APRIL RIOTS

Conditions here since the early April riots have significantly undermined the economy of this community. We estimate that we lost $10 million in tourist spending in April and May and our figures are still running behind what they should be. A great many business enterprises in the District, particularly in downtown Washington, have suffered substantial reductions in their volumes. Some have already d closed and others may have to do so in the very near future unless conditions improve.

The cut back of tourist spending and those of residents in the central area has and will be reflected directly in revenues collected by the District of Columbia, and I am fearful that conditions will get worse since almost daily we receive comments and letters from business people of the District similar to one received yesterday which ended by saying, "I dont' know how we can continue to do business in Washington, D.C."

On May 10th, with the approval of my Board of Directors, I wired the President of the United States as follows:

The safety of people and property in this city must be assured. This requires all citizens to observe the rights of others. Business and citizens must fully recognize and observe their responsibilities to maintain law and order. National and local government must assure such conditions and protect all citizens against lawless elements.

Clearly, Washington's law enforcement processes cannot adequately fulfill this function at this time. Scheduled demonstrations will place additional demands on the police establishments. It therefore is essential that the number of law enforcement personnel on the streets be augmented now.

We urge appropriate officials to order this done immediately.
This is the end of my telegram.

Subsequently, the President recommended the addition of 1,000 policemen to the Metropolitan Police Department. On June 4th I wrote the President and transmitted "compliments and appreciation for the decision to increase the Metropolitan Washington Police Department by 1,000 additional officers." I also reiterated our concern about the maintenance of law and order here but pointed out that while his recommendation was a step forward, it would require a considerable amount of time before it could be fully implemented inasmuch as appropriations were needed and recruiting and training facilities would have to be expanded. I invited the President's attention to my telegram of May 10th, stating that we renewed our suggestion and earnestly requested that steps be taken to assign 1,000 military police to the Metropolitan Police Department immediately so that a high degree of law and order could be reestablished at the earliest possible time.

Please understand, Mr. Chairman, that we in the Board of Trade believe that most of our responsible officials and the Metropolitan Police Department are sincerely dedicated: to reducing criminal activity and again making our homes, our businesses and our streets safe for all of us. We compliment them for their service in the face of the serious law enforcement handicaps they must deal with.

Hopefully, some of these handicaps are being lessened or eliminated. It also now appears that the Metropolitan Police Department will be enlarged. But, meanwhile it is of paramount importance that steps be taken now to reduce crime by augmenting the number of law enforcement officers on the streets as we have asked the President to do. We

earnestly hope that this Committee and the Congress will seek to accomplish this very essential objective.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. DOWDY. Thank you for your fine statement.

Of course we know Washington is not the only area in the United States where the police have been put under handicaps in enforcing the law, ordered not to arrest, and things of that kind. I know police don't like to be under orders like that, but to keep their jobs they have to obey the orders of their superiors. That is wrong and they should be permitted to enforce the law and I hope the hearings of this Committee will, not only this investigating subcommittee but the full Committee had already, and apparently some of the things we have brought out have had some effect, if not as much as desired.

If there is any legislation that is needed, of course, this Committee will want to bring it forth. It appears to me right now it is not legislation that is needed, it is either a change in direction of the pepole who are running this government or else firing them and getting somebody who will try to enforce the law.

It just seems to me that Washington officials have been inviting trouble by the things that they permit to go on.

For instance, this Resurrection City, when they set it up as an enclave and said the police couldn't go in there. This was actually a separate country that they could run their own laws in there and do whatever they want, and I have had experiences related to me where somebody from this place would rob, either assault or rob, and the police couldn't do anything with them because they would jump over the fence and the policemen would be ordered not to follow the fellow into the enclave to make an arrest. It is unbelievable that any government would permit such a thing to happen. And those are the sort of things that have got to be stopped if we are going to have any law enforcement in Washington at all.

I realize this situation, and this hotel down here, the Willard, which was forced to close by the riots and demonstrations, and other businesses forced to close. I hope, as a result of our hearing if it develops a need for additional legislation, we will recommend it; but it seems to me that is all on the books that is necessary now, if the executive agencies would enforce those laws.

Mr. Machen, we are glad to have you sit with us.

