US President Donald Trump, facing criticism that his policies and inflammatory rhetoric have aggravated a racial divide in the US, on Tuesday signed an order that he said would reform police practices, even as he pressed for “law and order” nationwide.
After weeks of protests against racism and policy brutality prompted by the death of George Floyd, Trump sought to offer a policy response to rising concerns about racial injustice going into the Nov. 3 election, in which he is seeking a second term.
Trump opened his remarks by expressing sympathy to the families of victims of police violence, pledging to fight for justice and promising them that their loved ones would not have died in vain, but he quickly pivoted to a defense of law enforcement officers and a threat of penalties to looters.
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“Americans want law and order, they demand law and order,” Trump said at a ceremony at the White House, reiterating a call that has angered protesters who have poured onto streets from New York to Los Angeles.
“Americans know the truth: Without police there is chaos, without law there is anarchy, and without safety there is catastrophe,” he said.
In his public comments and on Twitter, Trump has called for crackdowns on protesters and emphasized a forceful and militarized response to the social unrest sparked by the death of Floyd and others.
Despite issuing a call for unity, he used his Rose Garden address on Tuesday to criticize former US president Barack Obama for his record on police reforms.
The order encourages police departments to employ the latest standards for use of force, improve information sharing so that officers with poor records are not hired without their backgrounds being known, and add social workers to law enforcement responses to non-violent cases involving drug addiction and homelessness, officials said.
Trump’s proposal would steer federal money toward police departments that get certification by outside bodies and would ban chokeholds unless an officer’s life was in danger.
It would also encourage them to use less-lethal weapons such as stun guns.
Civil rights groups and top Democrats, including former US vice president Joe Biden, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, said that the order was insufficient.
Inimai Chettiar, federal legislative and policy director for the Justice Action Network said that the use of grant money to influence police department policies could be an effective way to get results, but she added that the US Department of Justice under Trump’s rule has resisted other reform efforts.
“I have a lot of skepticism in terms of how rigorously this is going to be implemented,” she said.
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