LITTLE ROCK, AR – The U.S. Conference of Mayors says it will submit a plan to the Justice Department to address police-community relationships in light of the shooting in Ferguson in August.
Attorney General Eric Holder told the group of mayors and police chiefs at the Clinton Presidential Center in Little Rock the shooting of 18-year old Michael Brown on in suburban St. Louis opened up old wounds and tensions.
“The events in Ferguson reminded us that we can not and we must not allow tensions which are present in so many neighborhoods to go unresolved,” Holder says.
Former president Bill Clinton also addressed the conference on the 20th anniversary of the COPS program, community oriented policing.
“It was never as simple as we hire this many more police officers we’ll get this kind of drop in the crime rate,” Clinton says.
According to figures cited at the conference, the federal initiative started when Clinton was president in 1994 included over 14-billion in spending to hire more than 126,000 officers and provide training for 700,000 police and community members.
Little Rock Police Chief Kenton Buckner says the program is a part of his administration.
“If I have 193-thousand citizens who are acting as the first line of defense of public safety I need less officers,” Buckner says. “So it’s more about the relationships we have with the community than it is the number of officers we have working in the city of Little Rock.”
Attorney General Eric Holder told the group of mayors and police chiefs at the Clinton Presidential Center in Little Rock the shooting of 18-year old Michael Brown on in suburban St. Louis opened up old wounds and tensions.
“The events in Ferguson reminded us that we can not and we must not allow tensions which are present in so many neighborhoods to go unresolved,” Holder says.
Former president Bill Clinton also addressed the conference on the 20th anniversary of the COPS program, community oriented policing.
“It was never as simple as we hire this many more police officers we’ll get this kind of drop in the crime rate,” Clinton says.
According to figures cited at the conference, the federal initiative started when Clinton was president in 1994 included over 14-billion in spending to hire more than 126,000 officers and provide training for 700,000 police and community members.
Little Rock Police Chief Kenton Buckner says the program is a part of his administration.
“If I have 193-thousand citizens who are acting as the first line of defense of public safety I need less officers,” Buckner says. “So it’s more about the relationships we have with the community than it is the number of officers we have working in the city of Little Rock.”
