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Norton Says Obama’s Announcement of Body-Mounted Cameras and Nationwide Nonviolent Demonstrations Begin Period to Show Michael Brown Did Not Die in Vain

December 2, 2014


(Norton delivers a speech on the House floor about the Michael Brown tragedy - 12/1/14)


WASHINGTON, D.C. – Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC) today said that President Barack Obama's announcement yesterday begins reforms of local law enforcement that are a down payment on the plea of Michael Brown's father that his son should not die in vain. The President announced a three-year funding program to provide local police departments up to 50,000 body-mounted cameras. He also said that a forthcoming Executive Order (EO) will ensure that military surplus made available to local law enforcement through the 1033 program has a legitimate civilian law enforcement purpose, accompanied by strict training requirements made more transparent to the public. Norton said the Michael Brown tragedy cries out for an EO. In October, the District of Columbia Metropolitan Police Department launched a six-month pilot program using body-mounted, point-of-view cameras. Norton said that although the D.C. pilot program was arranged well before the Ferguson incident, she is pleased that D.C. law enforcement is well on its way to becoming an accountable and transparent 21st-century police force. In 2008, the Metropolitan Police Department received 500 AR-15 rifles through the 1033 program.

Last evening, Norton went on the House floor to ask that the big picture that emerged from the killing of Michael Brown not be lost in the disappointment over the failure to indict Officer Darren Wilson. Norton said, "The people in the streets are there to see that Michael Brown did not die in vain; that probable cause, once again, becomes color blind, to see that, when a young Black man goes into the street, he is not consistently and constantly profiled because of the color of his skin." Norton continued, "The provocative stops in the street – Eric Holder, a former U.S. Attorney, now the Attorney General of the United States, has been stopped in the streets of the nation's capital. When my son goes into the streets, he is Michael Brown. We want an America that when he goes into the street, he is like everybody else until he does something wrong and there is probable cause to show it."

Norton mentioned Obama's $75 million request for funding of body-mounted cameras as an indication that Brown's death can produce action that has national effects on the issue of profiling that has been seething below the surface with no outlet for remedial action.