Racial Profiling Roundtable Leads Norton To Introduce Bill to Create Local Task Forces on 21st Century Policing To Match President’s Task Force
WASHINGTON, D.C.—Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC), co-chair of the Congressional Caucus on Black Men and Boys, said that today's Caucus roundtable on President Obama's Task Force on 21st Century Policing report, released yesterday, has already yielded some ideas after testimony from Task Force co-chair and Philadelphia Police Commissioner Charles "Chuck" Ramsey. As a result of testimony by Commissioner Ramsey and Howard University Student Government President Leighton Watson, Norton proposed replicating the federal Task Force's mission at the local level across the country. She will introduce a bill to provide grants to local police departments to create local Task Forces on 21st Century Policing to bring police, representatives of the community, and public officials together to identify issues in their own communities, best policing practices for local police, and other ways to strengthen relations between the community and police departments.
"The only way we can really address racial profiling in the Unites States is by getting local police departments to work with the communities they serve to improve relations, with each party taking ownership of the issues and then proceeding to implement best policing practices," Norton said. "Since every local jurisdiction has unique needs and circumstances, local task forces can be instrumental in exposing patterns of racial profiling, and getting buy-in on recommendations that can lead to meaningful reform."