Congressman Cohen Urges Police Accountability and Reform at House Judiciary Committee Hearing

Congressman Cohen has repeatedly called for Judiciary Committee hearing on police reform and the use of deadly force against minorities

[WASHINGTON, DC] – At a hearing of the full House Judiciary Committee that Constitution and Civil Justice Subcommittee Ranking Member Steve Cohen (TN-09) requested repeatedly in the months following Michael Brown’s shooting in Ferguson, Missouri, Congressman Cohen called for greater police accountability and reforms to deadly force policies that in recent months have left several young, unarmed African-American men dead at the hands of police. Congressman Cohen has authored legislation designed to directly address several reform recommendations made by the President’s Task Force on 21^st Century Policing, which released its final report yesterday. Video of the Congressman’s remarks at today’s hearing is available here.

“America received a sobering wakeup call last year in Ferguson, followed by others in Staten Island, Cleveland, North Charleston, and more recently in Baltimore,” said Congressman Cohen. “The need for reform is as clear as it is urgent. Officers need better training, excessive force must end, and the public should know when officers fire upon citizens. Justice shouldn’t just depend on whether a bystander catches bad acts on video. Expecting local prosecutors to prosecute the same officers upon whom they rely to do their job presents a clear conflict of interest, and it is unnecessary. It is past time for Congress to bring fairness to our criminal justice system, and I am pleased that after months of calling for hearing on these issues the Judiciary Committee is finally considering them.”

Last week, Congressman Cohen joined Congressman Lacy Clay (MO-01), who represents Ferguson, Missouri, to introduce the Police Training and Independent Review Act of 2015. The legislation would help encourage incidents of deadly force used by police to be investigated and, if need be, prosecuted by an independent prosecutor. This was recommended as action item 2.2.3 in the Presidential Task Force report. Currently, these cases are rarely prosecuted effectively due to an obvious conflict of interest between local police and the prosecuting District Attorney, who relies on a close working relationship with those same police officers to carry out other prosecutorial duties.

The legislation would incentivize states to adopt laws requiring independent investigations and prosecutions of law enforcement officers in cases where one or more of the alleged offenses involves an officer’s use of deadly force in the course of carrying out his or her official duties. The bill would also require all local law enforcement agencies who receive full federal Byrne-JAG funding to ensure that enrollees at law enforcement academies receive sensitivity training on ethnic and racial bias, cultural diversity, and police interaction with the disabled, mentally ill, and new immigrants, mirroring a key recommendation from the Ferguson Commission. New police academy candidates would be required to complete a minimum of 8 hours of training while active duty police officers would be required to complete 4 hours of training on an annual basis.

Earlier this year, Congressman Cohen also reintroduced his National Statistics on Deadly Force Transparency Act, which would close a loophole in federal law that prevents adequate collection of comprehensive national data regarding justified and unjustified fatal interactions with police. Without accurate and comprehensive data, racial disparities, abuses, and instances of excessive use of force are difficult to identify and unlikely to be fixed. This was recommended as action item 2.2.4 in the Presidential Task Force report.

“Before we can truly address the problem of excessive force used by law enforcement we have to understand the nature of the problem and that begins with accurate data,” said Congressman Cohen. “I introduced the National Statistics on Deadly Force Transparency Act so our country can do a better job of honestly assessing racial disparities and other problems in our justice system and begin to fix them. It is a step in the right direction and a critical component of the healing process.”

The 1994 Crime Bill requires the Attorney General to collect statistics on the use of excessive force, but the law does not provide any enforcement mechanism nor does it adequately define what “excessive force” is. As a result, the federal government has been unable to gather data from many local police departments and there are no reliable statistics on how often law enforcement uses deadly force. Congressman Cohen’s legislation would incentivize states to require local law enforcement agencies to provide data to the Attorney General on:

• The date of each instance when deadly force was used;
• The identifying characteristics of the victim and officer involved, including the race, gender, ethnicity, religion and approximate age of the victim;
• Any alleged criminal behavior by the victim;
• An explanation, if any, by the relevant law enforcement agency of why deadly force was used;
• A copy of any use of deadly force guidelines in effect at the time at the law enforcement agency;
• The nature of the deadly force used, including whether it involved a firearm; and
• A description of any non-lethal efforts that were taken before deadly force was used.

This data would be made publicly available, but would not disclose any personally identifying information.