Mr. MACHEN. I have nothing to add, Mr. Chairman. I think the position made very clear by Mr. Calomiris, the Board of Trade comes out and when they promote the city, and again I come back, I compliment you and the Committee in trying to focus attention on this where there can be better cooperation on all levels of government to restore the respect, the feeling of confidence in the hands of our law enforcement agencies and the people feel they are doing the job. It is just pointed out here from this witness and the other witnesses. Mr. DOWDY. Thank you.

Mr. CALOMIRIS. Thank you.

Mr. DowDY. I promised Mrs. Joan Abbott, the president of the District of Columbia Police Wives Association, we would hear her at 10:30 and it is that time. She has some youngsters at home she wants to get back to.

We are glad to have you, Mrs. Abbott.

STATEMENT OF MRS. JOAN ABBOTT, PRESIDENT, D.C. POLICE WIVES ASSOCIATION

Mrs. ABBOTT. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

It is a privilege to be here this morning because the members of the D.C. Police Wives Association know that all the members of the House D.C. Committee share our alarm and concern over the rising flood of crime in Washington. Four policemen have been killed in Washington in line of duty in the past 7 months. A number of the members of the D.C. Police Wives Association are constituents of Congressman Hervey G. Machen of Maryland's Fifth Congressional District and all of the members appreciate the concern he has shown while in Congress in support of the Metropolitan Police Department and the individual police officers.

Chairman John Dowdy of this subcommittee, together with Congressman Durward Hall and Congressman Donald E. Lukens, included in the Congressional Record, when the Poff-Casey amendment was being debated, the letters the D.C. Police Wives Association wrote to President Johnson, Vice President Humphrey and City Council Chairman John W. Hechinger in support of the Casey Amendment. We are proud of our contribution to the adoption on July 24, 1968, of the PoffCasey amendment by the House of Representatives by an overwhelming vote of 412 to 11. We are going to work very hard to get the Senate to accept the Poff-Casey bipartisan amendment, and we think it will be adopted.

Speaker after speaker made it clear during the House debate that it wasn't the severity of the punishment, but only the certainly of punishment which deterred criminals, and the Poff-Casey amendment deals directly with this basic issue.

It is high time that the Congress wrote the mandatory provisions of the Poff-Casey amendment into law. President Johnson in his March 13, 1968, message to Congress called on the Congress to enact a D.C. Gun Control Act which would include a mandatory provision to "add 10 years imprisonment to the regular penalty when a firearm is used in a robbery or an attempted robbery." In adopting the PoffCasey amendment, the House of Representatives has magnificently responded to President Johnson's call for mandatory sentences to prevent a recurrence in the District of Columbia of what President Johnson condemned as last year' "2,500 major crimes committed in the Nation's Capital at gunpoint-murders, assaults and robberies."

On July 19, 1968, during the House Debate on Gun Legislation, Congressman Fisher of Texas pointed out that "records reveal that some 80 percent of major crimes are committed by those with prior criminal records, many of them favored with light sentences and manifestly unjustified probationary treatment." This is the problem in Washington. For instance, on June 26, 1968, Congressman Paul Rogers of Florida denounced 17 sentences handed down in a two-week period by District Courts here in cases where guns were used. Six of these cases were suspended, 4 were given light sentences under the Youth Corrections Act even though the criminals involved were 18, 19, 20 and

21 years of age. In a case of first degree murder the criminal was given

a 1 year sentence. Judges who hand down such ridiculous sentences should be removed from office. The Bail Reform Act must be revised

and drastically amended to keep the repeaters from committing new crimes. These are essential steps to make our streets and our homes safe for law-abiding citizens. In some states, judges hand down stiffer sentences for killing game out of season than some D.C. judges give criminals in cases where guns are used. It is time to stop making excuses for criminals and to recognize crime for what is is, a plague of destruction that knows no barrier of race, color, or creed or financial status. From 1960 to 1966, 335 policemen in our Nation were killed, 322 died by guns in the hands of criminals. 242 Metropolitan Policemen have been assaulted this year in the District as compared to 193 combined assaults on Metropolitan and Park Police last year. Nation-wide last year, guns were used in more than 125,000 assaults, rapes and robberies.

The House wisely rejected the licensing and registration amendments which would have penalized law-abiding citizens. The amendment offered by Congressman McClory, for instance, called, in one section, for "imprisonment not to exceed two years, or a fine not to exceed $2000, or both." Another section called for "imprisonment not to exceed 5 years or a fine not to exceed $10,000 or both." These were aimed at the law-abiding citizens.

