U.S. Conference Of Mayors President Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson Congratulates President Obama's Task Force On 21st Century Community Policing: Urges Quick Implementation of Report's Recommendations

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Mar 02, 2015, 12:40 ET

WASHINGTON, March 2, 2015 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- U.S. Conference of Mayors President Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson today issued the following statement on the report from President Obama's Task Force on 21^st Century Policing:

"The President's Task Force on 21^stCentury Policing has produced an excellent report and set of recommendations on a difficult topic in a short period of time. We urge the Administration, mayors and their police departments, state and local law enforcement agencies to move quickly to implement its recommendations.

"Following the tragic events of Ferguson, Missouri on August 9, I appointed a working group of mayors and chiefs chaired by Gary Mayor Karen Freeman-Wilson and charged it with developing a set of recommendations to improve community policing practices. Our working group presented its report and recommendations to the President's Task Force leaders on January 22 during our annual Winter Meeting in Washington. We are pleased and honored that many of our recommendations are included in the President's Task Force report.

"In many police departments across this country, effective community policing is practiced in a constitutional manner and the vast majority of police officers have developed trusting relationships with the communities they serve. But the deaths of Michael Brown, Eric Garner and other men and boys of color who have died in encounters with police officers should not be lost in a set of statistics, nor should the deaths of Rafael Ramos and Wenjian Liu and other officers who have given their lives in the line of duty. The nation must learn from these painful experiences and do everything possible to prevent them from happening again.

"Implementing the recommendations contained in the President's Task Force report will move us much closer to this goal and to an environment where crime goes down on the one hand, and community trust goes up on the other. We appreciate the leadership that President Obama and the U.S. Department of Justice have shown. We also appreciate the substantial effort made by the co-chairs – Charles Ramsey and Laurie Robinson – and the members of the President's Task Force, and by COPS Office Director Ron Davis, who served as Executive Director, and his staff. The Conference of Mayors stands ready to work with the President and his Administration to assist in this effort."

The U.S. Conference of Mayors is the official nonpartisan organization of cities with populations of 30,000 or more. There are nearly 1400 such cities in the country today, and each city is represented in the Conference by its chief elected official, the mayor. Like us on Facebook at facebook.com/usmayors, or follow us on Twitter at twitter.com/usmayors.

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SOURCE The U.S. Conference of Mayors