Sunday on MSNBC, network host Al Sharpton said President Donald Trump’s administration “aggressively reversed” policies that hold police accountable in cases of abuse.
When asked if the George Floyd death will cause change, Sharpton said, “I think that will be determined by how long we can keep the pressure on to not only deal with a case but deal with public policy around policing. You must remember, we had started making progress under the Obama administration with the 21st Century Task Force on Policing. He started talking about putting cameras on police. That is where that started. Consent decrees on cities with a pattern and practice of police problems that then had to report to the Justice Department, and the Justice Department had taken over. All of that was canceled when Donald Trump came in.”
He continued, “So it was some progress beginning after Eric Garner and after Ferguson based on law, not in the cases particularly, but in terms of law and policy that has been rescinded. So that is why when you have President Trump now talking about this like he’s objective, he’s administration reversed the moving trend, and it certainly wasn’t as much as we needed, but it began moving that way, and he reversed that. He is not a silent onlooker here. They aggressively reversed where we were going in this country to hold police accountable when we found that there were bad police.”
Follow Pam Key on Twitter @pamkeyNEN