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Obama calls for more police body cameras as part of $263m reform package Obama resists demands to curtail police militarisation calling instead for improved officer training
(about 3 hours later)
Barack Obama is calling for a $263m spending package to reform police departments across the country and ensure 50,000 more officers wear body cameras in the wake of the police shooting of an unarmed black man in Ferguson, which led to months of protests across the country. Barack Obama has resisted calls to cancel or significantly curtail federal programs that transfer billions of dollars of military equipment to local police forces on Monday, choosing instead to focus on improving the training of officers given access to high-powered weapons and armoured vehicles previously used in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The president is expected to announce his request for federal funds later on Monday during a top-level summit to deal with the fallout from riots in the suburb of St Louis a week ago. However, Obama has decided against cancelling the multimillion-dollar programs that transfer equipment from the Pentagon to local police departments, which critics said had led to the militarisation of police. The president’s decision to reform rather than terminate the controversial programs, which critics said had led to the militarisation of local law enforcement, was included among a number of proposed measures the White House released in the wake of protests across the country over the police shooting of an unarmed black man in Ferguson.
The grand jury decision last week not to indict white police officer Darren Wilson over the fatal shooting of an unarmed black teenager, Michael Brown, prompted a night of intense rioting and looting in Ferguson and triggered protests across the country. Obama plans to issue an executive order before the end of February 2015, directing federal agencies to improve the way in which local law enforcement agencies procure, audit and manage a giant stockpile loaned and purchased from the Pentagon. However, the White House said the programs would remain in place.
The Associated Press, said the three-year, $263 million spending package would increase police use of body-worn cameras, expand training for law enforcement and add more resources for police department reform. The package includes $75m for the small, lapel-mounted cameras to record police officers on the job. Obama is also separately calling for a $263m, three-year spending package to reform police departments across the country which, if approved by Congress, could lead to the purchase of an additional 50,000 lapel-mounted cameras to record police officers on the job.
Brown family lawyers had said a campaign to make body-worn cameras mandatory, possibly through legislation, would be their focus in the weeks and months ahead. Civil rights leaders and the family of Michael Brown, the 18-year-old who was shot dead in Ferguson by the white police officer Darren Wilson in August, are calling for legislation to make body-worn cameras mandatory for police.
The White House also launched a taskforce, led by Philadelphia police commissioner Charles Ramsey and former assistant attorney general Laurie Robinson, to how to build trust with local communities. The White House, which was hosting a summit on Monday to discuss the aftermath of the Ferguson protests on Monday, did not back that call, but said “there are some benefits” to wider use of equipment that records interactions between police and members of the public.
White House press secretary Josh Earnest confirmed the president had still not decided whether to visit Ferguson. The president is also creating a task force to advise the White House on additional ways in which public trust can be improved between law enforcement and minority communities. The panel, led by Philadelphia police commissioner Charles Ramsey and former assistant attorney general Laurie Robinson, will report back within the next 90 days.
Earnest said Obama had decided to improve rather than end the controversial federal programs that allow police to obtain military-style equipment. “Recent events in Ferguson, Missouri and around the country have highlighted the importance of strong, collaborative relationships between local police and the communities they protect,” the White House said.
“We’ve found that in many cases these programs serve a useful purpose,” he said, pointing to the use of military equipment in the aftermath of the Boston bombings in 2013. “What is needed, however, is much greater consistency in the oversight of these programs.” Following a meeting with six cabinet members on Monday, Obama was scheduled to meet with young civil rights leaders, including some involved in protests in Ferguson, and law enforcement officials.
Obama was quick to condemn the violence in Missouri, but acknowledged that wider complaints over discriminatory policing were valid and not unique to Ferguson. He said: “Communities of colour aren’t just making these problems up.” A grand jury’s decision not to indict Wilson over the shooting prompted a night of intense rioting and looting in Ferguson last Monday and a ripple of solidarity protests across the country. Brown’s shooting has become a lightning rod for anger over discriminatory policing across the US.
A White House official said: “Recent events in Ferguson, Missouri and around the country have shone a spotlight on the importance of strong, collaborative relationships between local police and the communities they protect and serve. The heavy law enforcement response to mostly peaceful protests in the suburb of St Louis, Missouri, in the days and weeks after Brown’s death, prompted concern among both Republican and Democratic critics on Capitol Hill and led Obama to launch a review of federal programs that transfer military equipment to local police departments.
“As the country has witnessed, disintegration of trust between law enforcement agencies and the people they protect and serve can destabilise communities, undermine the legitimacy of the criminal justice system, undermine public safety, create resentment in local communities, and make the job of delivering police services less safe and more difficult.” Protesters in Ferguson were confronted by police driving armoured personnel carriers and carrying assault weapons, who repeatedly used tear gas and rubber bullets against demonstrators. Last week, teams of officers armed with military-grade weaponry and army-style fatigues were once again seen driving around Ferguson, although the overall response by law enforcement was more calibrated.
