WASHINGTON – U.S. Senator Chris Coons (D-Del.) on Wednesday urged the President’s nominee for Attorney General, Loretta Lynch, to work closely with local law enforcement officials to improve public safety and ensure officers have the tools they need to carry out their duties safely. Lynch, currently the United States Attorney for the Eastern District of New York, testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee on her nomination.
“The Department of Justice plays a central role in supporting state and local law enforcement,” Senator Coons said during his questioning. “Can you comment on the importance you will place on the partnership between federal, state, and local law enforcement, including such programs as the Bulletproof Vest Partnership Act, the Justice Reinvestment Initiative, the Violence Reduction Network, which is particularly important to me, and information sharing?”
In her response, Lynch emphasized the importance of working with local law enforcement, not just in ensuring they have the resources they need, but also in listening to and learning from their experiences.
“It would be one of my highest priorities to ensure that there is not only collaboration and cooperation, about the needs that we can fulfill, but also that we can learn from our state and local counterparts,” Lynch responded. “It has been my experience, having had the benefit of learning from some of the best law enforcement agents and police officers around that no one knows the crime problem like the cop on the beat. No one really understands what’s going on in a community like the officer that walks those streets every night and knows those residents and understands those issues.”
As the co-chair of the Senate Law Enforcement Caucus and a member of the Judiciary and Appropriations Committees, Senator Coons has championed Department of Justice (DOJ) programs that combine the resources and know-how of the federal government with the expertise of local and state law enforcement agencies.
He introduced bipartisan legislation to reauthorize the Bulletproof Vest Partnership Grant Program, which helps state and local law enforcement agencies purchase bulletproof vests for officers working in the field. He pushed the DOJ to select Wilmington as a designated city in the new Violence Reduction Network, a new federal network designed to bring all of the expertise and experience of the federal government to help cities make their streets safer, and for New Castle County to be named a high-intensity drug trafficking area so it can access federal resources. He has also brought together members of Congress and their staffs to ensure they know how to better use the Justice Reinvestment Initiative, a data-sharing partnership that helps local agencies utilize the best data tools available.
During his questioning, Senator Coons also urged Lynch to take on criminal justice reform and voting rights discrimination, and to partner with Congress on the protection of intellectual property.