this statute was created to give the department of justice, the attorney general, the authority to investigate unconstitutional policing, misconduct by law enforcement and to sue local police departments for those constitutional violations and then to engage in consent decrees to resolve the disputes. this is a legal obligation. this is not about the policy of mr. trump, the president, or the opinion about crime fighting by attorney general sessions. the statute, 42 usc 14141, is the law enforcement misconduct statute. that s the focus. it s not focussed on illegal immigration or drug trafficking. it s designed to address the issue of unconstitutional policing. when attorney general sessions turns away and says he wants to investigate consent decrees and says he believes the baltimore one isn t sound, he s essentially walking away from his legal obligation as the
misconduct. in fact, it s called the law enforcement misconduct statute. it is 42 usc 14141. that is the statute that authorized department of justice to investigate the baltimore city police department, for example, and to enter into a consent decree with that police department to transform and to reform unconstitutional policing practices. so jeff sessions view about how local law enforcement should proceed and his view about the morale of police departments and so forth is quite apart from what his statutory obligation is under that statute, to prosecute law officer and law enforcement misconduct. and what he tried to do in this case is he tried to scuttle a consent decree that had already been submitted to the federal court. and the federal district court judge in baltimore said you simply don t get to do that. department of justice negotiated this consent decree with the city of baltimore over the course of months, entered that
a lawsuit and has resources it gives out to the cops program and deals on a regular basis with law enforcement agencies so it needs to use the learning of the resources that it hands out and the relationships that it developed to try to get police departments to voluntarily adopt the kinds of practices that have come out of the 14141 experience, and that s the real challenge now, because as the attorney general said we re not going to litigate ourselves out of the situation that we re in. it s going to take a much broader and more creative effort. it s going to take more resources. councilman, you talked about those that have distrust for the police. the attorney general loretta lynch, talked about the breakdown between some police departments and communities in this country. i want to play that to you. i think that the issue really goes beyond just the interaction between the police and the community because we re talking about generations not only of mistrust but generations of c
upon a scene of a report of man with a gun, in this instance teenager with a gun. when you pull up your police officer, you get to a position of cover, behind the police car. you yell clear and loud commands. police, freeze. don t move. but not drop your gun. i can t think of any explanation for what they could give for what happened in cleveland. what ben crump said is this is what i they should do. they should say we admit this was wrong, we will pay money damages. we will try to cooperate with those that came in in the department of justice in december. the justice department issued a 14141. a notification of practices that they did not have adequate training, they were using excessive force.
professor rat at jon / / professor at john j. the first thing that you teach police officers when they arrive upon a scene of a report of man with a gun, in this instance teenager with a gun. when you pull up your police car, you get to a position of cover, behind the police car. you yell clear and loud commands. police, freeze. don t move. but not drop your gun. i can t think of any explanation for what they could give for what happened in cleveland. so what ben crump told you is exactly what cleveland should do. they should say we admit this was wrong, we will pay money damages. we will try to cooperate with the critics that came in from the department of justice in december that said this is a long standing problem. the justice department issued a 14141. a notification of practices that they did not have adequate training, they were using excessive force.