This blog post is going to look specifically at the people that comprise the “ObamaLaw” Task Force. If you have no idea what I’m talking about, I urge you to read the original blog post about this topic so you can get caught up.
In the processing of writing Part Three of my analysis of the Interim Report I did some brief research on the person who was chosen to co-chair the executive-ordered Task Force. The history that I read about Charles Ramsey was terrifying. If you’ve read Part Three of my analysis, you know the danger this man represents. If you haven’t, pay attention. If this man is responsible for overhauling the nation’s law enforcement agencies – and succeeds – the US is going to look like Nazi Germany in no time. I’m glad that I found this information, though, because it alerted me to the fact that we don’t know who these people are, what they’ve done, or what they stand for. It seems to me that if these are the people who are going to shape the future of law enforcement it might behoove us to know their platforms and action history. I’ll be getting my information from a variety of sources and will list them at the conclusion of this post.
According to the Fact Sheet: Task Force on 21st Century Policing (a) released by the White House on December 18, 2014:
The Task Force will be chaired by Philadelphia Police Commissioner Charles H. Ramsey, who also serves as President of the Major Cities Chiefs Police Association, and Laurie Robinson, professor of Criminology, Law and Society at George Mason University and former Assistant Attorney General for DOJ’s Office of Justice Programs.
This is what the Task Force posted a bio for Ramsey:
Charles Ramsey, Appointee for Member and Co-Chair, President’s Task Force on 21st Century Policing
Charles Ramsey is the Commissioner of the Philadelphia Police Department (PPD), a position he has held since 2008. Since 2010, he has served as President of the Major Cities Chiefs Association and the Police Executive Research Forum. Commissioner Ramsey began his law enforcement career in 1968 as a cadet with the Chicago Police Department (CPD). Over the next thirty years, he held various positions with CPD, including Commander of the Narcotics Division, Deputy Chief of the Patrol Division, and Deputy Superintendent, a role he held from 1994 to 1998. In 1998, he was named Chief of the Metropolitan Police Department of the District of Columbia (MPDC), where he served until early 2007. In 2007, Commissioner Ramsey served on the Independent Commission on Security Forces of Iraq, leading a review of the Iraqi Police Force. In addition to his current role at PPD, he also serves as a member of the Homeland Security Advisory Council. Commissioner Ramsey received a B.S. and M.S. from Lewis University.
This is what the fact sheet didn’t tell you:
In 2008, Charles Ramsey made The Washington Post when his department began doing safety stops and collecting demographic information on the drivers and occasionally even their passengers.(b) This information was then put into a police database. These were people who had committed no crime nor were they suspected of having committed a crime. On September 27, 2002, the police – under Ramsey’s orders – surrounded Pershing Park and arrested over 400 people that were allegedly protesting the World Bank and International Monetary Fund meetings.(c) Many of the people arrested weren’t even protesters but were instead media and pedestrian traffic. The problem with the arrests was that the police had not warned anyone to disperse and had actually prohibited people from leaving the park. Following the arrests, the booking procedures of the detainees included such demeaning things as being told to “strip naked, bend over, and cough”. I strongly urge you to read the full article here for a complete description, including first-hand accounts, of the acts that Ramsey and his force committed. The District of Columbia Court of Appeals ruled on January 13, 2006, that the arrests violated the Fourth Amendment rights of the individuals and that Ramsey could be held personally liable for the violations. Ramsey’s escapades cost the city officials of Washington one million dollars that was paid out to more than 120 of the protesters, not including, not including other settlements reached by the D.C. government (one settlement in excess of $640,000). None of this includes the $1.3 million in legal fees that was paid for Ramsey’s legal representation.
Next on the Fact Sheet’s list is Laurie Robinson. Here’s the bio provided for her:
Laurie Robinson, Appointee for Member and Co-Chair, President’s Task Force on 21st Century Policing
Laurie Robinson is the Clarence J. Robinson Professor of Criminology, Law and Society at George Mason University, a position she has held since 2012. She served as Assistant Attorney General for the Office of Justice Programs (OJP) in the U.S. Department of Justice from 2009 to 2012. Prior to that, Ms. Robinson served as the Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General for OJP and Acting Assistant Attorney General for OJP. Previously, she was a member of the Obama-Biden Transition Team. From 2003 to 2009, Ms. Robinson was the Director of the Master of Science Program in Criminology at the University of Pennsylvania. From 1993 to 2000, she served her first term as the Assistant Attorney General for OJP. Before joining DOJ, Ms. Robinson spent over twenty years with the American Bar Association, serving as Assistant Staff Director of the Criminal Justice Section from 1972 to 1979, Director of their Criminal Justice Section from 1979 to 1993, and as Director of the Professional Services Division from 1986 to 1993. She is a Senior Fellow at the George Mason University Center for Evidence-Based Crime Policy, and serves as co-chair of the Research Advisory Committee for the International Association of Chiefs of Police. She also serves on the Board of Trustees of the Vera Institute of Justice. Ms. Robinson received a B.A. from Brown University.
