Rand Paul Quotes

Soldiers quartered in a populous town will always occasion two mobs where they prevent one. They are wretched conservators of the peace.

I don't think I've ever heard anybody in this Regime counsel restraint and advise, "No backlash against cops. We must maintain the order."

I think when you have Baltimore, which in the first night was practically wiped out or brought back 30 years. Because the police were instructed to stand down. You can't let that happen.

You also had in Detroit that summer, an early variation of Ferguson. A black prostitute was shot in the back by police. And all of the efforts that a very progressive police chief and mayor of that period had put into trying to restore race relations started to fall apart again, and you could see that unraveling for several years until the riots or rebellion of 1967.

We shall guard as zealously the rights of the striker as those of the employer. But when riot is menaced it is different. The mob takes its own chance. Order will be kept at whatever cost. If it comes to shooting we shall shoot to hit. No blank cartridges or firing over the head.

When violence strikes [riots], then those in public responsibility have an immediate ... job, not to analyze, but to end disorder.

I will not allow continued planned street violence between rival factions to take place on the streets of Portland.

I took over a city that had two riots in four years and I had none. And they knew they couldn't riot on me. And when I saw the people on the street in New York City, I said to myself, you're breaking Giuliani's rules. You don't take my streets. You can have my sidewalks, but you don't take my streets, because ambulances have to get through there, fire trucks have to get through there.

I think everybody understood what happened, why this consent decree came about after the Freddie Gray situation. There was tension on both sides.

The importance of making sure that the sense of accountability when, in fact, law enforcement is involved in a deadly shooting is something that I think communities across the board are going to need to consider, we have a great opportunity, 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.

The share of Americans who say race relations are bad in this country is the highest it's been in decades, much of it amplified by shootings of African-Americans by police, as we've seen recently in Charlotte and Tulsa.

You don't have good community relations in Chicago. It's terrible. I have property there. It's terrible what's going on in Chicago.

When I look at what's going on in Charlotte, a city I love, a city where I have investments, when I look at what's going on throughout various parts of our country, whether it's - I mean, I can just keep naming them all day long - we need law and order in our country.

When the American people saw the LA riots and crowds of Blacks cheering O.J. Simpson (who was acquitted by the almost all Black jury), they received a peek into their future.

It's certainly an interesting moment to try to talk about, 'cause you could make a great show about the police force right now, with all that's happening in the news and Ferguson and all of it.

You know, in our country lately we're more interested in protecting the criminals than we are in making sure that we're strong and powerful and know what we're doing.

You need better relationships between the communities and the police, because in some cases, it's not good.

We have to restore trust between communities and the police.

The kind of violence, looting, destruction that we saw from a handful of individuals in Baltimore, there's no excuse for that. That's not a statement. That's not politics. That's not activism. That's just criminal behavior.

I would certainly say that. I don't want to see riots. I don't want to see problems.

I think most Americans have an innate respect for the police and for their authority.

We have to bring back law and order in this country and I think the police are phenomenal people.

People are murdering each other without any recourse... So we need to get in our communities and work from the inside out.

I love cops. I think you have to walk in their shoes to understand, you know when they use violence, Michael Brown in Ferguson, a classic case.

There is no tougher job in America than being a cop on the beat in a major city in this country, big and brawling.