Pass The Cops Program

Floor Speech

PASS THE COPS PROGRAM -- (House of Representatives - May 15, 2007)

Mr. COHEN. 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.

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