Police Reforms
Floor Speech
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Mr. DURBIN. Madam President, as chairman of the Senate Committee on the Judiciary, I am responsible for legislation in the Senate relative to law enforcement and criminal justice. It is an awesome responsibility, and I think about it quite a bit because the first thing all of us want is the safety of our families and our communities. It is the first question asked: How safe is that area of Chicago? How safe is that part of Springfield? It is a reality, and it is a natural reaction.
I have had, during the course of my congressional career, the opportunity to meet many of the men and women in law enforcement. Let me tell you, there are some outstanding people who literally get up in the morning and put on that badge and risk their lives. They go out for just a routine traffic stop, and they could end up dead. That is the reality of police work in a dangerous world, particularly in a world awash with guns, as we are in the United States.
Having said that, acknowledging that reality, I also know that there are cops who are doing terrible things. That was brought home to America vividly over the last several days. You see, videotapes and DNA evidence have changed our conversation about law enforcement and justice. We now know just what happened--not an account of what happened; we know what happened. We see it on videotapes over and over and over again. And we know sometimes that people who have been found guilty of crimes and are serving long sentences--it turns out the DNA evidence proves it couldn't possibly have been them who were responsible. It is a gross miscarriage of justice for the person who is incarcerated--and even worse, the fact that the person who is culpable, blamable, who should be prosecuted, may somewhere be on the loose. Videotape and DNA have changed it.
Many Americans are struggling with feelings of grief and disbelief after they watched the videotapes of Tyre Nichols being beaten to death by a group of Memphis police officers.
Mr. Nichols, a 29-year-old father of a young son, worked the second shift at a FedEx facility with his stepfather. He loved skateboarding and photography. He loved his mother so much, he had her name tattooed on his arm. He had no criminal record. One friend told a reporter Mr. Nichols was even thinking about being a police officer to try to make the system better from the inside.
The videotapes of the deadly assault on Mr. Nichols by Memphis police officers on January 7 are horrific and sickening. They show at least five officers attacking Mr. Nichols with their fists, boots, batons, Tasers, and pepper spray, while yelling contradictory orders to him. They continued pummeling Mr. Nichols even as he screamed in pain, begged them to stop, and called out for his mother. One officer kicked him in the head so hard that the officer was limping afterwards.
When the beating was over, another officer propped an apparently unconscious Tyre Nichols up against the side of the squad car while the others laughed, fist-bumped, and tried to justify their awful behavior.
It took 20 minutes for an ambulance to arrive, even longer for medical aid to be rendered. Tyre Nichols died 3 days later in a Memphis hospital. An independent autopsy revealed he had ``suffered extensive bleeding caused by a severe beating.''
The killing of Tyre Nichols follows years of devastating tragedies and needless loss. Who can ever forget George Floyd? When I saw the videotape of what happened to him and saw that policeman with his knee on his neck stare straight at the camera--I will never forget that. Or Breonna Taylor, shot in her apartment.
In my own home State of Illinois, Laquan McDonald. A videotape that was held back from the public for over a year finally was brought to light, and people saw that he was shot in the back repeatedly, over and over again. There are so many others. For George Floyd, he was murdered as he lay on a curb in Minneapolis. Tyre Nichols was chased down and beaten to death.
Black Americans in particular are forced to live through trauma with every new incident of police violence.
I applaud the Shelby County district attorney for moving swiftly in seeking the indictment of the five police officers. A sixth officer connected to the incident was suspended today.
I agree with the attorney for Mr. Nichols' family, Ben Crump, that the response by prosecutors could be a ``blueprint'' for how such cases should be handled in the future if, inevitably, there are such cases.
We shouldn't wait for months to bring charges. There is no excuse for delayed justice when the heinous acts occur and the facts are as clear as the videotape.
I also want to extend my deepest condolences to Mr. Nichols' family, especially his mom and his stepfather, who have responded with dignity and grace to this unimaginable ordeal.
Before the videotapes were released, they called repeatedly for protests to be peaceful. I would like to think that I would have the strength to do that, having just lost my son in those circumstances, but the Nichols family did, and throughout our Nation, almost without exception, their wishes have been respected.
But prosecutions and peaceful protests cannot be the only response to this tragedy. Americans--especially Black Americans--are exhausted by the injustice of officers who abuse their authority. They are tired of the systemic failures that can lead to a young man being beaten to death after a questionable traffic stop.
As chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, I am committed to working with my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to finally confront these problems with meaningful legislation.
We need to have an honest conversation with law enforcement officers about screening, training, inherent bias, use of force, and consequences for unjust actions.
We need to prohibit deadly and dishonorable police misconduct. We must recruit and train the next generation of law enforcement to protect and serve everyone in America: Black, White, Brown, and everything in between.
We have made some very modest progress. Last December, Congress enacted and the President signed a bill on law enforcement deescalation training. It provides for grants and training for law enforcement deescalation tactics. It is not enough. We must do more.
In the last Congress, Senator Cory Booker of New Jersey led an effort to build bipartisan support for policing reform legislation that national police groups and civil rights advocates could endorse. He worked with Tim Scott, a Republican Senator from South Carolina.
They invited me and Senator Lindsey Graham into their deliberations. They were close to making some progress toward our goals, but even if you look at their goals, which I believe were good, they are not enough. Simply to say we are going to ban choke holds or we are going to deal with warrantless searches in a different way doesn't get to the heart of the issue. What is in the mind of these policemen when they are executing their job, doing their duty? Is it the right way to approach things?
These efforts must continue now anew. We owe it to all of the families who have lost loved ones in these horrible acts of brutality and to the families who fear that their loved ones could be next to pass a law that will help ensure justice and accountability in our policing system.
The vast majority of law enforcement officers are appalled and angered by the deaths of Mr. Nichols and others. They deserve our thanks, and I believe they will support bipartisan efforts to prevent such abuses and punish those who commit them.
As I mentioned, Tyre Nichols loved photography. He loved photographing the world as he saw it. One of his favorite images--which appears again and again in his photos--was the image of a bridge. It is time for Members of the Senate to bridge our differences and pass policing reform so that Tyre Nichols' death will not have been in vain.
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