Kelly urges passage of police reform bill, says last few weeks have been 'heartbreaking, frustrating'

In an interview that ranged from policy solutions to personal experience, Rep. Robin Kelly (D-2nd) spoke about her support for congressional Democrats' new police reform bill, and said she is open to supplementing emergency services with social service responders.

Kelly is a co-sponsor of the Justice in Policing Act, which contains a broad suite of proposed policy changes. Among other initiatives, it would eliminate some qualified immunity protections for police officers and create a national misconduct registry, preventing ex-officers with a record of abuse from being rehired by another police force.

"It's a combination of what we've heard from constituents, and what people have been trying to pass on (the Judiciary Committee)," Kelly said. "This is not new, it's stuff we're bringing forward. There's been different pieces of legislation —enough is enough."

The bill also would ban choke holds and no-knock warrants — the latter was issued to the police officers who fatally shot 26-year-old Louisville, Kentucky, resident Breonna Taylor on March 13.

But choke holds already had been banned by the New York Police Department before an officer placed Eric Garner in one in 2014, killing him. Asked about this, Kelly emphasized the importance of disciplining officers properly when they break the rules.

"One thing, people have to start getting in trouble. The other thing is training: you don't do it, you don't do it," Kelly said. "There's other ways you have to restrain people. I think it's a part of training, and consequences to not following what you need to follow."

Since George Floyd was killed by a Minneapolis police officer two weeks ago, momentum has built around calls from leftist groups to defund or abolish the police. Kelly said she is skeptical of those ideas, but wants to look at ways to reallocate police funding and expand emergency services.

"I think reallocation of some of the money may help police do their jobs. People have said police have to be the police as far as law enforcement, but then they may also have to be the mental health counselor, and they may not have the background to deal with some of the more social service-y situations they run into," she said. "Maybe the police aren't the best persons to send to an area, or maybe they shouldn't be sent alone …. As far as defunding, I'm not for that."

State Sen. Robert Peters (D-13th) has introduced legislation that would add non-police options on the emergency services helpline for people who call in about mental health crises.

Kelly, tearing up, also spoke about her own experience of visiting Minneapolis to attend Floyd's memorial service. "For me, I go through emotions every day. It's been heartbreaking, frustrating," she said. "The other part of it is just wanting to scream out, ‘We're not second-class citizens!' …. I almost said that we're not animals, but when you hear about animals getting abused people care more about that than they seem to care about Black people, frankly."

Once, when her son was home from college, some friends were visiting him. They were sitting in a car in Kelly's driveway. "Then I get a knock on my door, and my husband says, ‘The police are outside.' And I go, ‘Oh, they all know me, if they want something they'll knock on the door,'" she recounted, noting that a handful of her own family members work in law enforcement.

"And sure enough one of them knocked on the door and said, ‘I think your son is in a gang.' I just brought him home from college, and now you're saying my son is in a gang? I couldn't even tell the story without crying for years," she said. "My son is 36 now, and that's nothing compared to what other moms have gone through. They don't even have their sons anymore, they're dead."

Kelly, who attended a march in the south suburbs on Monday with Gov. J.B. Pritzker and has represented East Hyde Park in Congress since 2013, said that she is also communicating with police chiefs in her congressional district about reforming some departments, and ensuring that police are disciplined for misconduct.

"I know sometimes people can put in baloney complaints, but do you have 29 baloney complaints? Or 18? that sounds like a lot to me," she said. "We need to take action sooner, and hold people accountable, and I don't think we've done that."

Read the original at the Hyde Park Herald.