that you represent. as you indicated, we met a couple of weeks ago. just may 15, i was on the west side of the campus of this great

congress dealing with the many families who had lost loved ones in law enforcement. so my tone today will be that we do ill when we take each other's pain lightly, the pain of black lives matter, the pain of hands up, don't shoot, i can't breathe, that is pain. and it is equally the pain of mr. greer who was on the steps of his house august, 2013, and was shot in virginia. he happened to be an angelo or caucasian male. what we have to do to make a legislative step of monumental change that gives our officers the confidence of their work further enhance their training is to be able to work together. my line of questioning will be how do we fix these problems and how do we get the 5% number, that is a lot of officers, to be 25%, 50% accreditation, that's

what the american people, i think, are looking at. i don't want anyone's pain to be diminished and i sit here today recognizing that pain. sloat me just quickly say this regarding statistics. james coney, the director of f.b.i., said the following about the uniform crime report. the now three-year-old source that was cited in the sheriff's testimony said the following demographic data regarding officer involved shootings is not consistently reported to us through our uniform crime reporting program. because reporting is volume run tear, our data is incomplete and therefore unreliable. mr. hartley, i have thought that data is important. introduced a bill called the cadet bill to gather statistics of shootings by police and by individuals against police

because i believe in fairness. and so if this was required, would that be an asset to -- as you do your scientific work of providing insight for training? mr. hartley: ms. jackson lee -- ms. jackson lee, let me first start by saying that i think data helps drive decisionmaking and it helped drive it in an important way because you don't know what you don't know sometimes and what we find is organizations that engage with calea discovered data in the process that really helps them make fundamental decisions that drive the organization in a responsible way towards community service. ms. jackson lee: do you have enough money to credit all of the police departments across america? withdrew need some incentivizing, some funding to help you do that? mr. hartley: well, we don't need the incentivizing or funding to help that occur but those organizations sometimes do. organizations that participate with us range in size from

10,000 to 10. ms. jackson lee: so funding to them would be a helpful component of police -- of accountability? mr. hartley: i think that would support agencies in this mission. ms. jackson lee: on the calea standards of body cameras, transport, an independent review of lethal force by law enforcement, are there standards? that's the question. on body cameras, police arrest and transport? one of the issues i'm concerned about because when the issue came out in baltimore, it wasn't sort of put aside, police departments were saying all over, you know what, some of the things we do. but do you have standards on that in use of lethal force? mr. hartley: we have standards on all of those subjects. the one related to transport didn't face the issue faced in baltimore. however there is a standard that encourages the safe transport of individuals, regardless the type -- ms. jackson lee: we need to help enhance that and make that a noticeable part of policing across america. mr. hartley: well, i think that standards themselves are a dynamic living tool. i think as we encounter new issues -- and we certainly will, we have to be prepared to make adjustments in those standards. ms. jackson lee: ms. rahr, you talked about training programs particularly opposition of those against the status quo. can you add to your conversation. i don't want any police officer to not go home to their family.

that's a mantra that we all stand by and i, you know everyone says, we have great relationships -- i'm a big believer in community oriented policing. the father of community oriented policing lives in houston, lee brown. can you talk about de-escalation in training and how that impacts on police interaction? mr. goodlatte: the time of the gentlewoman has expired but the witness may answer the question. ms. jackson lee: it's a very exciting hearing. it generates a lot of questions. thank you. ms. rahr: thank you, sir. i have described the philosophical shift that i have been promoting for a couple of years. as moving our culture closer to a guardian mentality rather than a warrior mentality. i believe the warrior mentality was a result of a political movement that started in the 1960's when we declared war on crime, war on drugs, war on all

sorts of things. the police agencies across this nation responded as they do to their political leadership in their communities. what i'm trying to do is help our new police officers find the right balance because officers absolutely must have keen warrior skills and they must be able to use them without hesitation or policy. but i want them to consider their role within our democracy and that role needs to be the role of a protector with the goal of protecting people rather than conquering them. when you try to initiate this type of a mind set shift there's naturally going to be resistance. the greatest resistance i've encountered is just the misunderstanding of what i'm talking about. when i have the opportunity to explain it in more depth, most officers will say to me, that's how good cops have always done it. i want our recruits on their first day on the street to have

the wisdom of a good cop with 20 years experience. mr. goodlatte: the time of the gentlewoman has expired. ms. jackson lee: i yield back. mr. goodlatte: the chair recognizes the gentleman from michigan, mr. bishop, for five minutes. mr. bishop: thank you, mr. chairman. i'd like to thank the panel for your testimony today. grateful for the time you've taken to be with us today. sheriff, i had an opportunity to speak with the law enforcement community in my community, and i did a roundtable discussion. i had an open dialogue about the events of the day and some of the concerns that have been raised in this very discussion. they were concerned, as well about some of the bad actors in their own rank and file that we've been seeing around this country and very concerned about it but also we're -- were adamant about the fact that the majority of the officers they

work with, the emergency response personnel are hardworking, good professional people who are there for a common purpose and that is to serve the public. and they're concerned that that doesn't resonate, that we see more now of the bad acting than some of the negative that's gone on out there and it's important we identify and we deal with that and we not tolerate it in any way, shape or form. but it's also important that we do whatever we can to really rally behind those who have given so much in the law enforcement community. i think -- i'd really like to know from you, what's going on with the morale of the law enforcement community? are you having problems with recruitment and retention of officers as a result of all that's gone on around the country? shoip mr. chair, congressman -- sheriff clarke: mr. chair, congressman, we're at a tipping point that i expressed not too long what happened in ferguson missouri, about the psyche of the police officer who watches these things go on, just like anybody else does, and the constant bashing and maligning of the profession is starting to take its toll.

i just spent this week in the d.c. area for the national law enforcement officers memorial, police week, if you will, and i talked to law enforcement officers across this country and the one common theme i heard from them, first of all, their mind set is they're beleaguered right now. but the common theme that i heard is, you know, sheriff, i don't know if i want to continue to take that extra step any more because i don't want to be the next darren wilson. i don't want to be the next, you know, the officers in baltimore or new york or anywhere because they in a good faith effort -- we're talking about the goode faith action of law enforcement officers, we operate in an environment of chaos and uncertainty when we get sent to these calls. sometimes in this imperfect

world things can go horribly wrong, which they did in ferguson, missouri. i'm not going to get into whose fault it was but something went horribly wrong. but some of the best law enforcement work that goes on all across the country is called self-initiated. it's not the call for service. when an officer gets sent to a call for service something already happened. it's reactive. the crime already occurred. but the self-initiated policing is when that officer, that man or woman uses their experience their sixth sense, if you will their street sense that criminal activity may be afoot and they establish the reasonable suspicion so they can make that stop consistent with our constitution, they go and investigate. they pull that car over or they go and what we call, you know,

stick up a group of individuals hanging on a corner or casing an area, so to speak, and we start to investigate. in self-initiated policing you're going to find the guns that are being used to transport to and from drive-by shootings you're going to find prohibited persons with firearms, you're going to find drugs, you're going to find people wanted on serious felony warrants through self-initiated policing. when that starts to fall off -- there will be a lag time. this won't happen overnight. the cops in this country aren't going to quit. but over time when they start to worry they look and they see that suspicious vehicle or they see that suspicious individual and say, maybe not today, i don't want this thing to go hay wire on me and next thing i know i'm one of those officers that -- who becomes a household name in america. that is going to a lag time, ok. i don't like to create hysteria but over time i think it will have an affect on crime rates in those communities that need assertive policing the most and that's our north communities. mr. bishop: thank you, sheriff.