Laurie was an interesting one to investigate. Her previous titles and positions read like the who’s who of justice. Being more on he “book” side than the implementation side, she’s never been involved in any altercations or lawsuits. However, if you believe in the old adage of “guilty by association” then she is as sunk as the rest. Laurie served served as assistant attorney general in the Office of Justice Programs (OJP) during the Clinton administrations.(d) One week after obama was brought into office, Laurie began serving as acting assistant attorney general and principal deputy assistant attorney general of OJP. She held these positions until she was nominated to take over the leadership of the office. If you’re like me and prefer to give people the benefit of the doubt, her associations probably aren’t enough to condemn her to scrutiny. Most of what Laurie has represented in the past has been fair and good, but her borderline-liberal views of key topics could be pushed in the realm of liberalism under the current administration. Robinson has been active on boards for organizations that advocated for the rights of illegal immigrants. (e) She believes that there are a disproportionate amount of blacks and Latinos in American jails because the system is biased, not because these populations are committing more crime. Vera, for whom she was a board member from 2001 to 2009, states on their website: “Vera helps officials in criminal and juvenile justice systems to reduce the overrepresentation of racial and ethnic minorities in those systems.” Laurie has also orchestrated several meetings between her professional associates and Attorney General Eric Holder, during which meetings Holder got the ideas for several of his programs.(f) Laurie is a stubborn advocate for what she calls “Justice Reinvestment”, a bipartisan effort through which legislators and policymakers come together to determine how to reallocate resources to both save money and reduce recidivism.(g) Laurie raved about Kentucky legislation which, based on a Justice Reinvestment analysis, reserves prison beds for the most serious offenders and re-focuses resources on community supervision, probation and parole systems, and evidence-based programs. Basically, what they’re saying, is that unless you are an extremely violent individual, you should be allowed to stay in society. Laurie went on to state that Kentucky “is projected to reduce its prison population by more than 3,000 inmates over the next 10 years and save some $422 million as a result of the new law.”. I don’t know about you, but I’m not entirely comfortable with that.
Moving on in the list, next is:
Jose Lopez, Appointee for Member, President’s Task Force on 21st Century Policing
Jose Lopez is currently the Lead Organizer at Make the Road New York (MRNY), a Brooklyn-based non-profit community organization focused on civil rights, education reform, and combating poverty. He became Lead Organizer of MRNY in 2013. Mr. Lopez began his career in 2000 as Youth Organizer with Make the Road by Walking, which later merged with the Latin American Integration Center to form MRNY in 2007. He continued to serve as Youth Organizer with MRNY until 2009, when he became Senior Organizer. Since 2011, Mr. Lopez has represented MRNY on the steering committee of Communities United for Police Reform, a New York City organization advocating for law enforcement reform. From 2001 to 2004, he was an active contributor to the Radio Rookies Project, an initiative of New York Public Radio. He received a B.A. from Hofstra University.
For those of us who are fighting desperately for AMERICAN rights over illegal immigrant rights, this guy’s achievements are a direct slap in the face. MRNY’s facebook page posted this statement on December 14, 2014: “MRNY Lead Organizer Jose Lopez was among the leaders who met with President Obama today to discuss policing. Latinos are a key part of this urgent conversation. Read the #FergusonAction statement.” Reading the action statement was about as pleasant as swallowing a mouthful of razor blades. It stated that the Ferguson Action group’s demands included “the federal government using its power to prosecute police officers that kill or abuse people” and “defunding local police departments that use excessive force or racially profile. Instead of having the Department of Justice (DOJ) wholesale giving more than $250 million to local police departments annually, DOJ should only fund departments that agree to adopt DOJ best practices for training and meaningful community input.”. This last line brings up a very interesting choice of wording – “should only fund departments that agree to adopt DOJ best practices”. As a mom who has been fighting Common Core for two years now, I can tell you that this is EXACTLY how the education system was federalized. The federal government tied state funds to accepting Common Core – they could either go the way of the feds or they could go broke. Common Core has turned out to be disastrous, resulting in a plethora of negative results. For example, elementary-aged kids are now being diagnosed with depression and anxiety disorders as a result of high-stakes testing, ADHD diagnoses have skyrocketed as a result of recess being cut out to make room for test prep, and children are actually learning less because they’re only being taught what’s on the test. The other thing about Common Core, is that if you trace the money you will find Pearson Education and other educational companies provided a significant amount of funds to the Obama Administration. I would be willing to bet that if you followed the money for the “best policing practices” it would also lead back to the administration. Jose Lopez’s MRNY is also responsible for stopping deportations through legal intervention and lobbying to change immigration law. According to their website, their 2012 victories include: “launched an immigration law practice serving thousands with Deferred Action applications and hundreds more with deportation defense, permanent lawful status, and immigrant services fraud prevention”; “mobilized 20,000 new voters on Election Day as part of our new Campaign for Respect & Dignity, after registering 12,000 voters of color in NYC and Long Island and, with the Center for Popular Democracy, an additional 7,000 in Pennsylvania”. Folks, if that doesn’t scare you I don’t know what will.
There are eight more Task Force members that I’m going to save for later posts (4 tomorrow, last 4 Tuesday) since this post is already so long. The members so far – a known Constitutional rights violator (Ramsey), a prisoner rights advocate (Robinson), and an illegals-before-Americans advocate – are proving to be fairly impressive…..if you live in a communist country. Wake up, America, and look at the areas of federal over-reach. Health care, education, internet, and now our police departments. These are key areas that have to be taken if you’re planning to overthrow a nation’s system of government and take control of its people. It’s not too late, but we have to get this under control. Contact your legislators, your representatives, your Congressmen, your police chiefs….and don’t stop contacting them until they begin to hear us.
(a) http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2014/12/18/fact-sheet-task-force-21st-century-policing
(b) http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/05/01/AR2005050100848_pf.html
(c) http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/articles/25398/boss-hogtie
(f) http://nij.ncjrs.gov/multimedia/video-nijconf2010-opening-robinson.htm
Realizations, Ruminations, and Life 