Al Sharpton Quotes

When the penalty for a policeman's mistake is to put a criminal back out on the street, then we are hurting America; we are hurting our law-abiding citizens.

When I was a kid the police just whupped you. Today, they whup you, and then they arrest you in order to protect themselves.

Police reform is working, and crime is falling.

Every American expects and deserves the protection of law enforcement that is effective, responsive, respectful and, most importantly, constitutional.

There is nothing just or fair about what happened to Jordan Edwards. And his story is yet another in a long line of tragedies that now powerfully remind us of the long way we still have to go in creating a fair and just relationship between law enforcement, our criminal justice system, and the public our laws are supposed to protect.

I remember my first run-in with cops. It took me really getting to hang, well after that, with cops who were cool, and realizing, 'Okay, there are some bad ones.' I ran into some bad ones in Columbus, Ohio, but they're not all bad.

You don't need any indictment in order to arrest someone; probable cause is sufficient to arrest civilians, so it must be enough to arrest police.

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

Criminal conduct by police officers, federal agents, and their confederates cannot be tolerated and will be met with the full force of the law.

I have absolutely no confidence in the Ferguson police, the county prosecutor.

I understand that not everyone agrees with my perspective on Ray Kelly. But what you gotta look at here is somebody like Bill de Blasio talking out of both sides of his mouth and trying to have it both ways on a really critical issue like stop-and-frisk.

The police must obey the law while enforcing the law.

The term "free society" is a meaningless, empty phrase if it does not mean a society that is free from harassment from its own police.

There is an international law just as there has always been a law against theft, but because the thief gets away with his booty at times is no reason why we should say that the law against theft has been abrogated.

In this era of mass incarceration, the police shouldn't be trusted any more than any other witness, perhaps less so.

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 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 think we need to rethink our ideas about what policing is and should be. I think we need to rethink our ideas about the criminal justice system as a whole, including the hysterically named corrections system. I mean, what's being corrected? Look, none of it's working.

There is no such thing as a bad cop, only disturbing and dominant cop thinking that will invariably lead to excessive force and tragic outcomes.

I've spent my life in the police profession, and I'm proud of that. But I am also very cognizant of the profession's limitations, its potential for abuse, and its potential negative impact.

We should limit qualified immunity and change the standard for bringing cases against officers who violate victims' civil and Constitutional rights.

Police officers must act quickly to seize wrongdoers and obtain evidence while protecting themselves and bystanders. It is easy to second-guess their search-and-seizure decisions in a secure courtroom.

If you feel your rights are being abused by the authorities, and you don't say something, sometimes the cops don't know how far to take it. They have a hard job, but at the same time, I think it's just about educating yourself.

There's a lot of good police officers. There's thousands of perfect traffic stops. Lot of good men. Lot of good women. But those don't get the stories.

President Trump rightly points out that law enforcement is mostly made up of good people putting themselves in harm's way to protect us. He lauds the men and women in blue and often talks about the need to make it easier for the cops to do their jobs.