Instead, the president is asking Congress for funding to buy 50,000 body cameras to record events like the shooting death in Ferguson of unarmed 18-year-old Michael Brown and look for ways to build trust and confidence between police and minority communities nationwide. He announced the creation of a task force to study success stories and recommend ways the government can support those goals.
With protests continuing in Ferguson and across the country, Obama spoke to reporters at the end of a White House meeting with police, civil rights activists and local leaders. He acknowledged the participants told him little has come of past task forces on the issue.
“Part of the reason this time will be different is because the president of the United States is deeply invested in making sure that this time is different,” Obama said.
He said he was upset to hear the young people in the meeting describe their experiences with police, adding, “It violates my belief in what America can be to hear young people feeling marginalized and distrustful even after they’ve done everything right.”
Obama is proposing a three-year, $263 million spending package to expand training for law enforcement and add more resources for police department reform, including $75 million to help pay for 50,000 of the small, lapel-mounted cameras to record police on the job. State and local governments would be expected to pay half the cost..
Brown’s family wants to see every police officer working the streets wearing a body camera. The Rev. Al Sharpton told reporters he would convey to Brown’s parents what had occurred in the meeting and expressed confidence it would bring change because Obama put his “full weight behind it.”
Cameras potentially could help resolve the type of disputes between police and witnesses that arose in the Ferguson shooting. Some witnesses have said Brown had his hands up when Wilson shot him; Wilson said Brown hit him and reached for his gun, causing him to fear for his life. But there are issues to be worked out — including privacy concerns for police, suspects, victims and bystanders; legal questions over who has access to the recordings; and training to make sure officers are using the cameras and don’t have them turned off at critical moments.
The White House said those are the types of concerns that could be addressed by Obama’s newly created Task Force on 21st Century Policing. It is being co-chaired by Philadelphia Police Commissioner Charles H. Ramsey and Laurie Robinson, a professor at George Mason University and former assistant attorney general at the Justice Department.
After the Brown shooting and resulting protests in August, critics questioned why police in full body armor with armored trucks responded to dispel demonstrators. Obama seemed to sympathize when ordering a review of the federal programs that provide the surplus military equipment.
“There is a big difference between our military and our local law enforcement and we don’t want those lines blurred,” Obama said in August.
White House press secretary Josh Earnest said the president concluded he does not want to try to repeal the programs, authorized by Congress, because they have proven to be useful in many cases. He cited the response to the Boston Marathon bombing.
“But it is not clear that there is a consistency with regard to the way that these programs are implemented, structured and audited, and that’s something that needs to be addressed,” Earnest said.
The White House review shows the wide scope of the programs — $18 billion in the past five years from five federal agencies, including the departments of Defense, Justice, Homeland Security and Treasury, plus the Office of National Drug Control Policy. The report says most of the equipment the programs provide are routine — like office furniture, computers and basic firearms — but about 460,000 pieces of equipment primarily used for military purposes have been provided to local police, including 92,442 small arms, 44,275 night-vision devices, 5,235 Humvees, 617 mine-resistant vehicles and 616 aircraft.
Obama said he will issue an executive order that will require federal agencies that run the programs to consult with law enforcement and civil rights and civil liberties organizations and recommend changes within four months to make sure the programs are accountable and transparent.
“We’re going to make sure that we’re not building a militarized culture inside our local law enforcement,” Obama said.
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