Excerpt
GWEN IFILL (NewsHour): When Ferguson, Missouri, erupted after the police-involved shooting of an unarmed black teenager, the rift between the town and its protectors was laid bare. Ferguson is not the only community forced to bridge that chasm.
Today, the Justice Department announced a nearly $5 million plan, the National Initiative for Building Community Trust and Justice, designed to better train police departments against bias and examine law enforcement procedures. The approach is known as community policing.
We are joined by two people who have studied it for years.
Tracie Keesee is the co-founder of the UCLA Center for Policing Equity, which is receiving some of the Justice Department funding. She’s also a 25-year police veteran. And Ronald Hampton, former executive director of the National Black Police Association and for more than two decades a community relations office for the Metropolitan Police Department in Washington, D.C. He now teaches criminal justice at the University of the District of Columbia.
Welcome to you both.
Tracie Keesee, today, the attorney general said that the goal of this new initiative is to ensure fairness, eliminate bias and build community engagement. You were there today at that announcement. Maybe you can tell us what exactly that means.
TRACIE KEESEE, Center for Policing Equity: Well, what it means is that the consortium that they have put together under the initiative, under the initiative, will look at and work with five different cities to actually enact and evaluate those five things that he’s pointed out.
No comments:
Post a Comment