Biden’s DOJ Pursued Police Misconduct; Trump Could End Probes | EUROtoday

With lower than two weeks to go till Election Day, civil rights attorneys and the households of victims of police violence are sounding the alarm about what they see as a possible consequence of a second Donald Trump presidency: dissolving any progress on police reform that has been made underneath President Joe Biden’s Department of Justice.

The Justice Department has launched investigations into allegations of misconduct and discriminatory policing at a number of police departments throughout the U.S. during the last 4 years, and consultants and observers surprise what may change if Trump beats the Democratic nominee, Vice President Kamala Harris.

When Trump was president, his administration took a number of steps to roll again civil rights protections and didn’t actively search to analyze or curb police misconduct, though the difficulty was more and more within the nationwide highlight, particularly after the high-profile 2020 police killings of Breonna Taylor in Louisville, Kentucky, and George Floyd in Minneapolis.

And on the marketing campaign path, he has averted speaking about individuals who have been killed by police, as a substitute signaling assist for immunity from accountability for legislation enforcement personnel. The Trump marketing campaign didn’t reply to HuffPost’s request for remark.

“I feel like [the current administration] did a lot of work in the community, but I am worried about the changing of the guard,” stated Sherri Reeves, the mom of Peter Reeves, a 30-year-old Black man who sued the police in Lexington, Mississippi. His lawsuit was ultimately dismissed, however the Justice Department not too long ago discovered that the police division within the small city had engaged in discriminatory practices.

“I hope that [Harris] gets in because if she does, the work will continue,” Reeves stated. “If Trump gets it, then we are going to be going back in time as far as what we went through before the DOJ stepped in.”

The Biden administration has opened 12 “pattern-or-practice” investigations of police and sheriff’s departments throughout the nation by means of its civil rights division, in keeping with a DOJ spokesperson. Such critiques have a look at a legislation enforcement company’s historical past to determine if there was a sample or apply of police misconduct, a scientific use of unlawful strategies.

Some investigations are nonetheless open, however others, together with in Phoenix, Louisville and Minneapolis, have concluded and located discriminatory policing practices. Yet these cities have hit hurdles when initiating police reform ordinances, together with, within the case of Memphis, Republicans within the state legislature blocking reform efforts.

Kristen Clarke, the U.S. assistant lawyer basic for civil rights, has led the cost on these Justice Department efforts.

Clarke has been a “maverick,” particularly in comparison with the “toothless” policing insurance policies underneath Trump, stated civil rights lawyer Lee Merritt, who has represented a number of households of victims of police violence, together with these of Floyd and Taylor.

Under Clarke, the Justice Department additionally initiated contacts in some smaller cities that always go ignored by the federal authorities. In Decatur, Alabama, for instance, Merritt stated individuals from the Justice Department met with neighborhood members who had considerations about native police, together with the household of Stephen Perkins, a Black man who was fatally shot by police whereas his automotive was getting repossessed outdoors his house. Merritt represents Perkins’ household.

“You saw pushback from the federal government in a small city like Decatur, where they were sending in U.S. attorneys and taking reports from citizens about violations of the Constitution by the state,” Merritt stated.

“Obviously I did not see that under the Trump administration. We saw the opposite. We saw him attempting to martialize National Guard troops and military against citizens themselves,” Merritt stated, referring to Trump’s response to protests following Floyd’s demise. “That is something scary Trump has talked about and he would do if he gets back in office.”

Lexington, in addition to close by Rankin County, Mississippi, are different examples of the DOJ stepping in to analyze small-town police forces.

Lexington, a majority-Black city with a inhabitants of simply over 1,000 individuals, discovered itself within the nationwide highlight after a former police chief went on a racist tirade, together with bragging about taking pictures a Black man greater than 100 occasions. Clarke’s workplace discovered that the police division engaged in discriminatory policing practices. The Justice Department opened an investigation into police in Rankin County following the conviction of six white legislation enforcement officers for torturing two Black males. The Rankin County investigation is ongoing.

Sherri Reeves stated Lexington residents had lengthy had complaints concerning the police, however they hadn’t been investigated till Biden’s administration. She stated that she thought there was hope for extra federal intervention if Harris wins and that she doesn’t consider Trump’s DOJ would have investigated her metropolis.

“The DOJ is a big deal when they come into a small community like this. I think that is what makes it pivotal because they usually don’t take cases this small,” she stated.

Cardell Wright, the chief of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party and an activist within the Lexington space, informed HuffPost that Clarke’s efforts have put cops throughout the nation on discover — together with in cities like his, which he stated have traditionally been ignored.

“So often we have seen over the course of 10 to 20 years there have been so many shootings at the hands of the police, and they have walked away free with no criminal charges filed,” Wright stated. “It is this issue of qualified immunity, and so that is what I will say is at risk with this election, is proper accountability for police officers who will go rogue and do what they want to do.”

