President to share post-Ferguson policing ideas
President Obama's speech in Camden on Monday will focus largely on that city's improvements in policing and crime reduction, but it also will touch on several federal initiatives aimed at improving policing nationwide.
President Obama's speech in Camden on Monday will focus largely on that city's improvements in policing and crime reduction, but it also will touch on several federal initiatives aimed at improving policing nationwide.
Among them is the release of the final report of the 21st Century Policing Task Force, chaired by Philadelphia Police Commissioner Charles H. Ramsey.
The report's recommendations revolve around helping departments to build community trust, improve diversity on their forces, and increase transparency in use-of-force incidents. Among dozens of other suggestions, it calls for allowing independent prosecutors to investigate police shootings, training officers to recognize and minimize bias, and granting civilians some oversight of their communities' police departments.
On Monday, Obama will announce federal programs to help departments implement the recommendations, the White House said Sunday in a statement.
After the task force's interim report - which is almost identical to the final version - was released earlier this year, Ramsey said he supported all of its recommendations and was working to put them in place as quickly as possible.
On Monday, the Department of Justice's Office of Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) will launch a grant program that will provide funding for police departments to adopt those recommendations.
The COPS office will partner with national police organizations such as the International Association of Chiefs of Police, the National Organization of Black Law Enforcement Executives, and the Police Executive Research Forum to launch countrywide projects that dovetail with the report's recommendations.
The White House said Obama plans to highlight a number of other policing initiatives designed to increase transparency and spread the practice of community policing. Philadelphia is participating in many of those initiatives, including an open-data project that will release previously sealed information on officer-involved shootings and police stops.
The president is expected to touch on a new report on federal programs that have transferred military-grade equipment to local law enforcement agencies - one that recommends improved checks and more serious federal oversight over such transfers. The report concluded that the federal government should completely prohibit the transfer of items such as grenade launchers and .50-caliber or higher firearms, and heavily control equipment such as specialized firearms, explosives and riot gear.
Law enforcement agencies that want to receive such items from the federal government should be required to provide training for its officers, adopt "robust and specific written policies" on community policing, and provide "a clear and persuasive explanation for the need of the equipment."
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