Opening Our Eyes To The Epidemic of Police Violence In America

Floor Speech

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Mr. CLYBURN. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my friend Mr. Jeffries.

I visited with the family of Walter Scott. I attended his funeral; and, not long after the services were over, I was approached by two women who identified themselves as mothers of two young men who had suffered unusual and unnecessary brutality at the hands of the officer who perpetrated the unnecessary shooting of Walter Scott.

Both these women said to me that, throughout the North Charleston community, there is significant apprehension as to whether or not they could accept or expect any kind of relief for the pain that they are suffering.

I remained in Charleston over the weekend. On Sunday evening, I saw that the mayor of North Charleston, Mayor Summey; the chief of police of North Charleston, Chief Driggers; along with the sheriff of Charleston County, attended the healing services that took place at Calvary Baptist Church there in Charleston.

I applaud them--the mayor, the chief, and the sheriff--for responding to these three families, and there may be others, but in a way that makes us all proud.

I am hopeful that, after this weekend and some subsequent occurrences, that Congress would take a long, hard look at whether or not there is a role for us to play in responding to what seems to be an epidemic. I applaud those in the South Carolina Legislature, most especially Senator Marlon Kimpson, for his authorship of body camera legislation.

I thank the various newspapers, most recently this morning, The State newspaper, for endorsing this concept, saying that it is something that the legislature in South Carolina should authorize and fund.

Now, there are a lot of police departments that are too small to raise the necessary funds, and a lot of them are so big that the cost might be prohibitive. To that, I want to say, Mr. Jeffries, as I thank you, Congressman Scott, and Congressman Richmond, as well as Congressmen GOWDY and LABRADOR, for all the work you are doing trying to pull together a piece of comprehensive legislation that will reform our judicial criminal system in a way that would make things much better going forward.

Please, I ask, take a look at whether or not it is time for us here in the Congress to make the funds available so that all local police departments can afford to do something that I think will address a national problem.

I also believe that the time has come for us to maybe mandate from this level the body cameras I think Congresswoman CORINNE BROWN and Congressman Emanuel Cleaver have both proposed legislation in this area. Let's take a look at their legislation. Hopefully, your task force will take a look at their legislation and see whether or not we can incorporate that legislation authorization, as well as the funding going forward.

Now, I want to thank the Attorney General and the FBI Director for proposing that we deal with this issue of data collection. That is going to be very important as we take a look at these issues and these incidents and to see whether or not it is time for us to do something at the national level to deal with data collection.

That, too, is an expense. In fact, that is something these departments would have a problem with in terms of size, where they are so big they can't afford it or too small to raise the funds, and maybe we can find a way to help fund the storage of this data so that we can create a better climate.

Now, before I close, I want to say something that I get beaten up a lot for raising this issue, but I feel strongly about it. I am not easily intimidated, and I refuse to be bullied.

Therefore, I want to say once again, whoever is funding the activities of the American Legislative Exchange Council, they are funding the kind of legislation, stand your ground, that creates vigilante activity in this country. It is clear that is what is formed from that legislation.

They are also funding legislation that is suppressing voters; and when you suppress voters, you are, in fact, ruining activity at the community level that I think is very, very important.

They are also funding the bleaching and stacking of legislative and congressional districts, all of which I believe add to the creation of a venomous climate throughout our country.

I started my professional career as a public school teacher teaching history. I have studied the history of our great country, and I have taught it. I can say that it is clear to me that a lot of the legislation that is being proposed today, a lot of the activities that we are experiencing today, we went through this before.

I would ask anybody who may be interested in the subject to just take a look at what occurred in this great country between 1872 and those new constitutions that went in place throughout the South in 1895. You will see that, through that 23-year period, the same kind of vigilante activity, all done under the heading of Jim Crow laws, the same activity with a different label is what we are beginning to see today.

I would hope that all the people here in this Congress and around the country will really take stock of who we are, where we are, and let us do what is necessary to move our country to common ground for all of its great citizenry.

Thank you so much.

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