Statements on Introduced Bills and Joint Resolutions

Floor Speech

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Mr. BOOKER. Mr. President, I am proud to join with Senator Boxer to introduce the Police Reporting of Information, Data, and Evidence Act of 2015, PRIDE Act, a critical data collection bill designed to advance public safety, strengthen police-community relations, and foster mutual trust and respect. I thank Senator Boxer for her leadership on this issue.

A critical issue in our Nation today is the issue of trust between law enforcement and the communities they serve. Tragic events across the country--in New York, Ferguson, North Charleston, Baltimore, and subsequent protests--remind us how critical trust is to the fabric of a democracy. These incidents raised the public's awareness and sparked a national debate about how police and citizens interact and how they should interact. But the issue is not unique now. The Kerner Commission's 1968 report on urban violence declared that minorities believed a ``double standard'' of justice and protection existed for whites and blacks. Sadly, that distrust continues today. It is contrary to who we are and what we stand for.

Our nation was founded on shared and timeless values. Liberty and justice for all. Equal justice under law. The former was enshrined in our founding charter. The latter was written on the marble of Supreme Court. But when any American feels that they have not been treated fairly, we undermine those values. That makes the issue of police and community relations a problem for all of us--not just a specific city or a specific race. It is a problem for the Nation as a whole. We must do all we can to restore justice to our criminal justice system. That includes tracking when officers use deadly or serious force against people in the community.

We must ensure that police officers feel respected and honored. Each day, law enforcement officers put their lives on the line to keep our communities safe. They deserve our respect. They should not feel attacked or undervalued. They routinely make split-second decisions every day that do not escalate into uses of force. As the senseless killings of NYPD Officers Rafael Ramos and Wanjian Liu remind us, officers often serve the public at considerable personal risk. We should provide them with the tools they need to do their jobs effectively and safely. That includes tracking the uses of force by civilians against our men and women in uniform.

To bridge the wide trust gap between law enforcement and citizens, we must shine a light on the problem. The first step to solve any problem is to be honest about the facts. We need objective data. We need to study trends. We need to examine the evidence. That is why I am encouraged by the words of FBI Director, James Comey, who said ``We simply must find ways to see each other more clearly. Part of that has to involve collecting and sharing better information about encounters between police and citizens, especially violent encounters.''

For too long, the way we have collected information and data from States and local governments on violent encounters between law enforcement and civilians has been inconsistent. Under current law, demographic data regarding officer-involved shootings is inconsistently reported to the FBI under the Uniform Crime Reporting Program. According to a study by the Washington Post this month, since 2011, less than three percent of the Nation's 18,000 State and local police agencies reported fatal shootings by their officers to the FBI. That is unacceptable. Incomplete and unreliable reporting makes it tougher to get a true scope of the problem and more difficult to obtain a policy solution.

The PRIDE Act would fix that problem and increase accountability for law enforcement by creating a comprehensive national data collection program. It would require law enforcement at the State, local, and tribal levels to report to the Attorney General information regarding police-involved shootings and any incident in which use of force by or against a law enforcement officer or civilian results in serious injury or death. By making the voluntary reporting of uses of force by, and against, police officers mandatory, we ensure that more accountability and transparency will exist between the police and the citizens they protect.

I have worked closely with Senator Boxer on crafting this legislation, and appreciate my friend and colleague welcoming several recommendations to strengthen the bill, including clarifications that use-of-force policies for law enforcement officers be made publicly available. I believe this change would promote transparency. It shines a spotlight on the scope of shootings and uses of force involving police and civilians, which in turn enhances public confidence in our justice system.

I also appreciate that the bill includes grant funds for public awareness campaigns designed to gain information from the public on uses of force against police officers. This was a recommendation drawn from being a former mayor. I have seen first-hand how helpful tip lines, hotlines, and public service announcements can be in helping law enforcement capture dangerous people. When someone uses violence against our men and women in uniform, we must respond quickly. That means we should do all that we can to ensure that information on the suspect gets out to the public in a timely manner. That way, the offender can promptly be caught and brought to justice.

Lastly, I recommended the bill include grant funds for use of force training for law enforcement agencies and personnel, including de-escalation training. Officers deserve to receive the best and most up to date training we can offer. They must feel confident that they are trained to use force in a way that allows them to safely come home to their families. Equally, the public deserves to have confidence that when an officer uses force he or she does so appropriately. That means training officers to ensure that force is a last resort and officers know how to de-escalate a situation to avoid using force at all.

Many of the bill's provisions were recommendations from the President's Task Force on 21st Century Policing. It put forth a series of recommendations aimed at rebuilding trust between the law enforcement officers and the communities they protect. Its recommendations included use of force data collection, de-escalation training, transparency, and officer safety measures. I am glad that many of the task force recommendations were included in this bill.

It is time we address the plague of shootings by and against police officers in our country. We must come together to ensure that we do see each other clearly and restore public confidence in our system of justice. The first step is to shine a light on the problem and collect accurate data. I thank Senator Boxer again for her leadership, and I urge my colleagues to support the PRIDE Act and work towards its speedy passage.

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