One of the Justice Department’s most high-profile pattern-or-practice investigations is in Memphis, which began after Tyre Nichols, 29, was fatally crushed by cops in January 2023. One officer, Desmond Mills, pleaded responsible to each civil rights and conspiracy fees. Another, Demetrius Haley, was convicted of violating Nichols’ civil rights leading to bodily damage, in addition to conspiracy and obstruction of justice fees. Former officers Tadarrius Bean and Justin Smith have been convicted of obstruction of justice.

Rodney Wells, Nichols’ stepfather, stated each Biden and Harris had contacted the household after Nichols’ demise. He and RowVaughn Wells, Nichols’ mom, attended Biden’s State of the Union handle a month after his demise, and have since advocated for police reform laws.

“We got invited to the White House, the Juneteenth celebration, we have gotten a letter from the Biden administration around Christmas — but we have not received anything from Donald Trump,” Rodney Wells informed HuffPost this week.

“It is about the fact that he has not acknowledged us and the tragedy that happened to Tyre Nichols. The Biden-Harris administration has acknowledged us. [Harris] came to our funeral in a snowstorm, and that was very powerful to our family.”

When Trump took workplace in 2017, his administration started rolling again laws from Barack Obama’s presidency.

On March 31, 2017, then Attorney General Jeff Sessions submitted a memo suggesting U.S. attorneys not pursue consent decrees. Prior administrations had used consent decrees, that are courtroom agreements on reforms required of the police departments, to fight misconduct, together with problems with extreme drive, discriminatory stops and officers spying on civilians who could have spoken out concerning the police division. The settlement would set an ordinary for officers to satisfy to reform their policing practices.

For instance, in October 2018, a federal choose dominated that Memphis police violated a 1978 consent decree resulting from surveillance of activists and reporters. Officers have been monitoring native activists by amassing their Facebook posts and monitoring the households of individuals killed by police.

Sessions moreover tried to cease Baltimore police from adopting really useful reforms in a federal consent decree on discriminatory policing practices, however that was blocked by a federal courtroom.

Sessions then rescinded an Obama-era ban on police use of military-style weapons, which had grow to be a difficulty particularly throughout protests in opposition to police brutality.

Sessions and his successor, William Barr, “were actively pursuing policies that were anti-human rights and civil rights. They were voluntarily withdrawing from consent decrees about police misuse of force,” Merritt stated.

The deaths of Floyd and Taylor sparked mass demonstrations demanding policing accountability.

“I was in Minnesota after George Floyd was murdered. I was there with protesters helping serve as a legal observer. Individuals were not only being targeted by police, but when the state seemed to be working to deescalate the situation in Minnesota and bring justice to the community, Donald Trump was throwing fuel on the flames.”

At a marketing campaign rally in Wisconsin in May, Trump reiterated that he would “give police their power back” and can be “giving them immunity from prosecution.”

In July, a panel of interviewers on the National Association of Black Journalists conference requested Trump about his earlier feedback on certified immunity, which protects legislation enforcement officers personally from prison prosecution and civil fits except it’s discovered legally that they violated an individual’s civil rights. In explicit, they requested him concerning the demise of Sonya Massey, a 36-year-old Black lady who had been fatally shot in her Springfield, Illinois, house by a sheriff’s deputy earlier that month. Trump didn’t appear accustomed to the small print of the case, which had sparked nationwide outrage, and wouldn’t say whether or not he thought the deputy who shot Massey can be granted immunity underneath his coverage proposal.

“Well, he might not. It depends on what happens. I am talking about people much different than that. We need people to protect ourselves,” Trump stated on the time. “In this particular case, that did not look good to me, I did not like it. I did not like it at all.”

Harris put out an announcement condemning the taking pictures and known as Massey’s household.

Van Turner, the previous president of the Memphis NAACP, stated rather a lot is on the road this election. He pointed to what Project 2025, a blueprint for a second Trump presidency written by conservatives, says about policing and the function of the Justice Department.

“The evidence shows that the Biden Administration’s Department of Justice has failed to protect law-abiding citizens and has ignored its most basic obligations. It has become at once utterly unserious and dangerously politicized. Prosecution and charging decisions are infused with racial and partisan political double standards,” the doc says. (Trump has distanced himself from lots of the proposals in Project 2025, though its authors embody former aides and different allies.)

“When you look at Project 2025 and other things President Trump has said, I think it is a real risk of him continuing what he was doing when he was in office,” Turner stated.

“In relation to what is going on with the DOJ and their investigation of [the Memphis Police Department] as well as the aftermath of Floyd and Nichols, I just think we will remain at a standstill, and what needs to happen will not happen under his administration if he wins.”