The president’s response to one of the worst bouts of race-related rioting in a generation has been criticised by some for playing down the scale of racial bias in the criminal justice system. In a statement earlier this year, Obama’s Attorney General, Eric Holder, who was among the cabinet members who met with the president on Monday, said police use of military equipment could backfire.
Obama walked a fine line as protests raged in Ferguson, arguing that “the law too often feels as if it is being applied in discriminatory fashion”, but qualifying his remarks by saying racial bias was neither widespread or “the norm”. “This equipment flowed to local police forces because they were increasingly being asked to assist in counterterrorism,” he said. “But displays of force in response to mostly peaceful demonstrations can be counterproductive.”
The president’s afternoon of back-to-back meetings is intended to overcome the criticism of his leadership and to move forward policy initiatives begun in August, when protests over the killing of Brown, 18, started. Defending the decision to allow that flow of equipment from the military to police to continue, the White House said the bulk of what is transferred is “fairly routine”, a definition it said included “office furniture, computers and other technological equipment, personal protective equipment and basic firearms”.
Those protests, most intense in August but which continued unabated in the months leading up to the grand jury decision, were met with a forceful response from heavily armed police using military-style weaponry as well as teargas and rubber bullets. White House press secretary Josh Earnest said the president had opted for an overhaul of the equipment procurement process – rather than an end to it – because some of the material transferred had proved useful. He pointed specifically to vehicles used in the hours after the 2013 Boston terrorist bombings. “What is needed, however, is much greater consistency in the oversight of these programs,” Earnest said.
Senators and members of Obama’s cabinet, including his attorney general, Eric Holder, expressed concern that the transfer of equipment from the Pentagon could lead to militarised police forces. He confirmed Obama has no immediate plans to travel to Ferguson, despite calls from civil rights leaders such as Jesse Jackson for the president to travel to the St Louis suburb.
Two weeks after Brown was shot, with protests continuing, Obama ordered a review of the programs, which transfer military equipment to local police departments. Teams of officers armed with assault weapons, dressed in military-style fatigues, were once again seen driving around Ferguson in armoured personnel carriers after last week’s protests turned violent, although the overall response by law enforcement was more calibrated. Obama has walked a fine line as protests raged in Ferguson, strongly condemning the turn to violence but acknowledging that protesters in Ferguson – and elsewhere in the country – have valid concerns about discriminatory policing and racial stereotyping.
A White House official said the cabinet-level meeting – the first of three meetings Obama is hosting on Monday – would “discuss” the review order by the president “and actions the administration is taking”. The president argued that “the law too often feels as if it is being applied in discriminatory fashion”, but qualified those remarks by saying racial bias was neither widespread nor “the norm”. Some have criticised the president for playing down the scale of racial bias in the criminal justice system.
The president will immediately after meet young civil rights leaders from across the country to discuss “broader challenges we still face as a nation, including the mistrust between law enforcement and communities of colour”, the official added. Explaining why Obama had not yet visited the St Louis suburb, Earnest said the president was conscious that reforms were needed to police forces across the country, not just in Missouri.
Obama will host a third, separate meeting at the White House with elected officials, community, civil rights and faith leaders, and law enforcement officials from across the country. He later added: “The underlying issues here are broader than just race. This goes to the foundational relationship between law enforcement agencies and the communities that they’re sworn to serve and to protect.”
The White House-commissioned report into militarisation of police found a lack of community engagement over the acquisition of equipment and insufficient federal oversight of the programs that administer the procurement process.
It noted: “Members of law enforcement cited the specific concern that police chiefs and those responsible for authorising the deployment of military-style equipment often lack proper training to understand when and how controlled equipment is most appropriately deployed.”
The additional training the White House plans to roll out for local law enforcement agencies, improving their knowledge of when and how to use equipment acquired from the Pentagon, is contingent upon Obama’s $263m spending request, which will require approval from the Republican-dominated Congress next year.
The Body Worn Camera Partnership Program proposed by Obama would provide a 50% match to states or localities that purchase body worn cameras and storage. Overall, the proposed $75m investment over three years could help purchase 50,000 body worn cameras, the White House said.
Missouri’s Democratic senator, Claire McCaskill, who led a congressional hearing into the militarisation of police in September, backed the White House announcement. “I’ve found widespread agreement that body cameras protect police and civilians alike,” she said, adding that she would work to prioritise federal funding for the program.
Since 2009, the federal government has provided almost $18bn in funds and resources to support programs that allow state and local law enforcement to acquire tactical equipment and resources.
The White House report detailed an enormous arsenal of almost half a million pieces of controlled property already loaned by the Pentagon to local police departments, including 92,442 small arms, 44,275 night vision devices, 5,235 humvees, 617 mine resistant ambush protected vehicles and 616 aircraft.
“We attended this meeting to make it clear to President Obama that we are in crisis, and police officers must be held accountable,” said Rasheen Aldridge, director of Young Activists United St Louis and one of several protesters who met with the president.
“It is a crisis when a Black American can get locked up for traffic fines, but police officers are rarely prosecuted for killing unarmed children. Black communities have suffered under racially biased policing and unconstitutional law enforcement policies for far too long.”