Do the kind of Risk Assessment that you did as an officer. To ensure that the presence of an officer might not be needed but we can help support those students who might be making some of the wrong choices. I certainly feel that there needs to be more. I think training is provided to educators. I was with an educator for 17 years. He was a teacher. I think because he also came from a similar community that a lot of young people came from, young people were able to relate to him. Also i think train inging, Training Resources available at your fingertips to know what the alternative is. Who can come into your school where a lot of people were being referred to the system from. We were able to have a Community Based organization there present every single day and made available to educators as well as the administration as an alternative. They would walk around the campus making sure young people were safe because what you said earlier, we have resource officers to protect the school from certain crimes. But not all young people are criminals. We were able to incorporate those types of programs as well as they were peer educators, peer conflict resolution and nonviolence warriors that were able to talk down their peers. Peer education as well as contracting Community Based organizations that know how to deal with that type of conflict in school and more training and Services Made available to educators. Thank you. Very moving testimony. Youve given us a lot of suggestions. Could you prioritize them for me. Everything from Training Resources, cops being fluent in the community, race studies. Could you just the top two, each of you. If we had to limit it. I hope there will be more antiracist and antisexist training for officers. It needs to be beyond our police forces. She really needs to be throughout society. When i was in my early 20s, a white kid from a nonstruggling family. It was assumed that i grew up in a family that was antiracist. I realized how much im a child of white privilege. That ongoing kind of training is incredibly, changes world views and is important for all of us. I hope that can become systematic throughout our police forces. Reevaluation of current trainings as well as new trainings. And system accountability. I would say to incentivize Quality Police work. Not just how many people you arrest and how many perps you bring in. I think for me this would be number one. Number two would be, again teaching the Police Officers the history of this nation and what causes some of the things that have them have to go into these communities in the first place. No disrespect but many of these officers patrolling the streets, my friend who is a Police Officer work closely with them. They do not understand why they have to do some of the things that they do. I dont blame them. I dont fault them. They never had to learn it. They grew up in a different environment. Now theyre just following the system that asks them for a specific issue or numbers or whatever it may be. Training and helping the officers to understand the communities they are working in and some of the things that took place in society that caused them to have to be in in the first place. I think that would really help. Those are the main two for me. Our final question is from sean. Thank you. I echo my colleagues appreciation for the panel. I appreciate you miss perez you bringing up the sports and outreach program. Thats worked. Thats work the unions have done a lot on their own both in terms of getting the Police Officer members participate but also in funding. Often we do that partnering with churches and other Community Groups. My question for the panel is if you could give us a specific recommendation, we know there are programs that have been hugely successful. I think one of the best is to hat tip to los angeles the , watts football program. The city of los angeles has made that a budgetary priority. What can we do working together and i guess specifically what recommendation would put forward to facilitate the reprioritizing of those types of programs in terms of getting state and local budgets to really make those a priority. Well, were talking in a sense about working state legislatures on budget issues at the federal level. There are untapped communities opportunities for alliances and coalitions between police forces, ministerial associations, unions, teachers on and on and on to really come together around a common agenda. This is what we need in our community. Im not even aware, im sure it exist, im not aware of anywhere where Police Officers and clergy, for example, are going to the state legislature and saying this a compelling deed. I think that would have a significant impact. City councils as well. We need to create we dont have to recreate the wheel. We just have to use the networks that we convening this session. That we have already in existence. Thank you very much very much and i want to thank the panel. This was excellent. Please thank them. In order for us to stay on time, we are not going to be taking a break between panels at this time, so please bear with us while we seat the next panel which will be a Law Enforcement panel. Thank you. [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. Org] Law Enforcement groups were also present for this meeting held on the president s policing task force. They talked about the criminal Justice System as a whole. I would like to call the hearing to order. We now have our Law Enforcement panel, and we would like to welcome all of our witnesses here this morning. We are going to start with Richard Berry, president of the International Association of chiefs of the lease. Chief barry. Thank you. Mr. Davis, commissioner ramsey, members of the task force, thank you for inviting me to testify today. My name is Richard Berry i am the president of the iac p, and i have been a cop for over 37 years. Many communities throughout this nation have witnessed a remarkable decline in the rate of crime. America in 2015 is a far safer place than america in 1985. In fact, Violent Crime in the United States is at its lowest level since 1978. We know that in order to be truly Effective Police agencies cannot operate alone. We must have the active support and assistance of our communities. Unfortunately, resource shortages have made policing efforts difficult or impossible in many agencies. Police departments continue to take on more responsibility with less manpower and less funding. We are dealing with Homeland Security concerns, cyber crime and noncrisis calls Like Mental Health issues and drug overdoses. These responsibilities take time away from Community Patrols and policing duties. It is hard to sustain Strong Community relations. Therefore, it is incumbent on all of us to Work Together to identify solutions and approaches that can be implemented not just by the lawenforcement community, but by the criminal Justice System and the nation as a whole. To that end, the iac p has taken action including a National Policy summit on Community Police relations. Representatives of the naacp the aclu, the committee on civil rights as well as various local Civil Rights Community groups join us at the iac p to sit down and look at how, together, we can begin to build a culture of trust and improve relations. I am pleased to announce that the iacp is releasing a copy of the summary of that report today. I have it available and i have extra copies. I hope you will use it as a blueprint. I think there has been a great deal of work toward what ive heard so far today. There are three overarching conceptual elements of policing or defined during that summit. Communication, harner ship trust. My allotted partnership and trust. My allotted time will not allow me to go into all of those strategies, but you have the report and i hope you will use it. We know we need to build Sustainable Community relations but this is not just a Community Policing issue. For more than 20 years, the iacp has called for a National Policy commission on the entire political Justice System so we can make acrosstheboard improvements, and i have heard you loud and clear, all the previous presenters. My only question is where have you been . We have been calling for a for a long time. As Panel Members you need truth and facts, not myths lies, and innuendo. Lets start with transparency. The vast majority of contact Law Enforcement has with citizens is nonviolent and noncontroversial. To put things in perspective, the average number of arrest per year is about 12. 