The President: Well, we
have had an
excellent conversation.
This group in part
represents the 21st Century
Policing Task Force that I
put together after Ferguson
in order for us to find
constructive steps that we
could take that law
enforcement and communities
could get behind in order to
make sure that we're keeping
our streets safe, and we are
protecting and supporting
police officers who are
doing a very difficult job,
and we can make sure that
our communities are being
treated fairly and that
people have confidence that
the law applies to
everybody equally.
Thanks to Laurie Robinson
and Charles Ramsey and the
members of that task force,
we came up with a set
of recommendations.
And the good news is, is
that over the last several
months since the report was
issued, we have seen a lot
of law enforcement officers,
a lot of chiefs, a lot of
departments begin to examine
these recommendations and
figure out how they
can implement them.
We've seen real progress
with respect to data gathering.
We've seen real progress
with respect to training.
We've seen progress with
respect to transparency and
outreach to communities.
The bad news is, as we saw
so painfully this week, that
this is really a hard job.
We're not there yet.
We're not even close to
being there yet, where we
want to be.
We're not at a point yet
where communities of color
feel confident that their
police departments are
serving them with dignity
and respect and equality.
And we're not at the point
yet where police departments
feel adequately
supported at all levels.
So what we've done here is
to build off the task force
report and find out what's
working, what's not, and
what more do we have to
do in order to bring the
country and communities
around the country together
and make more progress
on this front.
And I'll just characterize a
couple of things that have
been identified.
And I want to emphasize that
there's still a diversity of
views around this table.
That was by design.
We have police chiefs
and representatives of
rank-and-file
law enforcement.
We've got people who have
been protesting just this week.
And we have sociologists,
civil rights attorneys,
governors, state
legislators.
So as you might expect,
not everybody agrees
on everything.
But here are the buckets
of issues that everybody
identified as worthy of
more work, more study, and
ultimately more action.
Number one, we're going
to have to do more work
together in thinking about
how we can build confidence
that after police officers
have used force, and
particularly deadly force,
that there is confidence in
how the investigation takes
place and that justice is done.
Now, that's a complicated
piece of work, but it's
going to involve engaging
with police departments and
state's attorneys, as well
as communities themselves,
and potentially shaping a
set of best practices that
ensure when something
happens that people feel
like it's being investigated
effectively and fairly both
for the police officer, but
also for the families of
those who've been affected.
And so one of our charges
I think is to try to find
effective ways to do that.
Second is continuing work
on working with police
departments around training
-- which we emphasized in
the initial task force
-- but also hiring, recruitment.
And one of the themes that
came from a number of people
is how do we support police
officers not just in terms
of eliminating bias, but
also dealing with the
stresses and strains of the
job so that they have the
capacity to interact with
communities and deescalate
more effectively, and
are there ways for us to
resource that.
So that was
bucket number two.
Third is data.
Although we put forward a
data initiative that is
beginning to gather
information about what's
happening in police
departments so that they can
do a better job managing
their force and ensure that
what they're doing is
effective, and so that
communities can feel
confident that they know
what's happening with police
forces, generally speaking,
police departments, sheriff
departments, law enforcement
offices around the country
either don't have good data
collection or it's just in a
form that people can't use.
Now, I don't necessarily
fault all the departments on
that because I know here in
the federal government, with
all the resources we have,
it has been really hard to
just get our data systems
and IT and all that set up.
Some of you may remember we
had a little problem with my
health care initiative --
(laughter)
-- when it came
to data and computers
and so forth.
So imagine if you've got a
small county, small budget,
they've got old computers,
they don't know how to
work systems.
But this is an area where we
think we can actually make
real progress -- is to help
departments all across the
country to put their data in
a way that they can use, but
also creates greater systems
of accountability and so we
understand what happens.
And one of the encouraging
things for me is, is that
this is an area, when I was
a state legislator, I was
able to work with the
Fraternal Order of Police
and the state police
organizations, as well as
activists to create a racial
profiling bill that gathered
data and allowed law
enforcement to identify
where do they think
there's a problem.
And because of that
cooperation we've seen
improvement in Illinois
around these areas.
And that's something that I
think we all have to spend
some time thinking about.
Next, we're going to
continue to examine how we,
as a federal government, can
work effectively with local
communities, because we've
got 18,000 different law
enforcement entities, and
we're not going to be able
to do for a sheriff's
department or a police
department what it needs to
be doing -- what are the
best ways for us to help
them do the right thing when
they want to do the right
thing, and are there ways in
which we can support
communities to lift up
problems when departments
are unwilling to adopt some
of the best practices
that are out there.
So we're going to spend
time looking on that.
And finally, there was broad
agreement that this needs to
be sustained.
I didn't hear anybody around
this table suggest that this
problem is going to
be solved overnight.
Because the roots of the
problems we saw this week
date back not just decades,
date back centuries.
There are cultural issues,
and there are issues of race
in this country, and
poverty, and a whole range
of problems that will
not be solved overnight.
But what we can do is to set
up the kinds of respectful
conversations that we've
had here -- not just in
Washington, but around
the country -- so that we
institutionalize a process
of continually getting
better, and holding
ourselves accountable, and
holding ourselves
responsible for getting better.
And I think we've done
that with the task force.
But what's been apparent is,
is that it's not enough just
or us to have a task force
or report and then follow up
through our departments.
We have to push this out
into communities so that
they feel ownership for some
of the good ideas that have
been floated
around this table.
So I just want to say how
encouraged I am by
the conversation.
To the American people, I
want you to know that this
is a pretty representative
group of the folks who've
been involved in the debate
in this issue and have
practical knowledge and are
thinking each and every day
about how we can prevent the
tragedies we saw in Baton
Rouge and in Minnesota
and in Dallas.
And the conversation that
took place around this table
is very different than
the one that you see on a
day-to-day or hourly
basis in the media.
And one of the things that I
encouraged everybody here to
do was to try to be as
thoughtful and respectful
outside of this room as
folks were to each other
during the course of this
conversation, because I
think the American people
would feel more encouraged.
As I said yesterday, I do
not want to gloss over the
fact that not only are there
very real problems but there
are still deep divisions
about how to solve
these problems.
There's no doubt that police
departments still feel
embattled and
unjustly accused.
And there is no doubt that
minority communities,
communities of color still
feel like it just takes too
long to do what's right.
And the pace of change is
going to feel too fast for
some and too
slow for others.
And sadly, because this is
a huge country that is very
diverse and we have a lot of
police departments, I think
it is fair to say that we
will see more tension in
police -- between police and
communities this month, next
month, next year,
for quite some time.
The one thing I think we all
have to do, though, is not
paper over those differences
or paper over those
problems, but we do have to
try to constructively solve
them and not simply win
talking point arguments and
not just give voice to what
we're feeling at the moment.
We have to, as a country,
sit down and just grind it
out, solve these problems.
And I think if we have
that kind of sustained
commitment, I'm
confident we can do so.
So thank you all
for participating.
It was a terrific
conversation.
And they've all promised
to take Michelle's call if
she's wondering why I
was late for dinner.
(laughter)
