BRETT: Nobody wants to live in a dangerous community, in a dangerous neighborhood, and the key to keeping the streets safe is at least a modicum of respect for those who are charged with protecting us in our cities, in our towns, in our states. Police are a vitally important group of people. They are right now in the spotlight like never before for what it is that they’re doing.
In fact, “Attorney General Merrick Garland on Monday announced an investigation into the policing practices of the Louisville Police Department.” That’s the Breonna Taylor case that that was centered on. “The investigation will assess whether the Louisville Metro Police Department engages in a pattern or practice of using unreasonable force, including with respect to people involved in peaceful, expressive activities,” says Merrick Garland.
What does this mean? Well, it means it’s gonna be round number two or three or five of the federal police decrees that we saw once upon a time coming from the Obama administration. Rush talked about this.
RUSH: “Attorney General Jeff Sessions ordered Justice Department officials to review” all these consent decrees and reform agreements with troubled police forces nationwide, saying it was necessary to ensure that these [consent decrees] do not work against the Trump administration’s goals of promoting police officer safety and morale while fighting violent crime.” Consent decree is one of these terms of legality that many people might not understand. But here’s essentially what it is. After a…. it doesn’t necessarily require this. In fact, there were 14 consent decrees between the Obama Justice Department and local police departments.
Let’s focus on Ferguson, Missouri, since everybody knows that. After Ferguson blew up, and this “hands up, don’t shoot” thing happened, the Obama Justice Department took advantage of the opportunity to essentially take over that police department by accusing it of harboring racists and behaving in a racist manner in terms of law enforcement. And since every city and every town gets federal money for this or that, the Obama DOJ held ’em up and said, “If you want to continue getting federal money, you’ve gotta sign this consent decree.”
“I’m not gonna go after my people,” or some such thing, “not in this administration.” It was early on 2009. They did this in Baltimore. They did it in a number of places. But the point of this story is that Sessions is now reviewing all these consent decrees. And if they find these consent decrees from the Obama DOJ to local police departments are actually hamstringing local law enforcement from doing their jobs, they’re gonna change it. It’s just another bit of evidence that the Trump administration is draining the swamp.
That the Trump administration is doing what it swore it would do, doing what it promised it would do. It is continuing to unravel as much of the extra-constitutional, extra-judicial behavior of the Obama administration. I also have no doubt that the Obama administration, these consent decrees taking over police departments, let’s look at how many of them are in sanctuary cities, and I’ll bet we might be surprised.
BRETT: Now, that’s a very important point that Rush raises at the end, the idea that these sanctuary city police departments and the taking over with consent decrees was a huge issue. And what happened when you heard the call by President Trump once upon a time (and of course Sessions and then into Bill Barr) looking to hold sanctuary cities accountable for cooperating with federal authorities when it came to ICE operations?
Remember Libby Schaaf out in Oakland? She refused… In fact, she went on TV and warned people who were undocumented to get out of town because the raids are coming, all that sort of stuff. You have a situation where when the Trump administration tried to say to these communities, “Since you’re breaking the law by being sanctuary jurisdictions, we don’t want to give you money.”
I’m willing to predict this: You’re gonna see another outthrow of men and women in law enforcement saying, “This is another impediment to us doing our jobs, the fact that we have to do Merrick-may-I to Attorney General Garland. ‘Merrick, may I enforce the law? Merrick, may I make an arrest? Merrick, may I do this or do that?’ It’s just another barrier to wanting to patrol and to safely serve the people of these communities.”
Again, you’ve heard it time and time again. No police officer puts on that badge and goes out on the streets and intends to hurt or kill anybody. Their number one objective is public safety and to get home at night. That’s what it comes down to. The bad guys have to be run from the job, but we cannot look at this through a mass-punishment decree.
Related Links