After the Trump Administration’s Department of Justice announced the dismissal of Consent Decrees and other police investigations across the country, national civil rights leaders and attorneys general from several states joined to denounce this action.
Maya Wiley, president and CEO of The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights met with members of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC), NAACP, The Legal Defense Fund, and attorneys general Letitia James (NY), Keith Ellison (MN), Kwami Raoul (IL), Aaron D. Ford (NV), and Anthony Brown (MD).
During the meeting, Wiley said the actions of the DOJ have made our communities more vulnerable and called this action “unleashing policing” by allowing police departments to go unchecked and without consequence.
Minnesota AG Keith Ellison called the actions “wrong” and “immoral.”
“This is not new,” he said. “It does mean that we have to have state ‘patterns and practices’ because we can’t trust these people.”
New York AG Letitia James echoed the sentiment of Ellison and the others, saying, “The Department of Justice has abandoned police reform.”
The group discussed actions they were taking in preparation for the DOJ’s actions on Wednesday morning. In particular, the group discussed Louisville and Minneapolis’ issues with policing, citing George Floyd and Breonna Taylor’s deaths. These deaths sparked widespread protests in 2020. The actions by the Trump DOJ leave these same communities vulnerable to police violence and are chilling to the potential actions by citizens who may seek to protest police mistreatment.
“The protection and enforcement of civil rights is an inextricable foundation of strong democracies,” White said in a release after the call. “The announcement that the Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division is not moving forward with consent decrees in several cities is appalling and further proves that the DOJ is no longer protecting our civil rights. Minneapolis and Louisville, where police officers killed George Floyd and Breonna Taylor, will no longer have consent decrees with their police departments, sending the message to the American people that police can violate their civil and constitutional rights — and that this regime will protect police over people.
Wiley also added that the, “Civil Rights Division is charged with enforcing the nation’s federal civil rights laws but is instead decimating its staff, twisting itself into a weapon against civil rights, and withdrawing from important litigation to protect them. The administration cut funds for community-based crime prevention and violence intervention, stopped critical civil rights enforcement by abandoning police reform, and dumped funds into federal law enforcement to target immigrants, denying them the right to see a judge and ‘unleashing’ law enforcement by calling for aggressive policing and harsh punishments.”
Ultimately, the call illustrates a national response and mobilization against efforts to remove the protections and government oversight from bodies that cause harm to American citizens. In addition, the DOJ is putting itself in the position of an adversary to the American people instead of as an ally to the protection of the Constitution and the civil rights of its citizens.
In the coming weeks, it is reasonable to expect more conversations to take place regarding actions at the state and local level to press forward with police reforms, among other actions needed to protect all Americans.