i guess my time is up, mr. chairman. so i would yield back the balance. mr. goodlatte: the chair thanks the gentleman and recognize the gentleman from new york, mr. nadler, for five minutes. mr. nadler: thank you. before i ask the question, let me just make an observation. sheriff clarke talked about the sixth sense, about taking that extra step. sometimes taking that extra step is very necessary but sometimes we maybe want the officer not to take the extra step. maybe that's sometimes the problem and that leads into the question of changing police culture which ms. rahr talked about. ms. rahr, what is the greatest challenge in changing police culture? ms. rahr: i think the greatest challenge is recognizing that we have a real variety of cultures already existing across the country. when officers come to begin their career of service, most of them come to the table with the goal of doing something good doing something to benefit the

community and then they're confronted with the realities of trying to do those good things. as a result, sometimes they take on a tougher persona and they may lose sight of their original reasons for coming in the door. i think we need to work harder within -- within the agencies, the leadership within the agencies to support our police officers, make sure that they are healthy both mentally and physically and they feel supported by the agency. if an officer doesn't feel support inside their agency, they're not going to be willing to take a risk and try something different. they're not going to be willing to take as much of a risk to go out on a limb to protect someone. i think the internal culture of policing is absolutely critical. and when that is strong and healthy and confident, officers will be willing to try something different. mr. nadler: and what, if anything, can we in congress do to help this change? ms. rahr: i'd a lot of to see congress provide funding for

improved training. i'll just cut right to the chase. there are a number of excellent programs already in existence that could be -- that could literally transform the profession of policing in this country. i've been involved for the last couple of years with the program called blue courage, and that program seeks to support police officers build their pride build their sense of high morale and especially assist them in seeing their appropriate role within -- as the guardian in democracy. that program cost money and agencies that want to acquire that training have to pay for an officer on overtime to fill the districts. mr. nadler: appropriating money for training. anything else? ms. rahr: besides training? mr. nadler: besides money? ms. rahr: oh, besides money, i'm sorry. i just think the recognition that individual police agencies need to be supported. there is not going to be a

one-size-fits-all federal solution to this. mr. nadler: thank you very much. professor ramirez, we've had a number -- all over the country we've had a number of problems, obviously, with violence against citizens who turned out not to have weapons or be guilty of anything. sometimes the police officer gets prosecuted. sometimes people don't. sometimes people are happy with it. sometimes they're not. we've seen these controversies, and, of course, it's been suggested that the d.a.'s are too close, they have to work day-to-day with the police -- police officers. they're too close to make that decision without being thought partisan, whether they are or not. should we consider a special -- should we have a law or regulation that mandates a special prosecutor or special master for investigations of police officers on the grounds that the d.a.'s are in fact too

close to do this fairly? would that be a good idea? ms. ramirez: i think it would be a good idea. mr. nadler: would that enhance community confidence and impartiality and what are the negatives on it? ms. ramirez: yes. while we do have a recusal system that recusal system is now in the hands of the district attorney, so the district attorney in ferguson did not recuse himself. and i think having laws and a process would create more legitimacy and more transparency to the public. mr. nadler: thank you. what is the -- also, professor what is the greatest impediment to prosecuting police officers who violate constitutional rights of individuals in their official capacity? obviously we don't do -- what is it 18 -- deprivation of civil rights by color by the federal government. what is the greatest impediment to prosecuting police officers who ought to be prosecuted, and there are some, obviously? ms. ramirez: i am one that did prosecute police officers. the first impediment in a prosecutorial office when you work with police, when you work with law enforcement, it is very

hard to decide to prosecute -- mr. nadler: what we talked about in our previous question? ms. ramirez: right. mr. nadler: because my time is running out, obviously there have been a lot of controversial encounters and some of which police officers prosecuted and others which they weren't, sometimes the d.a. excoriated for prosecuting, sometimes for not prosecuting. would it be better for the sense of justice on the part of relatives of victims or would it be better for the police officers who could be exonerated by this if police officers used body cameras all the time whenever they have such an encounter? ms. ramirez: i think cameras are critical of this -- at this juncture and we know four things happen when you put cameras in place because we did research both in grain and this country when cameras -- great britain and this country when cameras

were used. police officers know they're being recorded during an incident. second, complaints against police officers diminished significantly which reduces the cost and process of adjudicating these incidents after the fact in trying to find facts. surprisingly, the third thing is that there's been an increase in successful prosecution of domestic violence. because the police can record on the scene at the time what happened. the fourth thing that would be very helpful in moving the police culture from a warrior culture to a guardianship culture is that you could begin to have guardianship metrics. the current metrics are warrior metrics. how many people did you arrest search, seize, how many guns did you seize, how many drugs did you seize? if you had cameras you could begin to do two things. you could begin to evaluate officers on guardianship values. you could look at every 100th

tape and see was this police officer courteous, did they follow procedures, did they try to de-escalate? second, it serves as an early warning system to the police because if if you're watching on a regular basis randomly some of these cameras, you will discern who are the bad apples who have anger management issues and other issues. mr. nadler: thank you. i yield back. mr. goodlatte: the chair recognizes the gentleman from arizona, mr. franks, for five minutes. mr. franks: well, thank you, mr. chairman. you know, mr. chairman, to paraphrase the poet, we sleep safe in our beds at night because rough men stand ready to visit violence on those who would do us harm. and certainly i believe that that in the people that wear the uniform, the many women that

wear the uniform fit in that paradigm very well because unless there are those that are willing to stand between the innocent and the malevolent then the malevolent will prevail. i think they are the most noble figures in our society. and sheriff mack -- sorry -- sheriff clarke, i heard you on one of the television interviews and was so struck by your clarity and your eagle-eyed approach and i thought this gentleman personifies that nobility that we talk about and i really think that my children and the children of this country have a safer, more hopeful future because of people like you. so i would suggest to you that others have come to the same conclusion, that might be why you're here in this hearing this morning. my question is first for you have the recent events and the press response to those events had any kind of impact on your officers or made them more likely to employ strategies and tactics that might actually compromise their safety or the safety of the community? sheriff clarke: mr. chair, congressman, without a doubt it's part of the tipping point that i talked about. you know, we need balance obviously and

obviously when we find balance maintaining is going to be more difficult. an officer delaying that thing that's telling him or her to do a certain thing that doesn't happen and may cost them their lives but let me say this about the use of body cameras. i am for this, the use of this technology. i think it's a force multiplier. it can only help. but what i've been advising, i think we're rushing into this because we will end up with a law of unintended consequences. there are privacy issues involved. it potentially could lead to fewer people wanting to come forward and cooperate with the police, especially in our north communities where cooperating with police can lead you to a very bad conclusion.

you don't want to be seen doing that. you don't want to be videotaped cooperating with the police. so we have to think what impact it will have on witnesses wanting to come forward or even calling to report crime. i just want to close by saying that, you know, the use of body cameras and the early evidence that it's leading to fewer complaints and fewer instances of force is not -- there's evidence to suggest this, not to show it, that it isn't just the result of the officer knowing that someone's watching. it's also letting the person who the officer's dealing with know if i make a false complaint against this officer it's going to be on video and that could lead to a decrease in complaints as well. so i don't want to, you know, everybody to presume that it's because the officers are being watched, that they're changing their behavior and the same with suspects. they know they're being videotaped.

