On Monday, President Obama commented on his meeting with the Task Force on 21st Century Policing, which was created through executive order, saying the moment is nigh to "seize [the] opportunity" created in the wake of events like Ferguson to fundamentally "transform" law enforcement and policing standards across the nation.
"We have a great opportunity," Obama said, "coming out of some great conflict and tragedy, to really transform how we think about community law enforcement relations so that everybody feels safer and our law enforcement officers feel, rather than being embattled, feel fully supported."
"We need to seize that opportunity," he added.
The Department of Justice's Ron Davis serves as the executive director of the president's task force. In an official White House release, he stated:
Over the past few months, this Administration, with assistance from the Task Force, has helped to foster a national dialogue on 21st Century Policing. The President has hosted law enforcement, youth advocates, elected officials, and community leaders at the White House to hear from them directly, while Task Force members engaged with a variety of stakeholders and constituency groups, and Attorney General Eric Holder held roundtables with community leaders and law enforcement officials across the country. The Task Force also conducted public hearings in several locations across the country and received testimony from more than 100 witnesses.
Davis notes that the recommendations that resulted from this "dialogue" will be passed on to the 18,000 state and local law enforcement agencies around the nation. Some of these recommendations include programs that would promote "positive interactions between police and communities," as well as "new technologies" that would "enhance public trust." These steps are aimed at officers in order to train them how to "avoid provocative tactics" and to "prioritize de-escalation" during crowd control situations as was witnessed after the Michael Brown and Eric Garner decisions, as well as the various "black lives matter" protests held across America.
Davis writes:
As a former police executive, an African American, and father of a 17-year-old son, I am profoundly optimistic about the progress we are poised to make as a result of the Task Force’s recommendations and growing support from community leaders, law enforcement, state and local officials. Today’s report will help to ensure that our communities are safer places for current and future generations, where a culture of trust between police and the communities they are sworn to serve only grows over time.
The entire report can be viewed here, but some interesting recommendations are noted below:
- All federal, state, local, and tribal law enforcement agencies should report and make available to the public census data regarding the composition of their departments including race, gender, age, and other relevant demographic data.
- The Federal Government should create a Law Enforcement Diversity Initiative designed to help communities diversify law enforcement departments to reflect the demographics of the community.
- Discretionary federal funding for law enforcement programs could be influenced by that department’s efforts to improve their diversity and cultural and linguistic responsiveness.
- Policies on use of force should also require agencies to collect, maintain, and report data to the Federal Government on all officer-involved shootings, whether fatal or nonfatal, as well as any in-custody death.
- The Federal Government should create a mechanism for investigating complaints and issuing sanctions regarding the inappropriate use of equipment and tactics during mass demonstrations.
- Law enforcement agencies should establish search and seizure procedures related to LGBTQ and transgender populations and adopt as policy the recommendation from the President’s HIV/AIDS Task Force to cease using the possession of condoms as the sole evidence of vice.
One detail was added under discriminatory practices from two of the "hundreds of witnesses":
The task force heard from a number of witnesses about the importance of protecting the safety and dignity of all people. Andrea Ritchie noted that
Gender and sexuality-specific forms of racial profiling and discriminatory policing [include] . . . . Failure to respect individuals’ gender identity and expression when addressing members of the public and during arrest processing, searches, and placement in police custody.Invasive searches should never be used for the sole purpose of determining gender identity, and an individual’s gender identity should be respected in lock-ups and holding cells to the extent that the facility allows for gender segregation. And witness Linda Sarsour spoke to how an issue plaguing and deeply impacting Arab-American and American Muslim communities across the country is racial and religious profiling by local, state, and federal law enforcement. We have learned through investigative reports, Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests, and lawsuits that agencies target communities by religion and national origin.
In his concluding remarks, President Obama called on the media to applaud the task force's findings, requesting it not be turned into "a political football":
I expect our friends in the media to really focus on what’s in this report and pay attention to it. So often we see an event that's flashy; it makes the news; people are crying out for solutions. And by the time recommendations are put forward, our focus has moved on and we don't actually see and pay attention to the concrete ways that we can improve the situation. This is a moment where a lot of work has been done. There’s some good answers to be had if we don't make this a political football or sensationalize it, but rather really focus on getting the job done.
