Sheriff David Clarke Jr., Milwaukee, Wis. County Sheriff's Office, testifies on Capitol Hill in Washington, Tuesday, May 19, 2015 House hearing on police turns ugly Partisan mudslinging breaks out, suggesting that lawmakers and cop-reform advocates have a long way to go to find agreement on new police standards.

House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte says he “will not rest until we make progress” on policing and criminal justice reform.

But the Virginia Republican’s initial public effort to build consensus quickly degenerated into partisan mudslinging on Tuesday, suggesting Goodlatte and reform advocates have a long way to go if they want to find consensus on new police standards or training.


In fact, the first of several planned Judiciary hearings on the rising tensions between cops and black communities turned ugly at times, trailing off into arguments about the use of the word “ghetto” and whether black-on-black crime should get more attention.

“I want us to get to the point where we lament the murder of a black female … at the hand of her abusive husband … just as much as if it was at the hand of a white cop,” said Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.), a former federal prosecutor.

Democrats on the panel, many of them African-Americans, spent their time seeking guidance from policing experts about what Congress should do to help and sharing personal stories of being stopped by the police. Republicans, meanwhile, lectured witnesses about the need for the public and Congress to respect local officers — or pointed the finger back at protesters critical of police.

For anyone looking to find agreement, Tuesday’s hearing was a rocky start. Goodlatte still has a long way to go to convince skeptical Republicans that federal policing reforms or new standards for local police departments are necessary. Still, Goodlatte, who’s been working on possible reforms with his panel’s top Democrat, John Conyers of Michigan, said he was going to press on.

“I want to assure all of you that the purpose of this hearing and the ongoing efforts following this hearing is to make sure we’re doing everything possible to address the problems that have arisen in recent months to make sure communities are safer, police officers are safer and our citizens’ rights are protected,” Goodlatte said. “We will not rest until we make progress.”

Despite Goodlatte’s measured tone, fiery rhetoric from a Wisconsin-based black sheriff stole the show. Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke blasted federal lawmakers for getting involved in police issues at all, arguing they are a local matter. Republicans, like conservative Rep. Trent Franks of Arizona, were quick to praise Clarke for his work; they asked him how officers are handling the political heat.

“Let’s leave that [police] conduct for the public to engage in, not … elected officials who can’t resist the opportunity to exploit the emotions of an uninformed or misinformed public simply for political gain,” Clarke said, before suggesting the root of current problems is “black underclass subculture behavior” that has little to do with police practices.

His comments came just a few seconds after Goodlatte and Conyers acknowledged in opening statements what they believe are troubling policing trends; both expressed concerns about the use of force, among other issues.

Since the recent Baltimore riots, Goodlatte and Conyers have been working together, inviting witnesses and talking about next steps. Goodlatte, for his part, was very careful at the hearing not to take sides, carefully walking a line to acknowledge a crisis of public confidence in policing but stop short of openly calling for new mandates on police departments.

The House hearing comes just a day after President Barack Obama released a new law enforcement framework, including new reporting standards and limits on police using military weapons. The program didn’t come up too often at the hearing, though Democrats who were asked about the measure praised the administration. Still, they want many of the changes codified in law — just in case a new White House goes in another direction.

By contrast, a Senate hearing on Tuesday was much more sedate. Soon-to-announce presidential contender Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) held a hearing focused specifically on body cameras — a meeting scheduled at the request of Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.), who’s pushing for more federal money for such technology. The panel’s exchanges looked nothing like those in the House, with senators drilling down into technicalities: when cameras should be turned on and off on the beat, how much they cost to store, when the public could request footage and how the government could be helpful.

Toward the end of the hearing, Graham asked all the witnesses if they thought it would be reasonable for Congress to create a grant program that included some sort of policing policy requirements that came with the funding. They all agreed.

Witnesses had a much more rough-and-tumble meeting in the House. Gowdy used his time to grill a witness for proposing that an independent prosecutor take the lead in bringing charges against cops.

Gowdy started by listing a number of strangers’ names, asking Deborah Ramirez, a Northeastern University professor advocating a number of new requirements for cops, if she was familiar with any of them. When Ramirez replied no, Gowdy told her that they were the names of some of the 340 South Carolina police officers killed in the line of duty.

He then pushed back against her recommendation for independent prosecutors, which she argued would alleviate the perception that police and district attorneys are in cahoots. “We have a process in place if you don’t think you can be fair: It’s called recusal,” Gowdy said.

He then took Ramirez to task for her assertion that blacks from poor communities often don’t get justice, noting that it could also be that it’s tough to get urban community dwellers to cooperate with investigations — “even after a drive-by shooting of an 8-year-old at a birthday party,” he yelled, reflecting on his own experience.

Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Texas) tried to defuse the tension by saying people in the room “may disagree” but “we don’t heal when we take each other’s pain lightly.” She urged the panel to “work together.”

But a bit later, Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) used his time to grill Susan Lee Rahr — who heads the Washington State Criminal Justice Training Commission and also sits on Obama’s policing task force — for saying there needs to be a philosophical change among officers: a move from viewing oneself as a “warrior” to a “guardian.”

“Was Baltimore a time when they should have been more of a warrior mentality, in the face of rock-throwing mobs?” King asked. He said it’s the protesters and rioters who need to be investigated, if anyone.

Against this backdrop, Democrats like Rep. Karen Bass of California talked about instances in which a relative, also black, was taken out of his car while driving in well-to-do areas and “stretched out on the ground and asked why he’s there.”

She blasted Clarke for calling black communities “ghettos,” saying doing so is insulting. And she told a story about a policeman saying black people die in chokeholds because their neck veins are different from those of white people.

Another African-American Democrat, Rep. Cedric Richmond of Louisiana, talked about being stopped for a faded sticker on his car while a group of white teens high on marijuana got off.

“We can’t ignore that we have a problem with the use of force … and when a police officer crosses the line, they are not held accountable. … That leads to distrust,” said Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.).

Witnesses’ recommendations were just as varied as lawmakers’ lines of questioning.

Clarke used his time to blast “catch slogans” like “black lives matter” and “hands up.” He ticked off statistics suggesting black drivers speed more often, so should therefore be stopped more frequently, and argued black males are “disproportionately involved in violent crime.”

“Black crime is the elephant in the room” he said, encouraging lawmakers to look instead at “transforming black underclass subculture behavior … addressing the behavior of people who have no respect for authority, who fight with and try to disarm the police, who flee the police and who engage in other flawed lifestyle choices.”

On the opposite end of the spectrum, Ramirez pushed for body camera requirements and new data retention and collection. Witnesses in the middle discussed accreditation programs to boost police departments in the eyes of the public — and how costly those are. Others discussed how more funding for training would be useful.

Democrats were disappointed at the reaction from their colleagues across the aisle.

“It was a disingenuous attempt to change the conversation,” Richmond said of comments about rioters and black-on-black crime, adding that he was discouraged by the Judiciary Committee hearing. “On community policing, I don’t think we’ll see anything.”