Thom Tillis Quotes

Every American expects and deserves the protection of law enforcement that is effective, responsive, respectful and, most importantly, constitutional.

There is nothing just or fair about what happened to Jordan Edwards. And his story is yet another in a long line of tragedies that now powerfully remind us of the long way we still have to go in creating a fair and just relationship between law enforcement, our criminal justice system, and the public our laws are supposed to protect.

The worst teacher in America could never do as much damage as the worst police officer in America. But the right wing has never even been slightly curious about evaluating the job performance of police officers.

I don't understand it and haven't understood in this world of technology: where every building has a camera, every ATM has a camera, why don't we have cameras on police officers?

There's no book to figure out how not to become a victim of police brutality.

Michael Brown's death and the suffocation of Eric Garner in New York for selling untaxed cigarettes indicate something is wrong with criminal justice in America.

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.

The world for our law enforcement community has changed dramatically: everything from filling out paperwork to relationships with the community and how they think the narrative is in the media.

The way police do what they do is under the microscope. You've got people on the one side saying, 'We need to be holding our police accountable.' And you've got a lot of people who support the police saying they're being 'unfairly vilified.'

In millions of encounters each year between the police and the public, it may be too much to expect that every officer will always get it right. But it is not too much to expect that we can put the right safeguards in place to hold officers accountable when they get it wrong.

There is no such thing as a bad cop, only disturbing and dominant cop thinking that will invariably lead to excessive force and tragic outcomes.

I've spent my life in the police profession, and I'm proud of that. But I am also very cognizant of the profession's limitations, its potential for abuse, and its potential negative impact.

There's a bigger percentage of good cops than bad cops. But the bad cops should be penalised like regular people.

I know a lot of police officers who are on the force to do the right thing to protect people. But how can you deny this pattern, this disturbing pattern, Alton Sterling, Mr. Castile in my own community, Philando Castile, but then Tamir Rice, Mike Brown, Eric Garner, Sandra Bland?

I think the only thing that's really going to make a change in terms of how we feel as citizens in terms of safety and our relationship with the police is if we start seeing more federal indictments, arrests, and convictions of police officers.

To indiscriminately cast all law enforcement as enemies of our communities is to engage in an attempt to divide our nation by turning Americans against each other.

I think police brutality has been going on since - I don't know - ever since I can remember and, you know, hearing about it in my childhood.

This is the problem with the United States: there's no leadership. A leader would say, 'Police brutality is an oxymoron. There are no brutal police. The minute you become brutal you're no longer police.' So, what, we're not dealing with police. We're dealing with a federally authorized gang.

Why wouldn't the police officers be on edge? Why wouldn't they be alert? And why wouldn't people in the community trust police officers? Because they are consistently harassing them, and they have experience with police officers doing awful things.

While bad cops should face the full consequence of the law, the overwhelming majority of good cops have earned our support.

I do not think that we have a systemic racism problem with law enforcement officers across this country.

There's good cops and bad cops, and the good cops have to hold the bad cops accountable. We have to hold the bad cops accountable, too.

I'll be honest with you: I think that it's really difficult, this framing around 'good cops' and 'bad cops.' Policing, as a system, is incredibly corrupt, period.

The encounters I had were very few, but they were powerful. The negative encounters I've had with law enforcement were very few, but they stood out.

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