particularly with my co-chair chuck ramsey. i've been in this field for more than 30 years working with the american bar association, about ten years with the department of justice. and more recently in academia. and as chuck said our time on this task force has been compressed. but really remarkable with the opportunity to hear from so many witnesses bringing such expertise before us. but our intent with this panel as he said was to look ahead. and i would characterize it that we do have a superstar group here. and that was our intent. i'm looking forward in a minute to introducing our panel. but before that, i want to give our task force members who, by the way, have been wonderful to work with and what an opportunity to get the chance in what i would describe as kind of a bunker mentality as we've moved ahead. and it is something that i will think about for really the rest of my career this opportunity to work with them. i'm going to start down at the end with roberto and we'll move down the line. roberto? >> good morning. as

i will not go over anything in terms of policy and as was already mentioned chuck ramsey i have the honor to be a co-chair along with lori robinson we make up pretty good team over the past two months. currently and the police chief of philadelphia's seven years serving in that capacity prior to that of his police chief in washington for almost nine. started as the 80 year-old police cadet so i have been around for a while and i have seen a lot of changes over the years with a very dynamic profession and in a period of time when we have challenges and as read discuss things that assist us to better serve the public today real wanted to put together a panel for what lies ahead in that is why you are here today. thank you very much now i will turn it over to lori robinson. >> this has been sent to of pleasure to work on this panel as a task force particularly with my cochaired chuck ramsey. i have been in this field more than 30 years working with the american bar association coming 10 years from the department of justice and from academia. our time on the task force is remarkable with the

it has been a privilege working on this task force particularly with co-chair chuck ramsey. i have been in this field for more than 30 years working with the american bar association about ten years with the department of justice and more recently in acdemia. our time on the task force has been fast but remarkable with the opportunity to hear from so many witnesses bringing such expertise before us. but our intent with this panel was to look ahead. and i would characterize this as a super star group here and that was the intent. i am looking to introducing the panel but before that i want to give the task force members, why by the way have been wonderful to meet with, and what an opportunity, to get the chance in what i call a bunker mentality and it is something i will think about for the rest of my career; this opportunity to work with them. i am starting at the end with roberto and we will move down the line. >> good morning. as lori said, i am the chief of police for tucson arizona. i grew up in the department and have been with them 35 years and chief for the past 6 yea

i wouldn't really disagree with chuck ramsey from philadelphia. i think there is the need for it, we just need to use and deploy this equipment in a way better than we have in the past. >> what concerns you have about isis linked foreign fighters who returned to the united states and the justice department possibility to find and prosecute these people? >> that is the thing as i leave office that i've often said keeps me up at night. the notion of worrying about people who have left the united states to join the fight, and then who tried to come back. i think we do a good job of monitoring those people, stopping them where we can through the use of a variety of techniques, including undercover techniques. to stop them from getting there. and in monitoring them with the use of our allies once they are there and trying to stop them when they come back. the ultimate concern is about those people who remain here in the united states. and through a variety of means become radicalized. either they are in pritikin -- prison and become radicalized as we'v

i wouldn't really disagree with chuck ramsey from philadelphia. i think there is the need for it, we just need to use and deploy this equipment in a way better than we have in the past. >> what concerns do you have about isis-linked foreign fighters who returned to the united states, and the justice department's ability to find and prosecute these people? >> that is the thing as i leave office that i've often said keeps me up at night. the notion of worrying about people who have left the united states to join the fight, and then who try to come back. i think we do a good job of monitoring those people, stopping them where we can through the use of a variety of techniques, including undercover techniques. to stop them from getting there. and monitoring them with the use of our allies once they are there and trying to stop them when they come back. the ultimate concern is about those people who remain here in the united states. and who, through a variety of means, become radicalized. either they are in prison and become radicalized, as perhaps we'v

