Jeff Sessions Didnt Read DOJs Chicago Police Report. But He Thinks Its Anecdotal.
The attorney general signaled a change in the Justice Department’s approach to civil rights.
By Ryan J. Reilly
WASHINGTON ― Calling police officers the “frontline soldiers” in the fight against crime, Attorney General Jeff Sessions signaled Monday that the Trump administration’s Justice Department would take a new position in the Civil Rights Division’s approach to police abuse.
“We’ve got to go back and make sure that our police departments understand that they’re being supported, both by the Department of Justice as an ally, and by the American people,” Sessions told reporters at DOJ headquarters on Monday, in a preview of a speech he will give before a gathering of the nation’s attorneys general on Tuesday.
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A DOJ report released in the final days of the Obama administration, based on an investigation that spanned nearly 14 months, detailed troubling patterns of unconstitutional conduct within the Chicago Police Department.
In Ferguson, much of the reporting was based upon the city’s very own reports, and indicated widespread abuse of constitutional rights of citizens.
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Sessions’ position echoed the view he expressed throughout his nomination, when he indicated he subscribed to the “bad apples” view of policing, which holds that police abuse is not systemic in certain departments but the fault of individual rogue actors. Sessions said during his confirmation hearing that it was a “difficult thing” for a city to face allegations they had systemically violated the civil rights of citizens.
Read More: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/jeff-sessions-doj-police_us_58b4a2eae4b060480e0b1ce6?
This doesn't bode well for POC. Sessions seems to be more concerned about the fragile feelings of a city instead of her citizens.