Bill Text: IL HR1410 | 2015-2016 | 99th General Assembly | Introduced

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Bill Title: Urges changes in the manner in which police officers are trained when dealing with the public; these changes should include (1) de-escalation - talking to and calming down agitated, weapon-wielding suspects and suspects who run away and then struggle when they are caught; (2) cultural sensitivity - police should take into account the perceptions minority groups (Black, Latino, Muslim) have of the police and how those perceptions may influence their actions; (3) community engagement - officers being aware of the character of a community so that everyone in a particular community is not treated like a potential lawbreaker.

Spectrum: Partisan Bill (Democrat 1-0)

Status: (Introduced - Dead) 2016-11-15 - Referred to Rules Committee [HR1410 Detail]

Download: Illinois-2015-HR1410-Introduced.html

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HOUSE RESOLUTION
WHEREAS, Police in the United States killed approximately
102 unarmed black people in 2015, a rate of nearly two each
week; nearly one in three black people killed by police in 2015
were identified as unarmed; and
WHEREAS, In 2015, 37% of unarmed people killed by police
were black despite black people being only 13% of the U.S.
population; unarmed black people were killed at five times the
rate of unarmed whites in 2015; and
WHEREAS, Only 10 of the 102 cases in 2015 in which an
unarmed black person was killed by police resulted in criminal
charges against the officer or officers involved, with only two
convictions; and
WHEREAS, Police shootings of unarmed individuals are not a
recent phenomenon; on February 4, 1999, Amadou Diallo, a
23-year-old immigrant from Guinea, was shot and killed by four
New York City Police Department officers when they fired a
combined total of 41 shots, 19 of which struck Diallo; and
WHEREAS, On August 9, 2014, in Ferguson, Missouri, Michael
Brown, an 18-year-old black man, was fatally shot by a white
police officer; the disputed circumstances of the shooting

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further inflamed existing tensions in the predominantly black
city, where protests and civil unrest erupted; the events
received considerable attention in the U.S. and elsewhere and
generated a debate about the relationship between law
enforcement and African Americans; it also created a national
dialogue about the use of force, concerns over insensitivity to
the local community, and the militarized response of the police
to the situation; and
WHEREAS, Laquan McDonald was killed in Chicago on October
20, 2014 when he was shot 16 times in 13 seconds by a Chicago
police officer; video of the shooting shows that McDonald fell
to the ground after the first shot was fired; the officer
stopped firing for a moment, then opened fire again when
McDonald moved; the officer was on the scene for less than 30
seconds before opening fire and began shooting approximately
six seconds after exiting his car; another officer stated that
he did not see the need to use force and none of the at least
eight other officers on the scene fired their weapons; and
WHEREAS, On December 26, 2015, Quintonio LeGrier was shot
six times by police after allegedly swinging a baseball bat at
the officers when they responded to a 911 call he placed
regarding his father; the shooting also left, 55-year-old
Bettie Jones, who lived at the address, fatally wounded in what
police labeled an accident; and

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WHEREAS, Rekia Boyd, a 22-year-old African-American woman,
was fatally shot on March 21, 2012 in Chicago by an off-duty
Chicago police detective; he approached a group of four people
who were walking down an alley and admonished them for talking
too loudly; the group turned to leave and the officer fired
multiple shots into the group from inside his car, hitting Boyd
in the back of the head killing her; the officer claimed that
he mistook a cell phone for a handgun; and
WHEREAS, Although not shootings, Eric Garner, Sandra
Bland, and Freddie Gray all died in circumstances that seemed
to have been unnecessarily escalated by police; therefore, be
it
RESOLVED, BY THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES OF THE
NINETY-NINTH GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF THE STATE OF ILLINOIS, that we
urge changes in the manner in which police officers are trained
when dealing with the public; these changes should include (1)
de-escalation - talking to and calming down agitated,
weapon-wielding suspects and suspects who run away and then
struggle when they are caught; (2) cultural sensitivity -
police should take into account the perceptions minority groups
(Black, Latino, Muslim) have of the police and how those
perceptions may influence their actions; (3) community
engagement - officers being aware of the character of a

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community so that everyone in a particular community is not
treated like a potential lawbreaker.