maybe they're less likely to fight the police and engage in some of that behavior. so that's why i say i support that, the use of those body cameras. but there's some things associated with it that have not been flushed out yet. i just say, let's not rush into this because it's not a panacea. thank you. mr. franks: thank you, sir. ms. rahr, in your testimony you discuss the absence of a national coherence in policing. i wonder how you would you have proposed to implement national policing standards while still ensuring that local police departments may maintain the autonomy necessary to remain effective in their own jurisdictions? ms. rahr: i haven't suggested national standards. what the task force worked on is recommendation to provide guidance and to provide more support for police departments. i don't think we'll ever come to a place where we have national standards for police policies and procedures. there's just too many different variables in each community. mr. franks: well, mr. chairman i would just suggest, sir, while i think everyone sees our police force in general as guardians,

i'm thankful that there are there are enough warrior mentality among them. i yield back. mr. goodlatte: the chair recognizes the gentleman from tennessee, mr. cohen, for five minutes. mr. cohen: i want to thank you for holding this hearing, most important. and i want to stay on the front end. i started my legal career -- i was a lawyer as the attorney for the memphis police. spent 3 1/2 years working with the police and i understand policing and appreciate policing and know it's essential for ordered liberty and a society that has on the front lines men and women willing to risk their lives. on the other hand -- and i have great respect for mr. comboudy and happy he's back here. he mentioned he looks for the day that we rue the death of the

lady. i forget the name. the woman who was killed in a domestic -- the same as we rue the problems when a white policeman kills a black citizen. and i would have to say with great respect for mr. gowdy, there's a big difference. one is a private tragedy, the other is a public tragedy because it's under color of law. and while we'd like to see no crime whatsoever -- and that would be wonderful -- we can only mostly be concerned about color of law killings. and that's something we should be concerned about. it's a big difference. i would like to mention -- question for professor ramirez. you mentioned an investigation prosecutorial decisions rest in the hands of d.a.'s and mr. gowdy mentioned recusal. recusal is up to the d.a. and in the recommendations of the president's task force, there were recommendations that we have an independent prosecutor. congressman clay and i have introduced a bill that requires states to adopt independent prosecutor laws or face a cut in burn jag funding. this would present a solution.

is part of the reason that the problem exists is that perception, is that part of the reason why you think it's important to have an independent prosecutor? because the perception the public has there's not independent analysis of the cases and independent determination of who should be prosecuted? ms. ramirez: yes, sir, it's primarily a matter of perception because i believe that prosecutors across the country try to do the best that they can and exercise a the best judgment. but there -- because of this inherent conflict there may be the perception in the eye of the public that this was not a fair and full hearing. mr. cohen: the d.a.'s main witnesses are always police. ms. ramirez: correct. mr. cohen: in my community, the d.a. hires, which makes sense, former sheriff's people or police people to be their investigators. ms. ramirez: yes, sir. mr. cohen: there's an inherent conflict. that's why we have our bill lacy clay, and i because we

think not only would it eliminate the perception but there's certain cases where there's politics involved. a base for the d.a., who is elected, is law enforcement and that's a political problem. that's number one. ms. roar rar, you were a member of the president's task force and thank you for your work and your colleagues' force. the task force recommended the use of independent prosecutors as well where police uses force and it results in death or injury, was that recommendations where d.a.'s did not -- if the recommendation was based on instances where d.a.'s did not pursue cases against police as aggressively or was it a mere perception of the conflict of interest and the -- ms. rahr: in our debates and conversation the primary focus was on the perception. it's in recognition we have to maintain public trust. there are many prosecutors across this nation that are perfectly capable i i believe doing a prosecution of police shootings. unfortunately we have to maintain public trust and when you try to balance those two

issues it was -- it was the consensus of the task force that public trust had to have more weight than just the pragmatism of having that particular prosecutor. mr. cohen: i'm down to my last minute. part of the bill with representative clay had some sensitivity training to recognize gender differences and maybe sexual orientation differences. do you think it would be helpful to have police training in the diverse societies we have today? ms. rahr: i wouldn't title it sensitivity training because the police would shut it down immediately. mr. cohen: my last minute. sheriff clarke, let me ask you this. you mentioned in your testimony that much of the population and -- in state and federal prisons was for violent crime. probably that's true.

for federal system it's mostly drug crime. there's not so much violent crime there. that's where the drug situation really fills up the federal prisons. you mentioned -- you said illegal drug use is the scourge of the black community and it is a problem and leads to a great deal of violent crime. would you agree that marijuana possession is not the scourge of the black community and does not lead to violent crime the same way that meth, crack and crearn do? sheriff clarke: i wouldn't agree with that at all. mr. cohen: i wish i had more time to talk with you. thank you for allowing me this opportunity. the defense attorney is not supposed to ask the question but it was such an obvious answer i never thought i'd get that answer. mr. goodlatte: the time of the gentleman has expired. the chair recognizes the gentleman from iowa, mr. king, for five minutes. senator king: resisting the similar -- mr. king: resisting the temptation to yield the balance of my time to mr. cohen. mr. cohen: thank you.

mr. king: i have an article and dated by the way, the 6th of may, but tiled "obama praised baltimore police he's now investigating.” it points out the study that the gentleman from tennessee referenced, the president task force or 21st century policing which i have in my hand, and it also quotes from the police chief of baltimore who said he changed outdated procedures that put officers at odds with the community. this goes back to march of 2015, was dated the report -- dated this article is the first week or so in may. it's interesting to me, as listen to the testimony of ms. rahr, and i give you credit for contributing to that report as well, you'd like to see a shift from the warrior mentality to that of a guardian. and i think of the night i came here and i watched live on

television the encounters with baltimore police and rock throwing mobs and i saw the baltimore police retreat from rock-throwing mobs. so i'd ask you, is there a time they need to convert back to the warrior mentality and was that the time? ms. rahr: i want to clarify when i talk about a guardian mentality, that absolutely does not imply retreat. it does not imply weakness. it implies being able to do two things at once. mr. king: you can do that by just answering my question also. ms. rahr: sorry. mr. king: was baltimore a time there should have been more of a warrior mentality when they were facing rock-throwing mobs and retreating in the face of rock-throwing mobs? was that a time when there needed to be an engagement of the police? ms. rahr: they needed to have warrior tactics while having the mind set of a guardian. mr. king: i'd turn to mr. ramirez and your testimony was very interesting to me. and i began thinking about our constitution and where it says in the first amendment, i'll paraphrase but also accurately. congress shall make no law respecting the right of the people peaceably to assemble and to petition the government for redresses of grievances.

do you agree with that statement? ms. ramirez: yes, sir. mr. king: and there's no prohibition in that statement that i read and that prohibits congress from making a law or enforcing a law that would prohibit the people from violently assembling to petition the government for redress of grievances? ms. ramirez: congress does have the right to restrain violence in any form. mr. king: and so we agree that freedom of speech isn't the right to yell fire in a crowded theater? ms. ramirez: correct. mr. king: then we could also agree -- i'll ask you. is it then -- is it lawful or unlawful for one to pay protesters and encourage them to become violent? ms. ramirez: i think that's a crime.

