DOJ Civil Rights Chief Links Local Distrust of Police to ‘Unconstitutional’ Tactics
DOJ Civil Rights Chief Links Local Distrust of Police to Unconstitutional Tactics
The chief of the U.S. Justice Departments Civil Rights Division told more than 200 lawyers and community activists at an Atlanta symposium Tuesday at Georgia State University that she and her Justice Department colleagues in Washington and across the nation see a very clear link between the criminalization of poverty by law enforcement authorities and the growing distrust of police and the government by the public.
Civil rights chief Vanita Guptas comments on law enforcement tactics came just hours before unrest erupted in Charlotte over the latest police shooting of an African-American man, Keith Lamont Scott. A second African-American man, Terence Crutcher, was also shot by police, in Tulsa, on Friday.
Unconstitutional policing undermines community trust, Gupta said. Blanket assumptions and stereotypes about certain neighborhoods and certain communities can lead residents to see the justice system as illegitimate and authorities as corrupt. Those perceptions can drive resentment. And resentment can prevent the type of effective policing needed to keep communities and officers safe. .............