Cal Cunningham Quotes

There is insufficient support for the police and safety and law enforcement, in general, in the city council.

As mayor, I would support law enforcement, not knock it down.

I don't support defunding the police.

I think that a lot of these cops have been put in very difficult situations and tasked with very difficult jobs with very little training and very little help.

I do not support the idea of defunding police departments. I believe that it does nothing to solve the root problems we must address and it makes our communities less safe.

President Trump rightly points out that law enforcement is mostly made up of good people putting themselves in harm's way to protect us. He lauds the men and women in blue and often talks about the need to make it easier for the cops to do their jobs.

In order for us to respect law enforcement, it is necessary for law enforcement to respect us.

Police reform is working, and crime is falling.

There's a larger conversation we need to have about the role of police officers, their relationship to the people as enemy or executioner, when they're not supposed to be either.

There are those who profess to support law enforcement but who have attempted to undermine the efforts of hard-working officers who make difficult decisions.

Twenty-first century policing reform will require increased investment in law enforcement, not defunding it.

We are demanding police transparency and accountability so we can build trust and work together to make our communities safer.

For me, in trying to talk about something like policing, it's such a huge issue, and it's an issue that's very local and very personalized to communities, to cities, to legislators, and so, in that way, I think as we started looking into talking about policing, the thing that you realize is that you can't paint everything with the same brush.

I know there are those in the community who, rather than have us invest more in policing, even for community policing, instead want us to disinvest in the police department. We need a police department. We are going to have a police department.

Not every officer is a bad police. I work with police officers. I know first responders.

No, I absolutely do not support defunding the police. But it's clear we have been investing too much in force and need to reinvest in understanding and serving our communities.

If the police need more help to do their work, I will not hesitate in granting it to them.

Society questions the police and their methods, and the police say, Do you want the criminals off the street or not?

It seems to me that before we give federal funds to police departments, we ought to mandate that they have body cams.

We have to have a national conversation about how police forces should interact with the African-American community, who happens to be paying their salary, who want to be served and protected, who these officers are take an oath to do so.

It's an issue that we need to have a national discussion about, the militarization of local police forces, and then when they are used to quell peaceful demonstration. Then we have a problem, and especially around this entire case of the murder of Michael Brown at the hands of a Ferguson police officer.

What we need in our countries is a good police force with a civilian mentality and some cheap light arms, not an army that needs to maintain its power with sophisticated weapons

You are not going to put 100,000 police officers on the streets overnight and do the right job. To put them on the streets, to see that they're properly trained; you have to do it in an orderly way over a period of time.

We can define the rules of police-citizen engagement, but everyday decisions will always be made by men and women in uniform, on the street, in the community, under extreme pressure, in a dangerous world where guns easily fall into the wrong hands.

At a policy level, we can support protecting and serving as opposed to militarization or disproportionate response. Step one is making sure we don't militarize and actually call for a review of military equipment in New York police forces.