Aug. 2, 2016, Fairfax, Va.—Americans for Limited Government President Rick Manning today issued a statement in response to the statement by the United Nations Rapporteur Maina Kai urging the Justice Department Civil Rights Division to federalize every police department in the country via consent decrees:
“The UN Human Rights Council, on which China and Venezuela and Cuba sit, is urging the Department of Justice to nationalize as many as 18,000 local police jurisdictions. That is appalling on its face, but what’s worse is Justice has already been regulating local police for years. These sue and settle lawsuits have been implemented in Newark, N.J., Miami, Fla., Los Angeles, Calif., Ferguson, Mo., Chicago, Ill. and others. Requirements include how searches are conducted, the use of force, the mandatory use of on-body cameras by the police, and so on. The agreements impose years-long compliance review regimes and implementation deadlines and regular reviews by federal bureaucrats.
“The Obama administration has been pursuing these cases for years, and it has largely gone unnoticed. Congress never authorized federal regulation of local police departments and if Obama had requested it legislatively, they likely would have said no. The DOJ has been taking over local police under Congress’ noses using an expansive interpretation of federal law. The ball was dropped but now it must be picked up and Congress needs to stop the nationalizing of local police departments. The fact that the UN Human Rights Council — which includes some of the worst abusers of human rights in the world that hate the U.S. — is cheering for this DOJ national takeover of the police should tell members everything they need to know.
“It’s time to support local police, not render them impotent via federal restrictions against maintaining law and order. No less than the very existence of local government is at stake.”
Attachments:
Statement by the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the rights to freedom of peaceful assembly and of association at the conclusion of his visit to the United States of America, Maina Kai, July 27, 2016 at http://freeassembly.net/news/usa-statement/ , “The Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice has provided oversight and recommendations for improvement of police services in a number of cities with consent decrees. This is one of the most effective ways to reduce discrimination in law enforcement and it needs to be beefed up and increased to cover as many of the 18,000-plus local law enforcement jurisdictions.”
“Obama’s war on the police is real,” Robert Romano, Aug. 2, 2016 at https://www.conservativereview.com/commentary/2016/07/obamas-war-on-the-police-is-real
“An outsider tours American and chronicles its enduring racism,” Max Bearak, Washington Post, Aug. 1, 2016 at https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2016/08/01/sometimes-it-takes-an-outsider-to-crystallize-americas-enduring-racism/
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