Attorney General Jeff Sessions said Friday that police around the country have been unfairly blamed for violence around the country, and said the Justice Department is ready to do whatever necessary to fight what he called “the rising tide of violent crime” in America.
The nation’s top law enforcement officer said in St. Louis, just 15 miles from Ferguson, Mo., that he equivocally supports “proactive, up-close policing – when officers get out of their squad cars and interact with everyone on their beat – that builds trust, prevents violent crime and saves lives.” But Sessions added that he is worried “this kind of policing has become more difficult in an age of viral videos and targeted killings of police.”
“Unfortunately, in recent years law enforcement as a whole has been unfairly maligned and blamed for the crime and unacceptable deeds of a few in their ranks,” Sessions said. “Amid this intense public scrutiny and criticism, morale has gone down, while the number in their ranks killed in the line of duty has gone up.”
And according to Sessions, it is Ferguson — which became the center of police-minority relations following the fatal shooting of Michael Brown nearly three years ago — that has since become “an emblem of the tense relationship between law enforcement and the communities we serve, especially our minority communities.”
Sessions spoke at the Eagleton Federal Courthouse, where people gathered to protest his visit. That same courthouse was the scene of huge protests surrounding the one-year anniversary of Brown’s death. The 18-year-old black teen was unarmed when he was fatally shot by white officer Darren Wilson on Aug. 9, 2014.
A St. Louis County grand jury and the Justice Department cleared Wilson of wrongdoing in November 2014, and he is no longer with the police department.
The Justice Department investigated the Ferguson Police Department, finding significant racial profiling and bias. The Justice Department and city reached a consent decree last year, and the process for making changes in policing is ongoing.
But Sessions has signaled a change in how the Justice Department deals with civil rights violations in law enforcement under his leadership, leaving some uneasy in how reforming police practices will shake down going forward.
“The recent surge in violent crime is real,” Sessions told the law enforcement leaders. “We must enforce our laws and remove dangerous criminals from the street. We must fight the scourge of drug abuse. And we must support the brave men and women of law enforcement, as they work day and night to protect us.”
