W. Kamau Bell Quotes

Growing up where I'm from, some people are afraid of cops. They don't really like cops. And what a lot of people don't realize is, they're really not the bad guys. They're really on our side, they're really trying to help us out. And sometimes, we don't understand that.

Law enforcement must be guardians in our communities, not warriors against our own people.

We have to have a national conversation about how police forces should interact with the African-American community, who happens to be paying their salary, who want to be served and protected, who these officers are take an oath to do so.

I think that the dialogue between police officers and the black community has to get better, but not better in a way where, 'Oh, let's talk about it when something horrible happens.' The dialogue has to be going on consistently, every day.

We must transform the relationship between police and the communities they serve.

We need to have law enforcement and the African-American community work together for the safety of everybody.

I'm dedicated to healing the wounds between police and minority communities so both sides feel safe again.

We have to restore trust between communities and the police.

As mayor, I would support law enforcement, not knock it down.

I want to foster a positive relationship between police officers and the communities they protect.

I find that people want aggressive policing if they as a community feel they are part of it. They don't want aggressive policing if they feel it's being imposed upon them and they are a target.

We can't pick out certain incidentals that don't go our way and act like the cops are all bad... Do you know how bad some of these neighborhoods would be if it wasn't for the cops?

There's a larger conversation we need to have about the role of police officers, their relationship to the people as enemy or executioner, when they're not supposed to be either.

While we must condemn any misuse of their authority, let's not forget that, by far, police are fulfilling their duty to protect and serve.

The police, at their best, do three things; they prevent crime, they respond to crime, and they solve crime. In all three of those buckets, they need the trust of the community to do it, so I believe that if we restore the trust that we will change the way police are experiencing communities and ways that will preserve life and make everyone safer.

We are demanding police transparency and accountability so we can build trust and work together to make our communities safer.

It's been my desire to support efforts to aim at healing the relationship between law enforcement and the community.

I know there are those in the community who, rather than have us invest more in policing, even for community policing, instead want us to disinvest in the police department. We need a police department. We are going to have a police department.

Not every officer is a bad police. I work with police officers. I know first responders.

Our kids' lives depend upon keeping them safe. That has to be a fundamental duty and responsibility for me as mayor. That means we have to continue hard but necessary work of bridging the divide between police and communities they serve.

No, I absolutely do not support defunding the police. But it's clear we have been investing too much in force and need to reinvest in understanding and serving our communities.

We don't ever want to create an environment where people are afraid of their own local police officers.

In Baltimore they can't do police work to save their lives. Now because of Freddie Gray they're not even getting out of the car and policing corners - they're on a job slowdown, basically. Right now if the police stopped being brutal, if we got police shooting under control, and the use of excessive force, if we have a meaningful societal response to all that stuff, and the racism that underlies it, the question still remains: what are they policing, and why?

I'm not blind to the fact that we have to do a better job with our relationships between the community and police.

We have greater awareness of where we're falling short than we used to. Just take the example of community police relations.