Black Democrats on Capitol Hill are pressing Republicans and the White House to take greater steps to rein in gun violence following a string of high-profile shootings this week, all involving police.
The lawmakers, infuriated over a pair of episodes in which black men were killed by police officers in Louisiana and Minnesota, are calling for action — legislative and administrative — to tackle “police misconduct and the murders of innocent black Americans,” in the words of Rep. G.K. Butterfield (D-N.C.), chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC).
{mosads}”You want to say we’re mad? We’re mad,” Butterfield said during a press briefing in the Capitol. “We’re determined to take our advocacy now to a higher level.”
Rep. Robin Kelly (D-Ill.) echoed that frustration.
“Our black men and boys cannot be continued to [be] looked at as animals in a jungle that are dangerous and shot all too often,” Kelly said. “We have to be the leaders in finding the solutions to this gun violence problem.”
The press event, scheduled before Thursday night’s sniper attack in Dallas, was initially intended to focus on combating the use of excessive force by police. The Texas tragedy put the lawmakers in the delicate spot of condemning police violence against blacks just hours after a gunman killed five law enforcers, and injured another seven, during an anti-police-violence protest in Dallas. The sniper told police he wanted to kill white officers.
The CBC members were quick to carve a distinction between supporting competent law enforcers, for the sake of protecting communities, and combating police brutality for the same reason.
“We have to be intelligent enough to separate the issues,” Butterfield said.
Still, the Dallas shooting forced the CBC members to broaden their message beyond the Louisiana and Minnesota killings, from one denouncing police excesses to one tackling gun violence more generally. And the CBC lawmakers wasted no time condemning the Dallas shooting in no uncertain terms.
“Any loss of innocent life is something that we deplore,” said Rep. Al Green (D-Texas). “We absolutely, adamantly, totally oppose anyone who would advocate shooting police officers.”
The effusive denunciation was a response to those conservatives accusing black activists, particularly the Black Lives Matter movement, of promoting violence against police — a connection CBC members rejected out of hand.
“By any definition they are a terrorist,” Butterfield said of the Dallas shooter, “and they are not a part of the Black Lives Matter movement.”
The CBC’s aim, lawmakers said, is to bring parity to a criminal justice system that, by any metric, they consider rigged against blacks and other minorities.
President Obama has joined the discussion on the side of the CBC, saying the Louisiana and Minnesota killings were “not isolated incidents” but rather “symptomatic of a broader set of racial disparities that exist in the criminal justice system.”
“There’s a big chunk of our fellow citizenry that feels as if, because of the color of their skin, they are not being treated the same,” Obama said Thursday while traveling in Warsaw, Poland. “That hurts and that should trouble all of us.”
The comments were panned by some Republicans, who accused the president of helping to incite the Dallas shooting.
“The spread of misinformation and constant instigation by prominent leaders, including our president, have contributed to the modern day hostility we are witnessing between the police and those they serve,” said Rep. Roger Williams (R-Texas).
The charges against Obama have infuriated Democrats.
“That’s absolute nonsense,” said Rep. Cedric Richmond (D-La.), “from people who just can’t get over the fact that Michelle Obama, President Obama and his children wake up every day in the White House.”
Richmond accused House GOP leaders of enabling gun violence in their refusal to consider tougher gun laws.
“If this Congress does not have the guts to lead, then we are responsible for all the bloodshed on the streets of America — whether it be at the hands of people wearing a uniform, or whether it’s at the hands of criminals,” Richmond said. “We bear that responsibility if we don’t act.”
The Democrats are pushing GOP leaders to consider a pair of gun reforms: One to expand background checks on prospective buyers and another to bar firearm sales to those on the FBI’s terrorist watchlists.
Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) — who met this week with Reps. John Lewis (D-Ga.) and John Larson (D-Conn.) on the issue — has refused to assent to their demand for floor votes on those bills. And the Dallas shooting has done nothing to alter the Republicans’ near-unanimous opposition to tougher gun laws.
“I do not believe [gun legislation] is the answer,” Rep. Pete Sessions (R-Texas), whose district includes parts of Dallas and northeast Dallas suburbs, said Friday.
Black Democrats are also pressing the Obama administration to take greater steps to fight police killings by bolstering training and community outreach efforts.
CBC members are scheduled to meet next Tuesday with FBI Director James Comey. The goal, Butterfield said, will be to persuade the administration to increase funding for programs designed to educate police officers “on the importance of using deadly force as a last resort — and to impose consequences when they fail to do that.”
“Consequences means prosecution,” he said.
Asked if the Justice Department isn’t already conducting such trainings, the CBC chairman said, “Not sufficiently.”
The CBC requested the Comey meeting weeks ago, before the recent string of shootings. But in light of those tragedies, Butterfield said, “That meeting will be even more relevant than it was a month ago.”
Lewis, a civil rights icon who was beaten nearly to death by police during a 1965 march in Selma, Ala., said the recent police shootings are a stark reminder that the country has a long way to go to eradicate racism.
“Sometimes I want to believe that we have made much more progress. But then I think, if we’re not standing still, I think sometimes we’re sliding back,” Lewis said Friday.
“The scars and stains of racism [are] still deeply embedded in American society,” Lewis added. “We cannot sweep it under the rug or in some dark corner. We have to deal with it.”
Butterfield suggested that, if someone doesn’t take action to address gun violence, the bodies will continue to pile up.
“If we fail to act,” he warned, “this will be a long, hot summer.”
Scott Wong contributed.