Trump advocates rough treatment of suspects, but many cops reject call

Donald Trump’s advice to police to act tough against illegal immigration and violent crime drew criticism from Twitterati and many police departments did not appear enthusiastic about the president’s call.

On Friday, Trump appeared to advocate rougher treatment of people in police custody.

“Don’t be too nice,” Trump told law enforcement officers during a visit to the Suffolk County police headquarters, New York, to highlight his administration’s efforts to crack down on the street gang known as MS-13 which has been accused of a string of heinous gang murders on Long Island.

The president urged Congress to find money to pay for 10,000 Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers “so that we can eliminate MS-13”.

Trump pushed for faster expulsion of these gang members from the US. “We’d like to get them out a lot faster and when you see ... these thugs being thrown into the back of the paddy wagon, you just see them thrown in, rough, I said, ‘Please don’t be too nice.’”

Trump then spoke dismissively of the practice by which arresting officers shield the heads of handcuffed suspects as they are placed in police cars.

“I said, ‘You could take the hand away, OK,’” he said, drawing applause from many in the audience, which included federal and law enforcement personnel from the New York-New Jersey area. But the Suffolk County Police Department did not seem to subscribe to Trump’s advice.

“Violations of those rules and procedures are treated extremely seriously. As a department, we do not and will not tolerate roughing up of prisoners,” the department tweeted later.

Suffolk police had been rapped on the knuckles earlier when its former chief James Burke, was sentenced for beating a handcuffed man in an interrogation room.