AAG Gupta Talks Integrated Approaches to Public Safety with Local, Community Leaders

This week, the Washington Post hosted a live forum featuring community, state, and federal leaders to discuss comprehensive approaches to public safety and law enforcement accountability.

Panel Discussion on Gun Violence and Public Safety

Veteran criminal justice Reporter Tom Jackman began the forum began with a discussion concerning the U.S. Supreme Court’s recent ruling in New York State Rifle Association vs. Bruen (No. 20-843). In this case, the Court held New York’s requirement that handgun permit applicants demonstrate cause to carry a firearm outside the home violated the Second Amendment. Minnesota Attorney General (AG) Keith Ellison and Baltimore Police Commissioner Michael Harrison expressed their disappointment with the Court’s decision. While AG Ellison’s concern were rooted in the opinion that the court’s decision was without precedent, Commissioner Harrison detailed the additional duty-hazards law enforcement officials will face when carrying out their responsibilities.

“We will not have the legal authority to even make an approach when we see somebody illegally carrying a gun because it will no longer be illegal,” noted Commissioner Harrison. “Therefore, we won’t be able to distinguish the law-abiding citizen from the would-be criminal or criminal offender who is illegally carrying a firearm, which… is the precursor to all shooting events.”

Next, the panelists discussed the bipartisan gun control legislation the President signed into law last week. A notable positive, according to AG Ellison and Commissioner Harrison, was the movement of any form of legislation given the political climate.

Commissioner Harrison discussed his view on the role of law enforcement in the gun control and mental health conversation and added, “The burden of putting it all on police is slowly reversing, and we’re having conversations about who should be responding to calls of people in mental crisis, to homelessness to addictions, and police should have never been involved in that. And what has happened is while involved in those kinds of calls, we’ve engaged and become involved in uses of force, and then those uses of force are negative. And then we injure people. We hurt people. It gets worse, but we never should have been put in that position.”

Panel Discussion on Public Trust

Jackman then joined Former Chief of Police in Houston and Miami, Art Acevedo, and Co-founder and Executive Director of Campaign Zero, DeRay Mckesson, for an open dialogue about collaboration and transparency between law enforcement and organizers that can reduce crime and create community-based solutions. Here, the panel examined police violence and signs of brutality, and what measures are in place for law enforcement to take accountability.

“In a world of video cameras, in‑car cameras, cell phone cameras, rings, fortunately for us, we’re going to have a lot of evidence now, and I think the American people know a justified, legally, and morally shooting, whether it’s the police or a civilian, when they see one,” added Acevedo. “If someone is shooting Tom at a 7‑Eleven, we get to protect Tom. I mean, that’s just common sense, and so whether it’s 1,100 or 2 [officer involved shootings], the question is, was it justified?”

Acevedo emphasized that law enforcement and the community each have a responsibility for accountability, while Mckesson responded by noting that COVID-19 and suicide are the primary killers of law enforcement, not members of the public.

“The number one killer of the police today is COVID, the second is suicide. It’s not the community—we’re not attacking the police,” Mckesson stated. “I’m not convinced that we should call it common sense to just shoot. I want to believe that if there are police, they are equipped with something else.”

In response, Acevedo briefly explained the moral and legal backdrop of law enforcement decisions, and reaffirmed his commitment to holding individuals accountable—both officers and community members—with trust and community engagement.

“Familiarity breeds trust,” Acevedo explained. “I still remember the cop who used to come down when I was a kid on his own, get out of the car and let us play in it. That is relational policing. That is building trust. That is building trust with me and that child, and so I think we do need to engage.”

Discussion with Associate Attorney General Vanita Gupta

To conclude the forum, Reporter Jonathan Capehart sat down with Associate Attorney General (AAG) Vanita Gupta to discuss the potential for collaborative solutions between local and federal entities, while stressing police accountability and restoring public trust.

AAG Gupta was quick to denounce the Bruen decision and pointed to the Justice Department’s statement. In it, Attorney General Merrick Garland noted the overturned law will hamper local efforts to combat violent crimes with guns.

“You heard it from Chief Harrison in Baltimore who talked very concretely about the impact of that decision. [The ruling] makes the jobs of police chiefs that much harder,” AAG Gupta continued, “We have been fighting this [gun violence] epidemic for the last couple of years, using the tools that we have, in partnership between the Feds, state, and locals, but we can’t deny that this decision is going to make this job and this work that much harder and, of course, coming after the country has been reeling from some acts of mass violence in Buffalo and Uvalde. So, we can’t blunt the impact of that decision.”

The AAG then discussed the Justice Department’s newest initiative: the Law Enforcement Knowledge Lab. As previously reported in FEDagent, the lab is an online portal and resource that aims to improve public safety by providing law enforcement with data‑driven evidence‑based learning, federal reports, training, academic research, and subject-matter expert resources.

However, AAG Gupta stated that the transformation of policing must include the community. To facilitate this dialogue, the Justice Department has invited the public into the Knowledge Lab to increase awareness and assist transparency between law enforcement and citizens.

“[The] Justice Department has only 15 active consent decrees right now. We are a nation of 18,000 police departments. There is no way that this one tool, important though it is, is going to transform policing and build community trust all over the country,” AAG Gupta confirmed. “I remember after Michael Brown was killed in Ferguson, there was this massive push around the country to say body‑worn cameras were going to be the silver‑bullet solution, and it wasn’t because they aren’t important. But there’s a lack of understanding of how policing works in communities, and the Knowledge Lab really is able to arm people with the types of things that have made proven differences in police departments and police community relations around the country.”

AAG Gupta then concluded, “Community violence intervention is a shared responsibility. We tackle violent crime by investing in local community leaders who have the experience, the credibility, the legitimacy to actually intervene in people’s lives and have them be partners with law enforcement. If we just used the strategies from 30 years ago, we will be no better off than where we are today, and part of what we are doing through the Knowledge Lab, through the collaborative reform initiative, through our pattern‑or‑practice investigations is really kind of understanding the fundamental role that communities play in protecting and co‑creating and defining what public safety looks like, and that this can’t just be all at the feet of police. We will make that mistake all over again.”