mr. king: yes. i'd agree with that also. i'd point out that my -- and encourage violence, i want to pull that part out as a separate clause in my statement here for this purpose here. i have in my hand a stack of tweets and stories and messages about protesters in ferguson missouri, who now are protesting that they didn't get paid for the work that they did. and i put that word work if quotes. have you reviewed any of that? are you knowledgeable about any of that information, ms. ramirez? ms. ramirez: no, but i would say this. at this juncture, the most helpful thing that we could do is to try to bring the community and the police together in dialogues at the local level. mr. king: i do understand that. that was in your testimony and i think the panel understands it. if you were -- if you were presented with information that showed that indicated that there were -- there was a funder or funders who had hired protesters that may well have been to bust into places like ferguson, missouri, or sent to places like baltimore and we ended up

watching buildings and businesses be burned and property damage being created and some cases assault, would that be worthy of an investigation, would you think by the local police force? ms. ramirez: yes. mr. king: and what about the u.s. attorney general? ms. ramirez: i think that they should -- if there is evidence that someone were being paid to engage in violent protests and engage in violence, then that's a serious problem. mr. king: but you wouldn't think that if they didn't say violence, if they said protest and it turned into violence, that wouldn't be a crime? ms. ramirez: that's a different situation. mr. king: i'd like to turn that and ask sheriff clarke if he could respond with the reflections upon the exchange you heard? sheriff clarke: sir, i was a little disappointed there weren't more aggressive prosecutions to -- some of the

rioters on videotape. one that stands out to me is a group of young individuals standing and dancing on top of a police cruiser that had been destroyed, so to speak, as if they had captured some sort of ground. it's government property. in wisconsin we have a statute of inciting a riot. i think it should be used on both sides. there's too much focus on what the police may have done, you know, prior to the riots breaking out. as you indicated, there's a more socially acceptable way under our first amendment to display your frustrations, your anger and it's not rioting. it's not destroying property of other people. they abandoned -- we saw that night what baltimore would look like without the police, with police stepping back as they did. some say retreating. it was an ugly situation for a great american city. mr. king: thank you, sheriff.

i thank the chairman and the witnesses and yield back the balance of my time. mr. goodlatte: the chair thanks the gentleman and recognizes the gentleman from georgia, mr. johnson, for five minutes. mr. johnson: thank you, mr. chairman. i want to thank you and the ranking member for agreeing to hold this hearing. and i -- sheriff clarke, i heard about, read about your testimony -- astigmatic testimony, that's the word i'm trying to use. please note my strong respect and support for police and law enforcement and also note my strong insistence that rule of law apply to all regardless of whether a person is a civilian or law enforcement. the failure to prosecute police officers, militarize police responses to peaceful protests and video footage of people dying by the hands of law

enforcement have led us to where we are today. while discussing police accountability is an essential way to improve the relationship between the community and law enforcement, i hope that this committee will hold additional hearings that will allow us to specifically focus upon grand jury reform, use of body cameras and the d.o.j.'s data collection and transparency practices. before we witnessed the mill tarization of police -- mill tarization of police in missouri, i had worked on the stop militarization law enforcement act which prevents local police forces from receiving mraps, tanks, other weapons left over from the war and i'm very grateful and humbled that president obama yesterday issued an executive order that virtually ends the

1033 program. i've also introduced the grand jury reform act which calls for the use of special prosecutors and independent law enforcement agencies when there has been a police killing. and also have introduced the police accountability act which would expand the d.o.j.'s authority to bring charges against law enforcement officers. sir, do you -- have you ever heard the name arriston waiters before? i'm sure that you haven't. he was just a 19-year-old unarmed black male, just a typical unarmed black male down in union city, georgia, who was shot while laying on his stomach, shot twice in the back by a law enforcement officer police officer from union city. shot twice in the back at close range.

the officer who killed mr. waiters allegedly exhibited signs of posttraumatic stress disorder. he was an afghanistan war veteran. according to the anxiety disorders association of america, there are 40 million adults in the united states over the age of 18 who suffer from anxiety disorders. 7.7 million of those americans suffer from posttraumatic stress disorder. i'm concerned about the role mental health issues play in officers using excessive force against civilians. we've talked about police officers receiving training on how to apprehend people suffering from mental illnesses, but what is your department doing to make sure that officers themselves aren't suffering from mental illnesses?

sheriff clarke: mr. chair, congressman, that is one of the most difficult situations that law enforcement officers today are dealing with. the mentally ill. mr. johnson: i'm saying in terms of -- would you agree that there must be some out there among the 7.7 million americans suffering from posttraumatic stress of -- would you agree that there must be some out there among the 7.7 million americans suffering from posttraumatic stress disorder who are law enforcement officers. you would not deny that, would you? sheriff clarke: i don't have any data to refute it. mr. johnson: well -- but would you think that there may be some cases where there are officers who are suffering from posttraumatic stress disorder and who are serving currently in law enforcement? sheriff clarke: if i had to guess, yes. i had such a situation with one of my patrol sergeants who served in the first gulf war, i believe. and he slapped around a handcuffed prisoner. i not only had him charged with

a felony, he went to prison for 18 months. mr. johnson: you're to be commended for that. sheriff clarke: it was a hard thing to do. mr. johnson: does your department have a system of monitoring police officers or your police officers periodically just to determine whether or not they have any mental health issues that could impede their ability to protect and serve the people? sheriff clarke: no, not a systemic one. we have our standard early warning system. mr. johnson: do you think it would be wise for the federal government -- i noticed that in your statement you say that police use of force -- i'm quoting you -- police use of force should be scrutinized dash locally, that is. does that mean you don't think the federal government should concern itself with these issues at all? sheriff clarke: it's not that i

don't think the federal government should concern itself. i think the federal government should observe what's going on across the nation with all these issues but to -- mr. johnson: you say it should be scrutinized locally, though. does that mean to the exclusion of the federal government? sheriff clarke: really, if i could finish a sentence -- mr. goodlatte: the time of the gentleman has expired but the witness is allowed to answer the question. mr. johnson: thank you. sheriff clarke: sure, it should be scrutinized, without a doubt. mr. johnson: thank you. mr. goodlatte: the chair recognizes the gentleman from pennsylvania, mr. marino, for five minutes. mr. marino: thank you, mr. chairman. it's a pleasure to have you here today. sheriff, if you could zero in on an issue for me concerning resources. if you had the money would you hire more sheriffs, deputy sheriffs and where would you put them, what would you do with them? sheriff clarke: yes, i would hire them. i'm in a court battle now with the county. i've had to sue the county to be able to hire more law enforcement officers.

i'd put them in the field based on what the data's showing where the crimes' occurring and not just the crime but to provide a consistent visible presence to deter the crime, not just making arrests and writing citations. mr. marino: if you need help with your superiors to fund your department, i'll be glad to join and help. >> i'll do that. ms. ramirez, i come from a long line of law enforcement people. we take it very seriously. i was a assistant district tornado, district attorney, my colleague was one of the best assistant u.s. attorneys in the country and i prosecuted cases myself and i did not base my decision to prosecute cases involving african-americans or police on color or on the police.

i based it on the rule of law. it had nothing to about with who committed the crime and who didn't and what police were involved. and you stated that you had a difficult time choosing over law enforcement and police. i never did. if you have a difficult time like that you shouldn't be a prosecutor. why would you prosecute if you made that statement that i have a difficult time prosecuting police if they broke the law? ms. ramirez: in my particular situation, as an assistant u.s. attorney, we had not prosecuted police officers in the past. and the u.s. attorney at the time said to me, do you plan to practice law as a defense attorney here in boston afterwards? mr. marino: ok. you'll get into the u.s. attorney or that individual. you know you have a step to go to if you have a complaint about prosecuting the case in the u.s. attorney's office.

you can go from one person to another and you can actually go to the justice department. now, you also raised the issue -- ms. ramirez: which we did, sir. mr. marino: i'm asking the questions here. ms. ramirez: ok. mr. marino: you raised the issue of recusal, that it's up to the district attorney. it's up to the u.s. attorney. in my -- in the state courts or federal courts, if there was a recusal, we looked at it very seriously. i recused myself from cases and my staff. you can take that step to the judge. you can petition the court for recusal and petition as to why. you didn't mention that. and here's another thing i ran into as a prosecutor, as my colleagues said. it was very difficult to get young african-american males to testify against others particularly -- even in cases where a family member was killed. can you address that for a little bit, please?

