*******************
JUST SAYING
BY RAUL HERNANDEZ
The roar to reform, fine-tune and overhaul police departments comes like a freight train right after an unarmed person is fatally shot or beaten by police.
The reform train comes with pundits, expert analysis, political grandstanding, and pontificating along with Internal Affairs and other investigations, press conferences, dozens of protests, police-chief promises, prosecutors waving indictments, and the media is 24/7 on these stories.
These fatal deaths, abuse, and brutality by cops against unarmed people have been around for many decades. It’s just that more body and cellphone cameras have shined a brighter light on these horrific incidents. But it’s never been a secret that police brutality and abuse have been cancer on the American landscape — Remember Rodney King, George Floyd, and the city of Ferguson, and the list goes on and on.
The facts scream for national reform:
According to a May 2021 report from the Pew Foundation, over the past three decades, the Justice Department has conducted more than 70 investigations of local police departments.
The Obama administration, for example, conducted 25 investigations and entered into 14 consent decrees.
The report states that the investigations stopped when Trump was elected president.
Basically, the Republicans give this problem lip service, offering their “thoughts and prayers” but always voting against police reforms.
Besides, these deaths by cops happen primarily in poor and minority communities.
The last time a Republican president was in the White House, this happened:
In 2018, then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions issued an order limiting the Justice Department’s ability to investigate and oversee the nation’s 18,000 local police departments, saying it wasn’t the federal government’s responsibility to oversee local policing. He also said the probes hurt police morale.
The Trump administration did not enter into a single consent decree.
Washington Post reported on June 15, 2017: “Sessions has said he aims to put the Justice Department on a more pro-police footing.
“Last month, he reversed an Obama administration move to restrict shipments of military surplus gear to police departments, saying in a speech that “the previous administration was more concerned about the image of law enforcement being too ‘militarized’ than they were about our safety,” WP report stated.
But that approach changed in April 2021 when Garland rescinded Sessions’ order.
The reform train will slow down and eventually stop, and everyone will get off until the police department thugs feel safe to come out again, swinging clubs, tasing, or shooting unarmed people.
Then, everybody will jump back on with the pontificating, speeches, and jump-start the cries for reform.