The D.C. City Council under Chairman John W. Hechinger, who sold guns in the Hechinger's stores for many years has adopted gun registration and licensing provisions which were rejected by the House of Representatives. The D. C. City Council's new gun regulations provide penalties for failure to comply of $300 or 10 days in jail, or both. Is it realistic to expect such minor offenses to deter criminals from killing another policeman, from committting another rape or another robbery or another assault? The Washington Post, which, generally favors the criminal and gives major headlines to everyone who attacks police, either verbally or by guns, and feels that it is white people and white policemen, and society in general and not the criminally-inclined individuals; who are responsible for crime, was predictably enthusiastic in its support of the farcial gun control regulations backed by Mr. Hechinger and adopted at his insistence by the D.C. City Council.

We hope this Committee will take action against the Hechinger gun control regulations now that the House of Representatives has decisively rejected the McClory amendment by a vote of 168 to 89, in view of the fact that the McClory amendment and Mr. Hechinger's gun control regulations are aimed at the law-abiding citizen rather than the criminal. As the House of Representatives pointed out, criminals ignore such weak-kneed laws. The Supreme Court in the case of Haynes against the United States has encouraged criminals to ignore the Hechinger-McClory approach by ordering that the defendant be released. The famous, or infamous opinion, depending on how you look at it, and whether you are a criminal or a law-abiding citizen, was written by Justice Harlan and it declared "we hold that a proper claim of the constitutional privilege againts self-incrimination provides a full defense to prosecutions either for failure to register a firearm under section 5841 or for possession of a unregistered firearm under section 5851."

A sound constitutional basis does not exist for the D.C. Gun Control Regulations which Mr. Hechinger insisted on pushing through the

D.C. City Council with the backing of the Washington Post which, in its editorial pages, is as hazy, uninformed, and heedless about basic constitutional provisions as Mr. Hechinger is. This Committee should take a long hard look at the D.C. Gun Control Regulations, with the Constitution in mind and particularly with Justice Harlan's opinion in the case of Haynes against the United States in mind.

Some of the things which policemen have to put up with when they go before courts in connection with cases in which they have made arrests are unbelievable. It is no bed of roses to be a policeman. The discouragements are great. The lack of support by the City Council under Mr. Hechinger and the Reverend Walter E. Fauntroy and Mrs. Polly Shackleton is growing day by day. We agree with Congressman B. F. Sisk that members of the D.C. City Council, "have not given effective, firm support and backing, I feel the members of the Police Department are entitled to." In our discussions with members of the Policeman's Association we believe that this is the overwhelming view of the members of the police department. We support Congressman Sisk in calling for a thorough questioning of the members of the City Council by the House District Committee. The former District Commissioners gave much more support to the police than the present D.C. Council. We think the D.C. City Council should be abolished and that the adoption by the Congress of the present plan for the District Government was a sad mistake which the police are paying for with their lives. The situation is getting worse day by day. John Harrington of Philadelphia, National President of the 137,000 member fraternal order of police, has called for a national two day police walkout. Police leaders across the country and in the District of Columbia have become embittered by what they consider lack of support in dealing with crime and racial violence.

Mr. Harrington's comment, that "when police are being shot like fish in a barrel, it's time we do something," certainly applies in the District of Columbia, Bruce Terris, chairman of the Democratic Central Committee has called for the dismissal of Police Chief John B. Layton. The Reverend Channing E. Phillips, D.C. Democratic National Committeeman wrote the resolution adopted by the Black United Front which declared that killing a white policeman was "justifiable homicide." We hereby request this Committee as well as the Democratic National Convention to bring Bruce Terris and the Reverend Channing E. Phillips before them, by subpoena if necessary to investigate completely the question of whether killing a white policeman is "justifiable homicide." We think the members of the Metropolitan Police Department are entitled to an answer to this question. The D.C. Police Wives Association will exert every effort to bring these matters before the Credential and Platform committees at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, because we believe the American people are entitled to know where the Democratic party stands on the question as to whether it is "justifiable homicide" to kill white policemen. We have not been able to get an answer to this question from the D.C. City Council, although we tried several times. When we objected to our husbands being killed, and when we said, we would urge our husbands to go fishing if the D.C. City Council did not condemn the view that is was "justifiable homicide" to kill white policemen, which had been adopted by the Black United Front and