5 million, about 34,000 a day, ranging from abuse of children to serial killers. Of the millions of arrest made each year this doesnt include citizen contact, this is arrests. Fatal results are regrettable but rare, especially when you consider that many of the individuals arrested are under the influence of drugs, al goll, have anger management issues, Mental Illness alcohol, have anger management issues, Mental Illness or choose to be competitive. Each year there are more than 50,000 assaults on Police Officers that resulted more than 14,000 officers being injured. This past year, 50 nine Police Officers were murdered by gunfire or assault. This is higher than u. S. Combat casualties in afghanistan. This simply cannot be tolerated. The current Smear Campaign aimed at Law Enforcement is unnecessarily placing officer lives in jeopardy while they perform the task of reducing crime and violence in our communities. I grew up in the 70s. The current public climate is reminiscent of the 1970s as our kids were withdrawing from vietnam. The brave men and women who served honorably were a villain eyes for e wearing were villain iced for wearing the uniform of this country and upholding the oath that they took. The criminalization of our veterans was wrong just doesnt it is of our Police Officers net just as it is of our Police Officers now. I urge you to truly assess the risks and challenges of policing in an Armed Society like none other in the world. Please use your collective wisdom, expertise and influence to help us make this country safer. Thank you for cap meaning this session. I look forward to answering questions. Most importantly, thanks for taking this forward. Dont let it stop here. We need to look at the entire criminal Justice System. Thank you very much. Welcome. Let me turn now to check canterbury National President of the fraternal order of police. Good morning. Thank you for allowing us to be here today to share with you the perspective of rank and file officers who serve in harms way each and every day in the street thes of our communities. Streets of our communities. Its their views that im going to offer today. All of us here know that theres been an erosion of trust and respect between Law Enforcement officers and the communities they protect, particularly in communities of color. Similarly, the Law Enforcement officers are growing more distrustful of the citizens in many communities because of an increased violence that targets Law Enforcement officers. A rise in firearm fatalities and assaults and ambush attacks have forced officers to become weary when responding to any call for service. Thats why ive called on the president and congress to amend the federal hate crime law to include Police Officers. Enough is enough. Its imperative that we bridge the gulf of trust and respect between the police and their communities and Work Together to bridge the gap. I urge this task force to take a broad holistic approach. Its an issue throughout government and society. The issues of trust and legitimacy are not just a Law Enforcement problem. Our citizens and communities are losing faith in Government Services in Public Officials and public service. The lack of trust and respect may be most obvious because our officers are the most visible form of government. The issue is pervasive. Schools are failing parents and students like, erodesing and students alike, eroding confidence in the idea that with a good education anything is possible. Instead, schools process our children without guaranteeing them an education. Elected officials cannot make good on their promises and basic social services wisther on the whether with their wither on the vines as funds dry up. Poverty, the poverty of income and the poverty of true opportunity is the common denominator denominator. More and more of our citizens especially our young people and people of color no longer trust that the American Dream is within their reach. For a young man of color to finish high School Without a basic education because of social promotion hes robbed of that opportunity. Thats a robbery that Law Enforcement cannot respond to. His world view is likely shaped by an american likely not shaped by an american civics class but by social media saturated with a subculture that celebrates anger towards authority, disrespect for women and willingness to use force to ensure that they are not disrespected especially in front of their peers which often triggers a swift escalation of the most routine Police Encounter or any other authority figures. I dont need to remind anyone here that these problems have been building for generations. In a threemonth study is not going to provide all the solutions. This will have to be permanent work in progress. We need to commit ourselves to it. The fop wants to be part of a changing culture of policing. But we as a society and a nation also have a responsibility to make changes. We must first reject any notion that the Law Enforcement culture is intrinsically racist. Its wrong to think that a man is a criminal because of his skin but its equally wrong to think a man is racist because of his uniform. Enough is enough. We must also reject the tacit legitimization of violence and lawbreaking as a weapon of social change. No grand jury decision or Government Action should result in local leaders or National Spokesmen justifingly open or not the burning of businesses, looting of shops or wanton destruction of property. When these criminal acts are not swiftly condemned add wrong but are met with a shoulder shrug or an explained away as a complete completely reasonable release to pent up frustration. We invite an increase in violence that leads to events like the assassination of two new york Police Officers. The killer of these two officers believed his out rage and a per his outrage and a perceived failure of justice was enough to end their lives and then his own. Enough is enough. The trust gap and lack of respect for our government led an unbalanced man to murder. We need to get away from inflammatory rhetoric so present in our culture today, which leads criminals and mentally unbalanced criminals to believe hostile actions against police will be validated. I ask we keep this goal uppermost in our minds as we go forward with discussions about police legitimacy, race relations. Racial reconciliation, procedural justice and transparency. I believe one of the most important things question do to strengthen the bonds of trust and Mutual Respect between government and our communities is to restore our Public Confidence in and commitment to due process. Law enforcement officers knowledge that individual officers will have their actions skroout scrutinized. We welcome that. This will sometimes inflame public passions and exacerbate the Community Situation especially in cases where the National Opinions often turned out to be mistaken. This undermines trust and does damage to the concept of due process. Its critical to demonstrate our faith in a commitment to due process. It must not be affected by nelg negative media, mass vaiolence or any other retribution by the public. Law enforcement officers as P