ms. ramirez: that is -- that is one of the most important problems that needs to be addressed, and i want to talk about how we addressed it in boston. mr. marino: would you please quickly. i only have a minute and a half. ms. ramirez: we went to the community organizations. we went to the faith-based community and we talked to the community and asked them why people were unwilling to come forward as witnesses. there were a myriad of causes. we set up a process and hearings. as a result, we had i don't know how many cold cases that were solved through a process in which the faith-based community went out, did outreach to the community, the community organization standards that and we have improved. mr. marino: i agree with you that's a good way to handle it. you agree it's a problem. ms. ramirez: it's definitely a problem, sir. mr. marino: you had an extensive exemplary career but if you ever ridden in a car with a police officer? when they are faced with quick reaction situations?

i know you couldn't do it as an assistant district attorney. as a d.a., have you been on the street when a police officer had to make a split-second decision that's taken to the united states supreme court two years to determine what is right in a 5-4 decision? ms. ramirez: yes. i've been in cars where -- police had to make a split second decision. i found it very frightening. >> the fact that someone has to determine over a period of time what is right and wrong. you -- you know, you didn't bring up the issue that the number keeps coming up that 93% of the young black males, those ones that are murdered, 93% are killed by young black males. why is this happening and what can we do to change that? ms. ramirez: that is a serious

problem, but i agree with others who said what happens under color of law is different from what happens privately between private individuals. they are both problems but they are different problems. and when someone kills under color of law, that merits a different process. >> i think any prosecutor understands that very, very much. i yield back the time. mr. goodlatte: the japan's time has expired. the gentlewoman from california. >> thank you. it puts a premium on conversation and listening during a police encounter. could you watch us through a hypothetical situation where lead has gone through a situation and tell us how it works. >> the purpose is to simplify the procedures and give officers

very specific tangible behavioral direction. in situations where there is conflict taking the time if there is not a threat present. i want to be very clear about that. if someone is pointing a gun at you, you don't listen and explain. you do what you have to do. but in most police interactions in the community there is time. and if officers are reminded of the benefit of listening, that will help set that interaction going town the correct track. most police officers like myself, we like to step in and control things and we have to be reminded to stop and listen. when people say police should treat people with respect, the most effective way to convey respect is to listen. we really want to emphasize that for our officers. the other area where many officers forget is we know the system inside and out. we know what is going to happen

next. people we're interacting with don't know that. it is that lack of knowledge that creates another level of conflict and again if the officer is reminded, tell the person what they can expect, they will be more likely to cooperate. when we talk about equity, make sure you are recognizing whatever biases you bring to the table, make sure you're making your decision in an equitable way and always lead with the person you're interacting with, with their dignity in the tact and dignity yourself. a lot of officers will laugh whenever we use an acronym and i get that but that is also a way to teach specific behavior. >> studies have shown that people in a community care more about how they are treated by police rather than the actual outcome of a police encounter. police may pull people over for a driving offense.

people care more whether they were treated fairly by the officer than whether they got the ticket. something as simple as officers having friendly non-enforcement related conversations with community members have shown to have huge benefits in building community trust. how do we change things so that the system values these characteristics in our police? >> i think we start in a training academy by modeling that type of behavior and being clear about that as an expectation. empathy means you understand what the person is experiencing. i think it starts with training. i think it was mentioned by another witness that we have to come up with appropriate measures. people will rise to those things that are measured. when we find ways to measure officers behaving in ways that

convey respect and dignity, that behavior will increase. >> mr. barge, thank you for acknowledging the role that implicit bias might play in making quick decisions that police encounter every day. social soints science research has shown that it may be affected by implicit biases or between people of color and crime. can you give us an example in the which an officer's perception might be influenced by the way they react to that individual? >> i think that one of the prototypical examples is one that sheriff clarke mentioned earlier. maybe a broken taillight.

that kind of thing. not necessarily and not necessarily the initiation of the stop. it may be informed much more about i think with any of us, sword of broad categories that we're placing a new person who we have never met with or interacted with before into generallyized buckets and if officers don't do as training in several jurisdictions is starting to offer them instruction on slow down situation where possible and sort of try to use very intentional decision-making strategies i think they risk especially because they often have to make she's split second decisions being, you know in some instances overly swayed by the subconscious sort of factors that they may not be aware of and if they were aware of, they would want to make sure we're not going into their decision making. >> thank you. i yield back. mr. goodlatte: thank you. the chairman now recognizes the chairman from texas, mr.

radcliffe. mr. radcliffe: thank you, mr. chairman. i was also a federal prosecutor and as such certainly believe in enforcing the law. unfortunately our national bylaw on this issue reveals a mistrust on all sides of the issue that we're here to talk about today but i very much appreciate all of you being here today to talk about how we as a society can address this in a sensitive, careful and effective manner and i wish that i had the opportunity to make inquiry to each one of you, but there are time restrictions and i don't, so i'm going to focus at least initially on the witness in the field, if you will you, sheriff clarke. i would like to first ask you does your police department have clear policies on the use of force? sheriff clarke: mr. chair

congressman, yes, sir. mr. radcliffe: do you have an opinion -- and i'm sure that you do as to whether or not there is a problem with the law as it stands related to the use of force in this country? sheriff clarke: no, i don't. mr. radcliffe: as a member of congress with my colleagues here, there isn't anything that we need to do at this point to make it clearer to officers so that officers are not second guessed as much as they are currently? sheriff clarke: i think it is a proper role for congress. the advisory oversight a little bit. but with the mandates coming down as to how we should do our job at the local level i'm going to push back a little on that. mr. radcliffe: community policing is intended to take the edge off of interactions, if you will, between the police and the

communities that they serve, but would you agree with me that police work by its very definition is one that must involve conflict? sheriff clarke: it has a great potential for conflict becausor human interaction. mr. radcliffe: regardless of how the officer goes about his or her job they have the responsibility to enforce the law whether they are doing it with a smile on their face or not? sheriff clarke: huge responsibility. mr. radcliffe: the findings that focused squarely on this issue of community policing, i know it is a very hefty document. i was wondering if you had a chance to review it and if so what you're feelings were with respect to the findings. sheriff clarke: yes, i did read

it. a lot of it from the beginning when the task force was put together there were no elected sheriffs. i know my colleague is a former sheriff. no elected sheriffs on the panel. i found t interesting. i also didn't see a lot of representation for a two-way exchange. they had some police administrators there. one organization that represents some frat ernl organization of police but that doesn't give the day-to-day example of what life is like on the street and why we have to do some of the things that we do. i thought it fell a little short. recommendations were heavy on federal involvement, federal control. those are technical fixes. ok. we can do that. it is not going to change the behavior of many law enforcement agencies or the behavior of many of the individuals of color that

we come in contact with on the street that end up in deadly confrontations. it doesn't reach far enough to do that. mr. radcliffe: so, sheriff, what -- this is your opportunity to talk to members of congress. what would you like our takeaway to be with respect to those findings or corrections that you think are not reflected in there that you would like to make to that? sheriff clarke: one of the things that is not addressed that we keep glossing over, and i said we. we keep glossing over conditions that have led to the rise turnover -- rise of the under cross of the american ghetto. kids can't break out of that cycle of poverty. we have to look at the conditions at the federal level that continue to feed into this growth of the underclass that we're experiencing. it is not poor generally or

black people generally. it is the underclass behaviors. kids growing up without fathers. school failures. failure to raise your kids. father-absent homes. it has nothing to do with the police. you can try and transform the police all you want but as long as those behaviors and lifestyle choices are going to continue to grow in these urban centers, you're still going to have these confrontations and when you try fight the police and disarm the police, things are not going to end up well for you. i don't care how much more -- to training. it approaches as if it is linear. the world we live in is very simple met cal. -- symetrical. mr. radcliffe: i see my time is expired. i yield back.

