On Thursday’s broadcast of Fox News Radio’s “Guy Benson Show,” Sen. James Lankford (R-OK), who is part of the group of Senate Republicans helping to craft a police reform plan, stated that he thinks there is some commonality between Republicans and Democrats. Lankford specifically mentioned increased transparency about fatalities in police custody, transparency on no-knock warrants, increasing the use of body cameras, increasing recruiting efforts to ensure police departments better resemble the communities they serve, and greater accountability as reforms that are being discussed.
Lankford said, “I think we have some common ground. For instance, there’s a lot of transparency that they have that we have as well. I think it’s important, we will recall what Tim Scott had already done, called the Walter Scott Notification Act. … That if there’s a fatality in police custody, there should be some good transparency. About 40% of the departments in the country already reveal out their information of what happens in a fatality in some of the reports into a national listing so you can track that. But we’d like the rest of the departments to be able to do that as well.”
Lankford continued that while he thinks no-knock warrants shouldn’t be prohibited, “we need to know more about how they’re being used and what happens. So we’re trying to gather some information. Body cameras help law enforcement to be able to show there’s the rest of the story here. When one person says one thing and somebody else says something different. The video camera and the audio shows it. So, increasing the use of body cameras and also giving an incentive to make sure that they stay on.”
He further stated, “And one of the things we’re also focused on is recruiting. There’s a lot of departments that match their community. Some departments’ ethnicity does not match the rest of their community. We want to help them get recruiters and then to be able to help get some of those folks through the academy. And so there are more people that match the community itself and so there’s more buy-in by the community. Community policing really does work.”
Lankford also stated that qualified immunity is being discussed, and said a balance has to be struck between ensuring police don’t have unlimited immunity but also ensuring they don’t have to hesitate.
He added that better recordkeeping on officers to ensure they can’t just move to another area if they’re fired in one and greater accountability are other issues that are being worked on.
Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett
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