NAPO victory: House adopts COPS
hiring amendment
In a victory for NAPO, the House adopted the amend-
ment offered by Congressmen Bill Pascrell, Jr. (D-NJ) and
Dave Reichert (R-WA), co-chairs of the House Law En-
forcement Caucus, to provide $100 million in funding for
the Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) Hir-
ing Program.
In introducing the amendment on the House floor, Congressman
Pascrell asked members how they can claim to support law enforce-
ment officers while at the same time cutting essential funding and
resources to help hire and retain much-needed officers.
In his press release about the adoption of the amendment, Pas-
crell quoted NAPO Executive Director Bill Johnson:
“NAPO is very concerned that H.R. 3354 does not provide fund-
ing for the COPS Hiring Program…The Pascrell/Reichert Amend-
ment #109 rights this wrong by providing necessary funding to
the COPS Hiring Program. As major cities across the country are
facing an increase in violent crime for the first time in years and
community-police relations are strained, now is not the time to put
additional stresses on state and local police forces by leaving them
short-handed.”
The bipartisan support for this amendment flies in the face of
House Appropriations leadership. Congressman Culberson, who
has led the effort to defund the COPS program, said in a surpris-
ing statement, “I absolutely recognize the importance of the COPS
Hiring Program and what an important impact it has had on the
safety of local communities. We are especially grateful to our first
responders in southeast Texas, southwest Louisiana, and the peo-
ple of Florida. I don’t know what we would do without our first re-
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sponders…Given the staffing shortages and the current
issues facing our law enforcement, the COPS program is
especially important.”
He said the Senate has funded the COPS program bill
at $207 million and he looks forward to ensuring that it
is funded in the final bill. We will be holding the chairman to that
remark not only for fiscal 2018, but for all future fiscal years as well.
Fighting effort to curb law enforcement’s access to surplus
military equipment
NAPO has been fighting off an amendment to the 2018 National
Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), offered by Senator Rand Paul
(R-KY), that would restrict state and local law enforcement’s access
to surplus military equipment through the Department of Defense
and other federal grant programs. The amendment was the text of
Senator Paul’s Stop Militarizing Law Enforcement Act.
We won back access to this lifesaving gear with President Trump’s
executive order on Aug. 28, repealing President Obama’s order
that severely limited law enforcement’s access to surplus military
equipment.
Federal programs have been vital in allowing state and local
law enforcement to acquire items used in search and rescue op-
erations, disaster response and active shooter situations that they
otherwise would not be able to afford. This equipment has not led
to the “militarization” of police but rather has proven to be essential
in protecting communities against violent criminals with increas-
ing access to sophisticated weaponry, IEDs, body armor and some-
times even armored vehicles. d