{"id":19045,"date":"2015-10-27T16:41:00","date_gmt":"2015-10-27T21:41:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/news.medill.northwestern.edu\/chicago\/?p=19045"},"modified":"2015-10-27T19:30:52","modified_gmt":"2015-10-28T00:30:52","slug":"obama-calls-for-cop-reform-support-and-tougher-gun-laws","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.medill.northwestern.edu\/chicago\/obama-calls-for-cop-reform-support-and-tougher-gun-laws\/","title":{"rendered":"Obama calls for police reform, support \u2014 and tougher gun laws"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>By Steve Musal<\/p>\n<p class=\"dropcap\">President Barack Obama, addressing the International Association of Chiefs of Police conference in Chicago today, focused on the need to support and reform law enforcement and ended his speech with a call for tougher gun laws.<\/p>\n<div id=\"related\">\n<p style=\"padding: 10px 0px 10px 0px;\">Police chiefs, civil rights leaders talk violence, building relationships. <a href=\"http:\/\/news.medill.northwestern.edu\/chicago\/police-chiefs-civil-rights-leaders-talk-violence-building-relationships\/\" target=\"_blank\"> Full Story.<\/a> <\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>\u201cI reject any narrative that seeks to divide police and the communities they serve,\u201d Obama said. \u201cI reject a storyline that says when it comes to public safety there\u2019s an &#8216;us&#8217; and a &#8216;them.&#8217; \u201d<\/p>\n<p>His remarks closely mirrored <a href=\"http:\/\/news.medill.northwestern.edu\/chicago\/police-chiefs-civil-rights-leaders-talk-violence-building-relationships\/\" target=\"_blank\">a preceding panel of civil rights leaders and police officials<\/a>, who also talked about the need for\u00a0 more conversations around police-community relations.<br \/>\n<!--more--><br \/>\n\u201cI am confident that in this debate people of goodwill can and should find common ground,\u201d Obama said. \u201cWe work together best when we\u2019re willing to understand one another.\u201d<\/p>\n<div class=\"quoteright\">&#8216;I refuse to believe that the only choice that we have is to ignore circumstances of racial bias or make it impossible for police officers to do their job.&#8217;<\/div>\n<p>The president&#8217;s speech at McCormick Place has particular relevance here in Chicago, where the number of shooting victims so far in 2015 is set to eclipse 2014, according to a <a href=\"http:\/\/crime.chicagotribune.com\/chicago\/shootings\" target=\"_blank\">Chicago Tribune shooting victims database.<\/a><\/p>\n<p>The president said he wanted to focus on three things in his speech:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Making sure officers have resources to fight crime.<\/li>\n<li>Reforming the criminal justice system to be smarter and more fair.<\/li>\n<li>Reducing risk to officers in the field with \u201ccommon-sense gun safety reforms.\u201d<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<figure id=\"attachment_19072\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-19072\" style=\"width: 400px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-19072\" src=\"http:\/\/news.medill.northwestern.edu\/chicago\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2015\/10\/task-force-.jpg\" alt=\"Task Force Report Cover\" width=\"400\" srcset=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/medill.wordpress.offload\/WP%20Media%20Folder%20-%20medill-reports-chicago\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2015\/10\/task-force-.jpg 512w, https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/medill.wordpress.offload\/WP%20Media%20Folder%20-%20medill-reports-chicago\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2015\/10\/task-force--260x300.jpg 260w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 512px) 100vw, 512px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-19072\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Cover of the task force on policing implementation guide released by the Department of Justice on Oct. 27.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>He repeatedly stressed the need for training, both for officer and community safety.<\/p>\n<p>The president also discussed his proposal to Congress to continue funding the Department of Justice\u2019s Community Oriented Policing Services office, which <a href=\"http:\/\/www.cops.usdoj.gov\/policingtaskforce\" target=\"_blank\">released a report today<\/a> regarding improving police and community relationships.<\/p>\n<p>Overall reform for the criminal justice system, especially as regards communities of color, is also on Obama\u2019s agenda.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe can\u2019t have a situation where a big chunk of the population feels the system isn\u2019t working for them,\u201d the president said. \u201cAt the same time, we can\u2019t have a situation where law enforcement gets scapegoated for the broader failures of society and our criminal justice system.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The president said his long-term goal is to target the racial and economic disparities which lead to crime, and boost social programs to deal with those disparities at the root.