Law Enforcement Accountability Quotes

There are always risks in challenging excessive police power, but the risks of not challenging it are more dangerous, even fatal.

Every bullet fired from the barrel of a police pistol was my bullet. If you call that murder, then I am the murderer.

It is always possible that occasional individuals may have overstepped the law and humanity in treatment of criminals and those charged with crime, and if so, they should be severely punished.

There is police brutality. People of color have been targeted by police.

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?

The disturbing video taken by Keith Lamont Scott's wife showing the moment her husband was killed by police in Charlotte provides a sobering window into the high level of compliance that people of color feel they need to maintain in their interactions with police.

The people who get the ability to use force have to be watched carefully by civilians to make sure they don't use it excessively.

The most personal thing I've put in [Touch of Evil] is my hatred of the abuse of police power. It's better to see a murderer go free than for a policeman to abuse his power.

A lot of police shootings are justified, but many others are not.

I believe very firmly that dash cams and body cams should be instituted for every single police officer in this country. Admit it, isn't it true that you behave differently when people are watching you? You chew with your mouth closed and you mind your table manners because people are watching. Cops are no different. Dash cams and body cams should be standard operating procedure.

What stands out to me in America was all the police vs. citizens turmoil. It's decades of bad policing, bad schooling, racism, bigotry and other factors finally spilling into mainstream culture. I would like to see America evolve on how the laws are enforced on the streets.

It sounds terribly cynical, but the real surprise in the Philando Castile case is not that the officer was acquitted but that he was charged at all. The prosecutors in the case deserve great credit for even trying. But no one should be shocked about how it turned out.

The problem is not cop killers...it's killer cops.

There are over 100 law enforcement agencies in the Federal government. A few years ago the House had a hearing on this and they couldn’t find all of them.

When people are breaking the law, they don’t get an invitation to the White House. They ought to be getting an invitation to the big house... This is just an anathema to everything that the civil rights movement was truly all about and what it accomplished.

I intend to introduce legislation that will make police accountable for their actions and limit uses of force in cases where it is unnecessary.

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

We need an idiot middle ground, where we have to be honest and say, kids can be idiots and cops can be idiots.

I have never paid a policeman myself. I have never sanctioned, knowingly sanctioned, a payment to a police officer.

We don't classify all doctors as incompetent because of the infrequent instances of medical malpractice. We don't use the example of one bad teacher in our children's school to draw a negative conclusion of the entire teaching profession. We should apply that same rational standard when it comes to how we view law enforcement.

We've prosecuted police, dozens of them over the years.

We have contradictory expectations of police: We want to be perfectly safe and perfectly free. We want total security and total privacy. We want the bad guys stopped and the good guys unmolested. That's great for the consumer; try providing it.

Michael Brown and Eric Garner died because they got into a confrontation that could have been easily avoided. That's what made their deaths so tragic.

I had this radical idea that the police should obey the law. My view was that any human system without adequate checks and balances will tend towards corruption and abuse. That's why you have meat inspectors. Not because you hate butchers, but because of an understanding of human nature.

I can't see how an unarmed man rejecting a drug deal ended up dead.