mr. goodlatte: >> thank you so much, chairman gowdy. i would like to talk just a little bit. i met with a group of young people from the phoenix military academy in the city of chicago. white youth. spanish youth. black youth. military academy. these are the best of the best. have a conversation, everybody. we should have some of those people. i think with all due respect to everybody here we're a little too old to be having this conversation among ourselves about the problems that the police are encount werg young people. -- encountering with young people. i would suggest next time we invite some those young people. you know what they are going to tell you sheriff clarke? they are going to say i listened to a young black man tell me that he has learned how to deescalate when he is confronted and comes into an exchange with a police officer.

that just brought tears to my eyes that this wonderful, brilliant young man dedicated to his country, graduated from his class has to talk about deescalating. he doesn't see the police as a sort of protection. he sees it as somebody that he has to learn -- the police have to be the adults. the children have to learn how to be adults many times. in how it is they exchange with police officers. we're having a conversation here where black people don't care about black people. nobody has made that claim here. some of my colleagues say they are not outraged when a black person kills a black person. that is not the issue here. it is really not an issue here. that is certainly an issue we might want to talk about. but it is certainly an issue. nobody made that claim. rioters are out there getting paid. nobody said here it is a good thing that rioters should be paid. i can understand when you're

making an argument against something that somebody is like sustaining. but it feels as though we're talking past each other as adults in this room instead of having young people. so i would just like for the record and for those because i know there won't be enough time, i would like for the record, mr. chairman, the phoenix military academy students. there is a young latina, jasmine. how can minorities still have a double standard in interventions with law. why does it feel like whites are treated with more respect than minorities when questioned by police? i have talked to different groups of high school students and they alltel you the same thing in the intercity. in chicago last week, there was 45. there were 45 shootings in one weekend in the city of chicago.

did i tell my daughter don't go out on the streets? no. in my neighborhood, none of those shootings happened. it is a tale of two cities. the shootings happen in geographical areas. in my city, still a city, where i grew up the majority of the population in the city of chicago was white so you would expect a majority of the police officers to be white yet today the majority of police officers in the city of chicago are white. is it that we're telling everybody that only white people want to be police officers? we go to ferguson where there might be two black police officers in a population that is almost 70% african-american? that kind of disconnect is going to cause -- i would think we would want to talk about some

fundamental changes about how is it that we recruit people? i don't know, sheriff. maybe you can help me. in chicago, when i go talk to the cops in my district and i go into some of the areas where there is more gang violence, i find it to be younger cops and i find that the older comes like my dad, if he worked somewhere by the time he had any seniority, he took the good shift. as a police officer getting the brunt of the work what do you think? if the police officers like when you joined the police force, the older veteran police officers who might have the training and the experience, are they the ones in the neighborhood where there is a lot of trouble where you might need more veteran police officers or can they give you a better shift? sheriff clarke: some of that is a collective bargaining agreement. you get shift assignment. i agree, the older wiser more experienced are earning better assignments because of collective bargaining rules.

that is an issue. >> i just want to say i hope we can have another hearing. i had a conversation with mayor ram map well. -- rahm emanuel. we have to be there to make sure those parents have the resources and if we stop living, in the city of chicago, a tale of two cities where people feel safe in part and another part where they are not. let's bring the young people. with all due respect. in some places i'm a senior citizen already. let's bring some young people. there are not enough young people around here or out there. they are 100% as you all know of our future and you're not going to settle this issue, i believe in great measure until get young people and listen to their

voices. >> the gentleman from illinois is certainly very young at heart and yields back. the chair will now recognize the gentle lady from california, ms. bass. >> thank you mr. chair. i want to make reference because its that come up several times about why there is an outrage when african-americans are killing african-americans. i just have to tell you that it is always very frustrating to hear this raised because it is not though people are not working on a daly basis day in and day out to address these issues in neighborhoods. i started an organization 25 years ago. i -- 14 years everyday working in south central los angeles in the height to have crack cocaine and blood and crips and all of that was going on, to address the crime, to address homicide. there are people working in

communities all over this country. but the frustration we have always felt is that it is never covered in the news. what is covered in the news is when there is an incident between the police and frankly it is new that that is even covered in news. the only thing that is new here are cell phone cameras frankly. what is going on in a lot of communities has been going on for years tosm to say that communities are not concerned, to say there is not the outrage over the homicide rate is just not accurate. i spent one summer in one area where homicide were concentrated. we did a whole effort and we were able to go three solid months without homicide. we have to look at the root causes as to why the problems exist. it is not just a matter of behavior. i frankly don't believe that it is the policeman's job and i agree with you sheriff clarke, it is not up to the police completely to address these

problems, but what has to change in communitys is the police working with the community. unfortunately people are fearful of the police in some of the communities. it was also asked what do people in tough neighborhoods want to see happen? people in tough neighborhoods want the same thing that anybody wants. they want to be safe their homes and they want to be safe in their neighborhoods. frankly these issues are not just happening in ghettos. i think it is shameful frankly for the communities to be referred to that way. have i a brother who lives in beverley hills, ok? he gets pulled over by the police and stretched out on the ground and asked why he is there. i think it is well known throughout the country that frarnse, folks of color can be outside of their gothse and still have to deal with issues related to the police. a question was raised as to why folks don't cooperate with the police. i'll give you a couple of examples that i experienced on a daly basis working in south

central l.a. i people told me i called the police and called about this crack house and they said ms. jones down the street called and said you were selling crack here. people don't feel the police will keep them safe. you want people to go and testify and put their lives at risk? if there was more resources then people would be much more cooperative. we had a lot of problems in l.a. we were actually able to turn the situation around with the new chief, with community-based policing. we're having some of the same problems emerge again. we had a past police chief who said when there was a state of people who were dying because of choke holds, he said at a press conference the reason that african-americans were dying of choke holds was because our veins were different they collapsed quicker. we fortunately were able to get

rid of that police chief. these situations can be turned around. i listened to the testimony and there are other ways to go about policing and we have seen some changes in our communities. if you can give examples of a couple of communities that had turned the situation around when the police works in collaboration with community organizations, where the police department has changed their perspective from the warrior mentality over to a partnership and where crime has been reduced and trust has been increased with the police department. >> the one i know best is boston. we had decreased homicide rates, decreased the number of paper -- people he had incarcerated and crimes had gone down. the boston police department has been working with community

groups on both issues. on issues of homicide, if we have all these cold cases how i we going to get witnesses to come forward? one example is some witnesses say i would be happy to tell my account to someone who is not a police officer. some of that could be used for corroboration to get a search warrant. there are many other examples of excellent community policing models were homicides have gone down. there are no 14 states that have decided to the car straight. in each of those states, where they had taken the money that they were using to incarcerate people in massachusetts at $51,000 a year per in many -- primate, taken the money and says, the system we have is too expensive, ineffective, and racially disparate. we are going to use that money to invest in education and

treatment. those communities have saved money and crime has gone down. >> thank you. i yield back. >> gentleman from california yields back. the gentleman from louisiana. he has been talking about it since the very first day. >> thank you for yielding. first i would like to ask unanimous consent to enter into the record a washington post article. a claim that 93% of black murder victims are killed by other blacks because of the relevance of the statistic. >> without objection. >> let me just start with answering the question that my colleague posed. the real question is black on black crime and what do we do to solve that. the first thing we don't do is cut held grants -- pell grants.

they help you get to college. we all know that education is the best path out of poverty. and the circumstances in these neighborhoods. we could start there. which we have done every year since i have been in congress, with the budgets we have passed. i think that is a very good start. another start is to just have the conversation. i talk about all the time. if anybody is concerned, i'm here and willing to address it. as a young african-american male who grew up in the inner-city, i can have a lot to offer. mr. chairman, i prefer not to focus where we have differences. i think we have many. but i think we have some very similar goals. which is to keep police officer safe and keep constituency. and to provide honest services. whether it is police our elected officials, people deserve honest service. let me just ask a question.