but since the president asked chuck ramsey and me to serve in this capacity back on december 1st i've been very struck by the number of people really hundreds, who have come forward from all walks of life and from all around the country to make suggestions, offer recommendations, for steps that can be taken here to address these issues and these problems. these are very sincere proposals that are offered in good faith. and i have to say that that gives me optimism that americans working together are really problem-solvers. now the president has asked us to come up with concrete proposals on a short time-line, march 2nd. and he doesn't want general philosophy he wants very pragmatic suggestions. so our goal here today is to be in a listening mode, to do a lot of listening. and we have, in fact, really distinguished group of witnesses before us starting with our first panel and running through five panelists today. so we have a lot to do on a constricted schedule so i want to turn quickly to my co-chair commissioner ramsey. >> thank you, lori and good morning, everyone. it is an honor t

my name is chuck ramsey. i'm currently the police commissioner in philadelphia pennsylvania. i've served in that capacity now for seven years. prior to that, i was the district of columbia police chief for nearly nine years, and i began my career in chicago i'm a native chicagoan and began my career in the chicago police department, spending nearly 30 years in that department. so i've been in law enforcement for quite some time. before i introduce or allow the other panelists or task force members to introduce themselves, we do have two that are not physically with us here today. connie rice will be joining us via conference call throughout the session today, and brian stevenson is on travel. he is going to join us later this evening. he's coming in all the way from australia, and obviously you can imagine if you had trouble flying across the united states, try to trying to get back from australia would really prove a bit challenging. so he wasn't able to make it on time for this session, but he is going to be here later on today, we're told. so with that, let me begin having

my name is chuck ramsey. i'm currently the police commissioner in philadelphia, pennsylvania. i've served in that capacity now for seven years. prior to that, i was the district of columbia police chief for nearly nine years, and i began my career in chicago i'm a native chicagoan and began my career in the chicago police department spending nearly 30 years in that department. so i've been in law enforcement for quite some time. before i introduce or allow the other panelists or task force members to introduce themselves, we do have two that are not physically with us here today. connie rice will be joining us via conference call throughout the session today, and brian stevenson is on travel. he is going to join us later this evening. he's coming in all the way from australia, and obviously you can imagine if you had trouble flying across the united states, try to trying to get back from australia would really prove a bit challenging. so he wasn't able to make it on time for this session but he is going to be here later on today we're told. so with that, let me begin having ou

next we'll hear from chuck can'ter bury, the national president of the fraternal order of police. >> good afternoon, miss ramsey police robinson, staff on 21st century policing. thank you for allowing me to come back a second time to testify before this committee. soon members about task force will begin to write the final report and we expect it will contain recommendations for improving policing at all levels of government. i want to take this opportunity to offer some safety priorities of the fop that we would love to ask that this task force take into consideration in their report. first, i spoke about the need for federal hate crime legislation to include, for law enforcement officers at inaugural session of this committee. so i'm not going into details but of the 47 firearm deaths in 2014, 19% were officers killed by ambush by an individual or pair of individuals that were looking to kill a law enforcement officer. i have a appended a brief description of these attacks in my written testimony. if their objective had been to kill a muslim a black man, a transgender woman they could be charged under hate cr

chuck wexler. the police executive research forum. welcome, dr. wexler. >> thank you ms. robinson, and mr. ramsey and the panel. it's good to be here, again. and i also want to thank my fellow panel members for participating. thank you for the opportunity to offer my perspectives on the important issues of labor management issues. i am the executive director of the police executive research forum. i have held that position for over 20 years. you've asked me to focus my testimony today on building trust and collaboration between police executives labor leaders and elected officials. when we talk about improving policing, the relationship between labor and management is an area that has been neglected for too long. historically labor and management have often viewed each other with suspicion. it often has seemed that they see each other as warring factions and treat each other as the enemy. and as recent events have shown us, everyone loses when labor and management fail to work together. especially people in the community and the officers on the street. fortunately, this way of thinking is beginning to change. t