Norton Says South Carolina Police Shooting Response Shows Impact of National Racial Profiling Demonstrations, Calls on Congress to Pass Her Bill Encouraging Best Police Practices
WASHINGTON, D.C.—Following the tragic shooting death of an unarmed man, Walter Scott, in North Charleston, South Carolina by a police officer, who has been charged with murder, Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC) today said as soon as Congress returns from recess it should take up legislation to equip police officers with body cameras and to pass her bill to establish a grant program from existing Department of Justice funds to create local Task Forces on 21st Century Policing. Norton's bill would encourage local police to work with the communities they serve to establish partnerships and tailor best policing practices to each community. Norton got the idea for the bill during a Congressional Caucus on Black Men and Boys racial profiling roundtable she hosted in March focusing on President Obama's Task Force on 21st Century Policing report, which recommended a number of best police practices.
"I extend my deepest sympathies to Walter Scott's family as they struggle to get through this tragedy," Norton said. "This incident was an example of the worst police practices, but the immediate response by authorities to arrest the officer and charge him with murder was the best outcome under these circumstances. North Charleston Mayor Keith Summey has not only met with the Scott family to express his condolences, but I was pleased to see him announce today that he is ordering 150 body cameras in addition to the 101 cameras the North Charleston Police Department already ordered so that every officer on the street will wear one. Without the Good Samaritan bystander, we would have been left with the officer's now discredited explanation for the shooting. Still, we must ask, how many more police shootings of unarmed Americans will it take before this Congress and local communities institute best practices? The President's Task Force on 21st Century Policing Report cited a randomized study that found ‘officers wearing the cameras had 87.5 percent fewer incidents of use of force and 59 percent fewer complaints than the officers not wearing the cameras.' The combination of integrating technological advances and establishing best police practices through local task forces could lead to dramatically improved policing reforms that increase officer accountability and establish trust between law enforcement and the communities they serve. If local law enforcement follows the best practices that have been under discussion since the Michael Brown killing in Ferguson, shootings by police officers would greatly diminish and almost surely eliminate the shooting of an unarmed individual in the back who was attempting to run away."