do you believe that the makeup of the police department is important in terms of looking similar to the community that it polices? sheriff clarke: i believe that. >> i was asking you that because i wanted to share some of my real life experiences as a young african-american male, and why i think it is so important. the first time i was pulled over i got home from college and i was in st. charles avenue the fancy part of town. in my mother's car. i did not have my license off -- on me. a black officer stopped me. he went through the process to get my information, came back and said, i see a morehouse sticker on the back of your car. he said, martin luther king said it the man can write your back if your back is not down. he said, you need to go home.

and he let me go and i went home. i never forgot that. while i was in the legislature i saw a white officer stopped a car full of white kids on the state capitol grounds, who were all smoking marijuana. he gave them a lecture and then called their parents to come get them. in all of my experience, if that white officer had stopped a carpal of black kids with marijuana, i don't think his answer would have been to lecture and call the parents. but we have to -- we have to look at the entire system when we talk about diversion programs, whether they are being applied evenly. because we know once a kid gets a conviction, especially in african-american male, his life goes in a completely different direction, whether it is marijuana our something more serious. he has a harder time getting

financial aid to cut a college -- go to college, hard time getting a job. without a job or being engaged in society, it's hard to be a good parent. we have to make sure our law enforcement scheme, law enforcement practice, is not adding to hurdles that people are going to face anyway. the question becomes how do we ensure that those officers who have a lot of discretion when they make us top, -- make stop, how young african-american and minority men and women feel that officer would give them the same lecture, the same break as an african-american officer or officer who is looking invested interest? i hope you can answer that. sheriff clarke: the use of discretion is always going to be scrutinized. i reject the notion that every time a white officer stopped a car full of black kids that they

don't necessarily go to jail -- that they necessarily go to jail. >> but it's going to be the majority of the time. sheriff clarke: ok well let's move beyond that. when i talk to young people about, young people of color milwaukee is a significant black population. when i'm in these schools, i talk about lifestyle choices. when you engage in behavior and make flawed list out choices, there has to be some accountability. it does not mean your life should be ruined. maybe there should be a learning experience. i don't think a small amount of marijuana early in your life will be a life ruining it. that's right life ruining experience. it's not. the biggest virtue that my parents instilled in me, the ability to overcome obstacles. you make mistakes. my dad said, you're going to

make mistakes, you're going to fall down and fail and make questionable decisions. learn from it and move on. i think that is a better message for even individuals who have gotten into these situations. i had a young man stopped me on the street and said, sheriff i'm a convicted felon and nobody will hire me. i said, do you have kids? i said that he said yes. he had three. i said, there is your job. to make sure your kids don't get the predicament that you are in. he thanked me but i don't know if he actually did it. sometimes that message is a little more helpful to an individual and for me to commiserate his misery, saying yes it's unfair and yet, the man and the racist police, that is not going to help him. i don't control all law enforcement officers, but i'm not going to let people indict them with a broad brush.

we have the tendency to do that. >> enclosing, i would just say that two things. i think we should remove the barriers that keep people from moving on and getting past that mistake. which may have been a marijuana conviction or something else. i would also say i think it is great advice that found to be a father, at the same time he still has to get a job and put food on the plates, because you cannot learn at school if you are hungry. inc. you. i yelled back. >> mr. chair i want to thank all the witnesses for being here. in particular, our former kent county sheriff. i had a question. i know that you have made many changes since you have been at the criminal justice training commission and you spoke a lot about transitioning away from a boot camp or military style approach to training officers

towards a process that emphasizes the role as police as part of the community, as guardians and protectors rather than military warriors. after a long career of that -- as an officer yourself, when you got to there, you are placed the trophy case with the u.s. constitution and put in place training procedures that included recruits being sprayed with pepper spray so they know what it feels like. instituting psychology classes so people can understand the people they will be working with and protecting and interacting with. i know your methods have not been without skeptics. i wondered if you could share with us why you think a new york approach to training our young men and women to service police officers is needed. especially today and how these translate to different outcomes are interactions in practice. >> thank you for the question. i want to clarify that i don't condemn the training processes

-- practices in the past. we learned through research about how to prepare officers to be more effective. that has been one of the biggest areas of resistance. ibo being offended that -- people being offended that by improving training that we are criticizing. that is not the case. in terms of pepper spraying, many people have misinterpreted that as an attempt to get them to feel empathy. actually the reason we do that if we want to put them in a fight for their life stress situation. so they can learn for themselves that they can overcome extreme pain, extreme fear, and still carry on. when i talk about a guardian mindset, i have to continually reemphasize, this is not a more kind and gentle way of doing the job. it's the opposite. we have increased firearms training and defensive tactics training, because we want to

create strong, effective police officers who have the confidence that they don't have to behave in an intimidating manner. when someone has confidence, that helps deescalate as well. i think that when we were too focused on the boot camp method of training, it detracted away from our ability to train officers to be critical thinkers. when they were so worried about getting the right answer and memorizing a checklist, it took going from those critical thinking skills. what we have tried to shift towards is officer training where you focus on critical thinking and confidence. >> and do you think -- yesterday president obama signed an order restricting military equipment going to police. do you think that is also part of the transition? how do you feel about that? >> i want to be clear that many

of those pieces of equipment that police departments obtain through that program are very much needed in the field. when i was sheriff, i can tell you how many times i needed that armor personnel carrier to either rescue an officer pinned down behind gunfire or a citizen pinned down behind gunfire. armored personnel carrier allows police officers in hostage negotiators to get closer to the scene to find ways to resolve the conflict without gunfire. unfortunately, when the program started, there was not a lot of accountability and training that went with it. i believe that is what the changes in the law focus on. police departments will still be able to get armored personnel carriers because they are absolutely necessary. the weapons and rifles, those are also necessary and less expensive when we get them through the military. i hope there is an opportunity

down the road for people to understand more clearly the benefits of that program, but also the necessity of the accountability that comes with it. >> thank you. i yield back. >> the chair now recognized mr. jeffries from new york. >> thank you mr. chairman. thank you for your work on criminal justice performance as we try to work toward a productive resolution of the challenges we face here in america. i think most would agree that in a democracy, we just need a balance between effective law enforcement on the one hand and a healthy respect with the constitution for civil rights and civil liberties on the other. what people want in inner-city communities, or as sheriff clark would refer to as the ghetto but the what people want is equal protection under the law applies to everyone. there is concern that insight -- certain instances that is not the case. the overwhelmingly majority of

police officers are hard-working individuals who are there to protect the community. that is my position. i believe it is the position of everyone genuinely interested in reform. we cannot ignore the fact that we have a problem with excessive use of police force, and the fact that often it is the case when a police officer crosses the line, they are not held accountable by the criminal justice system. that creates consequences in terms of a distressed in many communities -- distressed in many communities, perhaps leading to the absence of cooperation. let me start with sheriff mark -- clarke, you mentioned that black on black crime is this -- the elephant in the room. >> yes. >> are you satisfied? >> not at all. >> ok, 80% of whites kill whites

, correct? >> i won't dispute that. >> actually is 83%. is white on white crime something we will not have a discussion about? >> violence in america in general is problematic. what if you look at the rate, that is where it starts coming into balance in terms of -- in the data i have seen, the white on white crime does have been at 80% figure you put out there but when you look at the rates of it, they are not even close. >> the rates are roughly equivalent in terms of the context of people who live next to each other, and because of housing, segregation patterns or just where people tend to live in america, ethnic violence tends to occur within the same group. so elevating it beyond that fact i think it's irresponsible.

