With Trump gone, advocates flood Justice Dept. with requests to investigate police
Source: Washington Post
National Security
With Trump gone, advocates flood Justice Dept. with requests to investigate police
By David Nakamura
Today at 11:30 a.m. EDT
Civil rights leaders in Kansas City, Mo., hoped to win the Justice Department’s attention in July when they unveiled a 15-page letter calling for a federal investigation into alleged excessive force by the city’s police department.
They described an urgent need for intervention at a time when police in other jurisdictions, including Minneapolis and Louisville, have drawn greater scrutiny. But a line is forming rapidly at the Justice Department’s door. (1) Last week, activists a few miles west — in Kansas City, Kan. — published a full-page advertisement in The Washington Post demanding a federal probe into the separate police agency that patrols their city. (2)
“This is more than just a cry for help from the middle of America,” they wrote in the ad addressed to Associate Attorney General Vanita Gupta, who oversees the civil division.
The competing missives from opposite sides of the Missouri River illustrate the challenge for Justice officials as they try to respond to mounting calls for police accountability sparked by social-justice protests last year. After facing resistance from the Trump administration, which viewed intervention into local policing as federal overreach, elected officials and community activists across the country are flooding the Biden administration with pleas for help.
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By David Nakamura
David Nakamura covers the White House. He has previously covered sports, education and city government and reported from Afghanistan, Pakistan and Japan. Twitter https://twitter.com/davidnakamura
(1) https://apnews.com/article/police-race-and-ethnicity-michael-brown-racial-injustice-police-reform-a9f80387827324193e7f31f103206665
(2) https://www.kctv5.com/news/investigations/jay-z-s-team-roc-takes-out-full-page-ad-in-washington-post-demanding-federal/article_50e39288-2606-11ec-96b3-a7a78abdc914.html
Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/justice-police-investigations-kansas-city/2021/10/13/faa453cc-26d1-11ec-8831-a31e7b3de188_story.html
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