Congressman Cohen Supports COPS Program

Mr. Speaker, in my remarks in support of H.R. 1700, the "COPS Improvements Act of 2007," I refer to amended language in the bill that would have required COPS grant recipients participating in the "Troops-to-Cops" program to give special hiring preference to former members of the Armed Forces who served in Operation Enduring Freedom and Operation Iraqi Freedom. I first introduced this provision in an amendment during the Judiciary Committee markup of H.R. 1700. I withdrew that amendment with the understanding that, after working with Ranking Member Lamar Smith upon the committee's urging to craft mutually agreeable language, this provision was to be included in the final version of H.R. 1700.

Through what I believe to have been an inadvertent omission, the hiring preference for veterans of Operation Enduring Freedom and Operation Iraqi Freedom was not included in the final version of H.R. 1700 that has been presented to the full House of Representatives. It is my understanding that the language will be added either in the Senate bill or at conference and, therefore, will be contained in the bill sent to the President for his signature.

Madam Speaker, I join my colleagues in asking that we pass the COPS Program. I started my career after law school as the attorney for the Memphis Police Department, and I learned then that patrol was the major deterrent to crime.

When I campaigned this year in the City of Memphis and met with the Afro-American Police Association, they came to me and the thing they asked me to do was to get more COPS dollars, saying that community policing was an effective tool in the fight against crime; that it wasn't just arresting, but it was knowing people in the community and encouraging them to find ways to interrelate to the police and have a better attitude.

By working with my colleagues on the other side of the aisle and Ranking Member Smith, we came up with an amendment that will be part of the bill that will give Iraqi and Afghanistan veterans priority in the COPS Program so that when we bring our troops home we can have them effectively police our neighborhoods, just as they have been policing the neighborhoods in Baghdad.

We need policemen and cops on the streets in our hometowns, in Memphis, Tennessee, to fight crime. We need them home today in our towns, and not in Baghdad. The COPS Program will help.