Trump seeks to improve police hiring, training
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump signed an executive order Tuesday that seeks to leverage federal grants to improve police training and hiring, but the limited measures fell far short of addressing widespread demands for deep reforms to prevent recurring abuse of black people.
Although Trump said he would ban chokeholds unless an officer’s life was in danger, the order he signed in a Rose Garden ceremony is noticeably less restrictive.
It says chokeholds should not be used “except in those situations where the use of deadly force is allowed by law,” which is consistent with current police policy in many jurisdictions.
Seattle, Houston, San Diego, Denver and other cities have moved to ban or severely restrict the use of chokeholds since the police killing of George Floyd, a black man in Minneapolis, on May 25, sparked protests across the country.
Trump also directed Attorney
General William Barr to create a database to track police abuses, and to provide incentives for officers to work more with social workers when dealing with mental health emergencies.
The order requires local police departments to tighten their policies to access certain Justice Department grants. Trump has little direct authority over local policing practices.
House Democrats have passed a bill that contains sweeping proposals for police reforms. Senate Republicans are preparing their own legislation, but it’s unclear when it will be released.
Trump has said he was disturbed by the video of a white police officer kneeling on Floyd’s neck for nearly nine minutes, the catalyst for angry and anguished protests in hundreds of cities and towns.
But the president did not acknowledge the role of systemic racism in U.S. policing, and he devoted most of his comments on the need to support law enforcement, saying Americans want “law and order.”
“They may not say it. They may not be talking about it,” he said. “But that’s what they want. Some of them don’t even know that’s what they want.”
He signed the order surrounded by law enforcement leaders and police union officials — all but one of them white.
The president said he had met with families of black people who were killed by police, saying “all Americans mourn by your side.” But none of the families was listed among the attendees at the event.
The limited measures are unlikely to satisfy supporters of the Black Lives Matter movement and those calling to “defund” the police or realign their resources and priorities.