Contact: Bob Ellison, Walls Communications

202/333-6181; bellison@wallscomm.com

Leslie A. Dunbar, National Urban League

(212)558-5438;ldunbar@nul.org

Washington, DC, March 3, 2000–In a press conference at the National Press Club this morning, National Urban League President Hugh B. Price called on President Clinton and Attorney General Janet Reno to utilize the U.S. Justice Department’s moral authority, legal power and financial leverage to spearhead the reform of local police policy and practice regarding the recruitment, training and supervision of police officers and the appropriate use of firearms.

Nearly a year to the date of a press conference the League held last Feb., Price stated that today’s event was called in response to the recent decisions to exonerate police officers of wrongdoing in the fatal shootings of unarmed civilians in New York City (Amadou Diallo), Hartford, CT (Aquan Salmon) and Pittsburgh, PA (Deron Grimmett). Revelations of rampant corruption in the Los Angeles, CA police department’s Rampart unit was another major factor in Price\'s call to the President and Attorney General for decisive action.

"The African-American community is enraged by the unfolding scandals and corruption in the inner-city police unit of the Los Angeles Police Department and by the recent exoneration of police officers in the unjustified and avoidable fatal shootings of unarmed black civilians," Price said.

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"The telltale fingerprints of the federal government are on those police service revolvers used to kill Amadou Diallo, Deron Grimmett, Aquan Salmon and Tyisha Miller. Specs of their blood are on the hands of successive presidential administrations and Congresses. Why? Because they’ve financed the police departments that have caused the problems without taking adequate measures to put a stop to them."

To correct this problem, Price called upon the Justice Department to:

• Promulgate a series of best personnel and firearms practices based on real world experience of police departments that have successfully reduced crime with minimum of abuse of civil liberties, civilian complaints, fatalities involving unarmed and innocent civilians. These best practices should be prepared with the assistance of elected officials, law enforcement officials, police unions, and civil rights, civil liberties and community leaders.

• Require local police departments that receive federal assistance to institute and adhere to these best practices, or effective variations thereof, as a condition of continued receipt of federal aid.

• Suspend federal funding for local departments that experience and fail to address serious problems of police brutality and abuse.

• Terminate federal aid to local departments that steadfastly refuse to implement best practices and/or that fail to resolve chronic problems of police brutality, abuse and avoidable use of deadly force.

"With Washington’s help, police departments across the country are getting a firm grip on crime," Price asserted. "It’s the federal government’s job now to make the police get a firm grip on themselves."

Founded in 1910, the National Urban League remains the premier social service and civil rights organization in America. The League is a non-profit, community-based organization headquartered in New York City, with 115 affiliates in 35 states and the District of Columbia.