Full Text of HR1410 099th General Assembly
HR1410 99TH GENERAL ASSEMBLY |
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| 1 | | HOUSE RESOLUTION
| 2 | | WHEREAS, Police in the United States killed approximately | 3 | | 102 unarmed black people in 2015, a rate of nearly two each | 4 | | week; nearly one in three black people killed by police in 2015 | 5 | | were identified as unarmed; and
| 6 | | WHEREAS, In 2015, 37% of unarmed people killed by police | 7 | | were black despite black people being only 13% of the U.S. | 8 | | population; unarmed black people were killed at five times the | 9 | | rate of unarmed whites in 2015; and
| 10 | | WHEREAS, Only 10 of the 102 cases in 2015 in which an | 11 | | unarmed black person was killed by police resulted in criminal | 12 | | charges against the officer or officers involved, with only two | 13 | | convictions; and
| 14 | | WHEREAS, Police shootings of unarmed individuals are not a | 15 | | recent phenomenon; on February 4, 1999, Amadou Diallo, a | 16 | | 23-year-old immigrant from Guinea, was shot and killed by four | 17 | | New York City Police Department officers when they fired a | 18 | | combined total of 41 shots, 19 of which struck Diallo; and
| 19 | | WHEREAS, On August 9, 2014, in Ferguson, Missouri, Michael | 20 | | Brown, an 18-year-old black man, was fatally shot by a white | 21 | | police officer; the disputed circumstances of the shooting |
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| 1 | | further inflamed existing tensions in the predominantly black | 2 | | city, where protests and civil unrest erupted; the events | 3 | | received considerable attention in the U.S. and elsewhere and | 4 | | generated a debate about the relationship between law | 5 | | enforcement and African Americans; it also created a national | 6 | | dialogue about the use of force, concerns over insensitivity to | 7 | | the local community, and the militarized response of the police | 8 | | to the situation; and | 9 | | WHEREAS, Laquan McDonald was killed in Chicago on October | 10 | | 20, 2014 when he was shot 16 times in 13 seconds by a Chicago | 11 | | police officer; video of the shooting shows that McDonald fell | 12 | | to the ground after the first shot was fired; the officer | 13 | | stopped firing for a moment, then opened fire again when | 14 | | McDonald moved; the officer was on the scene for less than 30 | 15 | | seconds before opening fire and began shooting approximately | 16 | | six seconds after exiting his car; another officer stated that | 17 | | he did not see the need to use force and none of the at least | 18 | | eight other officers on the scene fired their weapons; and | 19 | | WHEREAS, On December 26, 2015, Quintonio LeGrier was shot | 20 | | six times by police after allegedly swinging a baseball bat at | 21 | | the officers when they responded to a 911 call he placed | 22 | | regarding his father; the shooting also left, 55-year-old | 23 | | Bettie Jones, who lived at the address, fatally wounded in what | 24 | | police labeled an accident; and |
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| 1 | | WHEREAS, Rekia Boyd, a 22-year-old African-American woman, | 2 | | was fatally shot on March 21, 2012 in Chicago by an off-duty | 3 | | Chicago police detective; he approached a group of four people | 4 | | who were walking down an alley and admonished them for talking | 5 | | too loudly; the group turned to leave and the officer fired | 6 | | multiple shots into the group from inside his car, hitting Boyd | 7 | | in the back of the head killing her; the officer claimed that | 8 | | he mistook a cell phone for a handgun; and
| 9 | | WHEREAS, Although not shootings, Eric Garner, Sandra | 10 | | Bland, and Freddie Gray all died in circumstances that seemed | 11 | | to have been unnecessarily escalated by police; therefore, be | 12 | | it
| 13 | | RESOLVED, BY THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES OF THE | 14 | | NINETY-NINTH GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF THE STATE OF ILLINOIS, that we | 15 | | urge changes in the manner in which police officers are trained | 16 | | when dealing with the public; these changes should include (1) | 17 | | de-escalation - talking to and calming down agitated, | 18 | | weapon-wielding suspects and suspects who run away and then | 19 | | struggle when they are caught; (2) cultural sensitivity - | 20 | | police should take into account the perceptions minority groups | 21 | | (Black, Latino, Muslim) have of the police and how those | 22 | | perceptions may influence their actions; (3) community | 23 | | engagement - officers being aware of the character of a |
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| 1 | | community so that everyone in a particular community is not | 2 | | treated like a potential lawbreaker.
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