we all want to deal with black on black violence problem. i mentioned there is a collaboration issue in the black on black violence context. i don't think i have heard the phrase mentioned, lew wallace silence. -- blue wall of silence. if we have a conversation about cooperation, when someone crosses the relying, we also had to deal with another elephant in the roomm, the blue wall of silence. the overwhelmingly majority of officers are good. but what occurs is when an officer crosses the line, the attic is not to cooperate or participate, or speak on what a bad apple officer has done. professor ramirez, would you agree that is something we should also be focused on? >> i think it is a serious problem at the federal and state level. as i said earlier, in my own experience, in trying to

prosecute police officers, i had problems -- here is just one problem. the fbi and da's that will -- we will not even served a subpoena if a police officer is a defendant. also tried to test if i indicated a rub the police officers being a had made their own independent evaluation of the case. this is the case, by the way that was adjudicated guilty against all officers and they were incarcerated after the trial. as you know in boston, we had a problem with be a ei, that there were fbi agents in engaged in a series of misconduct with whitey bulger. that was not prosecuted. >> thank you. you also mentioned the use of force should be examined and factual data and not an emotional foundation of false narratives, is that correct? >> mr. chair congressman, yes. >> was the reaction to the eric

garner case, who was choked to death using a procedure that had been banned by the nypd for more than 20 years, wasn't resisting arrest, said i can't breathe 11 times, there was no response by other police officers, was that a false narrative? >> mr. chair, first of all he was not choked to death. not from the report i had seen. out of the grand jury testimony and even from the medical examiner's report. >> the medical examiner ruled the death homicide by a sexy asian. that is called -- speak the issue. in the ghetto, that is called choked to death. >> we can have a discussion leader on about the fact because we could be here for a while. my understanding is he died of a heart attack.

but a newly, you said he was not resisting arrest. he was resisting arrest. he was told he was under arrest and put his hands behind his back. he would not do so. that is why i put in my remarks here, the reference from thomas sold about when law enforcement officers tell someone they are under arrest and they cannot use force to execute direct, we don't have the rule of law when it is merely a suggestion for them that they are going to jail and to put their hands behind their back. those are behaviors like in the instance of mike brown in ferguson, missouri. some different choices by the individual could have helped the situation. in other words he was told to get out of the street. >> sir, my time has expired. but for you to come here and testify essentially that eric

turner is responsible for his own death when he was targeted by police officers for allegedly selling loose cigarette was an administrative situation for which he got the death penalty is outrageous. for us to come to a conversation, we have to at least agree on reasonable fact that all americans interpret particularly in this instance because they caught the whole thing on tape. i yield back. >> the gentleman from texas. >> thank you mr. chairman. i think all the witnesses for being here. obviously you have spent a lot of time on these issues, rather than just the time here today. it is a difficult issue. i saw a report this morning from the task force. it quotes the task force as saying, the u.s. department of homeland security should

terminate the use of the state and local criminal justice system, including through detention notification, transfer requests, to enforce several immigration laws against several -- nonserious criminal offenders. i'm wondering, to fix the problem that we saw exposed in ferguson and in baltimore is there anybody, any one of our witnesses that thinks preventing state and local law enforcement officers from notifying the feds about people illegally in the country, that that would do anything to solve the problems in ferguson or baltimore? anybody? i mean, i'm also perplexed having been a prosecutor, rode

along with law enforcement those days, a district judge handling felonies, we had a real problem with the federal government not picking up criminals that would tell our local law enforcement this person is illegally in the country so we had jurisdiction. the task force makes a comment about nonserious offenders. i think it was nine dwi's someone had in my court. he finally came to felony court as he nearly killed someone. i sentenced him to prison because he was not being deported, six-month leaders -- six months later he is back in my courtroom because he said, the federal people took me to the border and told me to walk across the bridge. when they left, i came back. he got back, got drunk again, in

another accident. i'm really having trouble with the task force inking this is going to solve any problems with regard to racial difficulties in our cities. perhaps you can help me out. i know you had a very great career and eu have served your community, your country now, do you see just having state and local law enforcement to avoid any discussion about immigration, is that really going to help problems in our cities? >> as i recall, the recommendation does not say there should be no cooperation. the discussion we had in the

task force involves the balance of public safety. there are many communities where there are large groups of undocumented people living in neighborhoods that commit crimes and are victimized by crime. because there is such a fear of being deported, a lot of victims don't call the police because they are afraid of deportation. this is particularly a problem in domestic violence situations. >> i know, i saw that same concern by the big group of people illegally here in the gallery that were trying to disrupt. i have seen people illegally here in this gallery disrupting. i did not know a lot of concern about law enforcement deporting them, because you have to be pretty ignorant about what is going on in this country to think you are at risk for deportation. anyway, i'm more concerned about the victims who are victims of crime, needlessly if we would

enforce at least the immigration laws on those who commit crimes. we are not doing it. what i see is a disregard for law enforcement because they are not even going to help because this person is illegally in the country, so nothing is going to happen to them, and i ended up being the one victimized. i hear that as much as anything. but i appreciate your sensitivity to these issues. i know the first couple of cases i worked on as a prosecutor, we had an african-american in both cases that were both in bars. we had people in the community including the african-american community saying, they should not have in there. it is not that big a deal. i found it offensive than that anybody would care about the race when somebody kill somebody else, it's not big

deal. i'm still concerned after all these years. we prosecuted does. we had concerned, we did not care what the race was of the victim or the defendant. killing is a killing, and i'm glad you care about law enforcement in america. >> chair will now recognized from rhode island. gentleman from rhode island. >> thank you mr. chairman. thank you to our witnesses. i think everyone brings their own life experiences. before i came to congress i was a criminal defense civil rights lawyer. most involved claims of lease brutality. i went from that to being mayor of providence, where i was acting safety commissioner for eight years overseeing the providence police department and proud to report that we brought the crime rate to its lowest in 40 years. i bring my own set of experiences and have deep

respect for law enforcement and the hard work of good police officers. and nothing will be in my mind point directly than april 17 2005. a police town officer was murdered in headquarters. i understand the hard work of police and the importance of what they do. i think we do have to focus on systems which build good review and detection of police misconduct, good oversight and civilian reviews, all of that. but the fact is, those are important to do and we have got to do than to rebuild trust. but in many ways, it is too late when problems have already occurred. i want to focus on, what do we do to help ensure those kinds of situations don't occur. how do we build this mutually respectful relationship between police and community? i had a police chief you all he

sees say, you should have a family doctor, family doctor and a family police officer. we built a model in which there were lieutenants in charge of a neighborhood. they knew the residence. everyone had their cell phone numbers. they were on housing boards, they became part of the community. that is what helped result of the lowest crime rate in four years. that is good knowledge for the community but for the police officers. good police officers who deserve to have the respect and trust of their community. but at the core of that, the most powerful and then i have, the most powerful piece of equipment, is the trust in the community. -- of the community. that is the single best will i have to reduce crime. we saw the results of that attitude. what i would like to hear from the witnesses, i think there are two ways to help achieve that kind of paradigm. accreditation is one and community policing implementation is the other. not a unit within your department, but the entire department and breaking this

attitude of service and guardianship. what are the impediments? we had a problem which was under investigation when i took office for patterns and -- patent investigations. that is a hard process. is it resources? how can we help more departments go through this process so we know they have standards and practices in place that respect the important balance mentioned between keeping to safe and respecting the civil rights of individuals? what can congress do to assist more police departments to go for that process? >> thank you. it is a complicated picture, because as you know, the cost of being involved in this programming. i think it is critically important there is a more broad awareness that there are other resources in thought a lot enforcement safety community