

			   THE WHITE HOUSE

		    Office of the Press Secretary

___________________________________________________________________
					   Saturday, April 16, 1994                                       


	     
		    RADIO ADDRESS BY THE PRESIDENT
			    TO THE NATION
	     
	     
			  The Roosevelt Room 


	     
	     THE PRESIDENT:  Good morning.  This week we joined in 
sorrow for those who lost their lives in the downing of two of our 
helicopters over Iraq.  I want to begin by expressing, again, my 
condolences to the loved ones of those who died.  They gave their 
lives in a high cause -- providing comfort to Kurdish victims of 
Sadaam Hussein's brutal regime -- and we honor the sacrifice of those 
brave individuals.
	     
	     Today I want to talk about one of the greatest threats 
we face right here at home -- the threat of crime in our communities.  
In 1991, I visited the Rockwell Gardens in the ABLA Housing Projects 
in Chicago where I saw firsthand what happens to our children who 
live too long in the shadow of fear.  Dozens of children rushed out 
to greet me, eager to have someone to tell their stories to.  They 
talked of gunshots and drug dealers, of late-night knocks at their 
doors and hallways where they dared not stray.  Many of their stories 
had a common theme -- their childhoods were being stolen from them.  
	     
	     Vince Lane, the head of the Chicago Housing Authority, 
is a genuine hero to these children.  He's trying to show the 
children that someone cares.  To help, he put into effect a search 
and sweep policy to clean out Chicago's public housing communities, 
to find weapons, to get people out of those housing projects who 
didn't belong, to find drugs.  But just over a week ago a federal 
district judge declared Vince Lane's search and sweep policy 
unconstitutional.
	     
	     Every law-abiding American, rich or poor, has the right 
to raise children without the fear of criminals terrorizing where 
they live.  That's why, as soon as I heard about the court's 
decision, I instructed Secretary of Housing and Urban Development 
Henry Cisneros and Attorney General Janet Reno to devise a 
constituitonal effective way to protect the residents of America's 
public housing communities.  Secretary Cisneros and Attorney General 
Reno moved quickly.  Today I am announcing a new policy to help 
public housing residents take back there homes.
	     
	     First, at my direction, Secretary Cisneros is in Chicago 
to provide emergency funds for enforcement and prevention in gang-
infested public housing.  We'll put more police in public housing, 
crack down on illegal gun trafficking, and fill vacant apartments 
where criminals hide out.  And we'll provide more programs like 
midnight basketball leagues to help our young people say no to gangs 
and guns and drugs.
	     
	     Second, we will empower residents to build safe 
neighborhoods, and we'll help to organize tenant patrols to ride the 
elevators and look after the public spaces in these high-rise public 
housing units.
	     
	     Finally, we're going to work with residents in high-
crime areas to permit the full range of searches that the 
Constitution does allow -- in common areas, in vacant apartments and 
in circumstances where residents are in immediate danger.  We'll 
encourage more weapons frisks of suspicious persons, and we'll ask 
tenant associations to put clauses in their leases allowing searches 
when crime conditions make it necessary.  
	     
	     This new policy honors the principles of personal and 
community responsibility at the very heart of this administration's 
efforts.  It also shows all Americans that their government can move 
swiftly and effectively on their behalf.
	     
	     Now we must move swiftly on the crime bill before 
Congress.  The bill provides the right balance of protection, 
punishment and prevention.  It will put 100,000 more police officers 
on the streets for community policing efforts that work.  It will 
make three strikes and you're out the law of the land and provide 
money for new prisons.  And it will pay for a wide variety of 
prevention programs to give our young people a future they can say 
yes to.  
	     
	     This is a crucial moment in the crime bill debate.   
It's time to tell Congress you've waited long enough for 
comprehensive national crime legislation; that you don't want 
political posturing or frivolous amendments, and instead, you need 
help to take back your communities.
	     
	     This crime bill is for all our people, but nobody needs 
it more than the people like the mother of three who lives right here 
in Washington.  A week ago, this 33-year-old mother came home after 
celebrating her ten-year-old daughter's birthday to find a gang of 
gunmen ransacking her apartment.  The mother had one plea for the 
intruders:  "If you believe in God, please don't shoot my children.  
Shoot me."  The reply was cold and terrifying.  "I don't believe in 
God," said one of the gunmen.  Then he shot her daughter dead.   
Before the gunfire ceased, another child and the mother were both 
shot, and her three-year-old son witnessed the whole thing.  
	     
	     The sad fact is, the police now believe the shootings 
were carried out by youths who hang out in the very apartment complex 
where that mother was trying to raise her children.
	     
	     There are many rights that our laws and our Constitution 
guarantee to every citizen, but that mother and her children have 
certain rights we are letting slip away.  They include the right to 
go out to the playground, and the right to sit by an open window; the 
right to walk to the corner without fear of gunfire; the right to go 
to school safely in the morning; and the right to celebrate your 
tenth birthday without coming home to bloodshed and terror.  The 
crime bill will help us take back those rights for all of our people.  
So will our new policy to protect public housing residents.
	     
	     We must decide we will not tolerate more tragedies like 
that mother's.  When we do that, together, we can replace our 
children's fear with hope.
	     
	     Thanks for listening. 

				 END