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s not enough to tell our young people that crime doesn\u2019t pay if they\u2019ve got no prospects at all.\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>Reforming the criminal justice system, the president said, also means addressing overcrowded prisons and reducing or eliminating mandatory minimum sentences for drug crimes.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt is possible for us to come up with strategies that effectively reduce the damage of the drug trade without relying solely on incarceration,\u201d Obama said.<\/p>\n<p>Addressing violence between police and civilians, the president said the public tends to focus on police misconduct, but the feeling in many communities that law enforcement is not applied fairly did not just come out of nowhere. The racial disparity in law enforcement, he said, is a very real conversation that the country needs to have.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe data shows that this is not an aberration,\u201d Obama said.<\/p>\n<p>Building understanding and relationships with communities \u2014 before a crime takes place or a crisis erupts \u2014 is the key to safety for both police and the public, Obama said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI refuse to believe that the only choice that we have is to ignore circumstances of racial bias or make it impossible for police officers to do their job,&#8221; he said. &#8220;We\u2019ve got to reject that false choice.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The president&#8217;s final point, gun control, received wide applause, possibly because Obama spoke in terms of the danger to police officers.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s risky enough responding to a domestic violence call or a burglary in progress without having to wonder if the suspect is armed to the teeth, maybe has better weapons than you do,\u201d Obama said. \u201cThe fact is that in states with high gun ownership, police officers are three times more likely to be murdered than in states with low gun ownership.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Defending his point against those who\u2019ve used Chicago\u2019s spike in gun violence to criticize gun safety reforms, the president pointed to <a href=\"http:\/\/www.cityofchicago.org\/dam\/city\/depts\/mayor\/Press%20Room\/Press%20Releases\/2014\/May\/05.27.14TracingGuns.pdf\" target=\"_blank\">a recent report from the Chicago Police Department<\/a> that said 60 percent of guns used in crimes come from out of state.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt is easier in some communities to find a gun than it is to find some fresh vegetables at the supermarket,\u201d Obama said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAbout 400,000 Americans have been shot and killed by guns since 9\/11,\u201d the president continued. \u201cThat\u2019s like losing the entire population of Cleveland or Minneapolis over the past 14 years, and I refuse to accept the notion that we couldn\u2019t have prevented some of those murders, some of those suicides, kept more families whole, protected more officers, if we had passed some common-sense laws.\u201d<\/p>\n<div class=\"featurecaption\">Photo at top:\u00a0President Barack Obama addresses a packed house at the International Association of Police Chiefs conference Oct. 27, 2015. The president spoke on police-community interaction, training and the need for tougher gun laws. (Jasmine Cen\/Medill)<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Steve Musal President Barack Obama, addressing the International Association of Chiefs of Police conference in Chicago today, focused on the need to support and reform law enforcement and ended his speech with a call for tougher gun laws. Police chiefs, civil rights leaders talk violence, building relationships. Full Story. \u201cI reject any narrative that [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":159,"featured_media":19063,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[509,30],"tags":[192],"class_list":["post-19045","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-fall-2015","category-public-affairs","tag-promo"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.6 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Obama calls for police reform, support \u2014 and tougher gun laws - Medill Reports Chicago<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/news.medill.northwestern.edu\/chicago\/obama-calls-for-cop-reform-support-and-tougher-gun-laws\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Obama calls for police reform, support \u2014 and tougher gun laws - Medill Reports Chicago\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"By Steve Musal President Barack Obama, addressing the International Association of Chiefs of Police conference in Chicago today, focused on the need to support and reform law enforcement and ended his speech with a call for tougher gun laws. 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