Cal Cunningham Quotes

I don't support defunding the police.

There is insufficient support for the police and safety and law enforcement, in general, in the city council.

It seems to me that before we give federal funds to police departments, we ought to mandate that they have body cams.

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

In order for us to respect law enforcement, it is necessary for law enforcement to respect us.

Calling for police reform is not calling for police retribution.

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.

For me, in trying to talk about something like policing, it's such a huge issue, and it's an issue that's very local and very personalized to communities, to cities, to legislators, and so, in that way, I think as we started looking into talking about policing, the thing that you realize is that you can't paint everything with the same brush.

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.

I do not support the idea of defunding police departments. I believe that it does nothing to solve the root problems we must address and it makes our communities less safe.

I've, in fact, very specifically said I don't support defunding the police.

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.

It's an issue that we need to have a national discussion about, the militarization of local police forces, and then when they are used to quell peaceful demonstration. Then we have a problem, and especially around this entire case of the murder of Michael Brown at the hands of a Ferguson police officer.

There are 18,000 different police forces in the United States and sometimes something wrong happens.

Police reform is working, and crime is falling.

What I have seen in my travels across this country is the dedication, the commitment, and the resolve of our brave men and women in law enforcement to improving policing, to embracing the 21st Century Task Force recommendations, and to continuing to have a dialogue that makes our country safer for all.

I don't understand it and haven't understood in this world of technology: where every building has a camera, every ATM has a camera, why don't we have cameras on police officers?

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.

Our manifesto to the British people promised to finish the job of police reform. And that is exactly what I intend to do.

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.

The way police do what they do is under the microscope. You've got people on the one side saying, 'We need to be holding our police accountable.' And you've got a lot of people who support the police saying they're being 'unfairly vilified.'

There is definitely a balance that I have to strike both in terms of supporting the Police Bureau - making sure they have the tools and the resources they need to do their jobs effectively. But I also have an important role to play when it comes to oversight and accountability.

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

Everybody has a stake in the story of policing.

There's more we can do as a community to try to change what policing looks like in our cities.