Police Transparency Quotes

Calling for police reform is not calling for police retribution.

Justice must be done in investigating the tragic death of Mr. Freddie Gray. His family deserves our deepest sympathy and respect for their loss, and our admiration for their courage in calling us, as a city, to act as our better selves.

Who will protect the public when the police violate the law?

How can I make a movie about the violence of the police if the police aren't going to let me film it?

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.

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.

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

I have a problem with the way the media deals with a lot of law enforcement issues.

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.

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

What the police in their ignorance have not figured out is that they have lost all credibility since World War II. They are sort of parasites on the fringe of society and do no particular good for anyone except possibly themselves.

The United States isn't a dictatorship ruling with a brutal army and an iron fist, so our police departments must understand that they are there to serve and protect us - all of us. And when they do commit crimes, they must be arrested and prosecuted like anyone else, bottom line.

I don't support defunding the police.

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.

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.

I don't want the books to become PR exercises for the police; I want to have the freedom to write about cops who cross the line: bad cops.

There have to be consequences for police who take the law into their own hands. There has to be a shift in the use-of-force policies that are used in departments across the country.

The police are paid by the public and carry a public trust, and they take an oath to protect us as citizens. The police have lost sight of that and must be reminded that we pay them to protect us, not to simply engage and cage us.

If you get arrested, you're supposed to know why you're arrested. So, Freddie Gray should have known why he was arrested. His friends, his family, his community, they should have known what he was charged with, why he was arrested. And the police should have come out with that right away.

Let me be clear: as I have said repeatedly, I do not believe that all police officers are bad, nor do I believe that most are bad. But there must be a transparent, impartial and fair system to judge those that engage in criminal or unethical acts.

The police belongs to the people and the people belong to the police.

Building trust between law enforcement officers and the communities we serve is one of my highest priorities as attorney general.

There's more we can do as a community to try to change what policing looks like in our cities.

The N.Y.P.D. does not use police officers in any capacity to distribute misinformation.

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.