There's no epidemic of police criminality in America, Republican Sen. Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania declared in a passionate 15-minute speech defending law enforcement in the
wake of charges against six Baltimore cops in the death of a suspect in their custody.
"If you listen to many of the police critics that we hear from today, you'd think that there's some sort of epidemic of crimes perpetrated by the police, and that ... I assure you, is not true," Toomey declared in his Tuesday speech on the Senate floor,
the Philadelphia Inquirer reports.
Excerpts were posted by
Roll Call.
Toomey said the riots triggered in Baltimore after Freddie Gray's April 19 death telegraphed to police that if they're accused of wrongdoing, "there might be a public mob that clamors for their conviction and threatens to burn down the city if the legal system finds them innocent. . . . That is a sad state of affairs."
Noting the Baltimore officers' case will have to be decided through the legal system, Toomey nevertheless worried the accusations overshadow the officers who were serving honorably.
"The overwhelming majority of police are honest men and women," he said in the speech. "They have very high ethical standards. They don't have a racist bone in their body."
A conversation on "bad police practices" is appropriate, Toomey said, but he warned against a rush to judgment, the Inquirer reports — and said he hopes the next demonstration about police conduct would be to thank them for their work and dedication.
"That's a demonstration I'll be honored to join," he said.
When Toomey won his 2010 election, he was endorsed by several police unions, the Inquirer notes, and he also teamed with police groups to sink President Barack Obama's nomination of lawyer Debo Adegbile to lead the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division.
Police unions had opposed Adegbile because of his work with a group that helped convicted cop-killer Mumia Abu-Jamal on his death-penalty appeals, the Inquirer reports.
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