Sessions suggests police need less federal scrutiny

WASHINGTON - Attorney General Jeff Sessions painted a grim vision of violence in America on Tuesday, telling state law enforcement officials that a recent uptick in killings threatens to undo decades of progress and suggesting police would be more effective if they were subjected to less federal scrutiny.In his first major policy speech as attorney general, Sessions said his Justice Department would continue to prosecute officers for wrongdoing, but suggested federal civil rights investigations could hinder their effectiveness.

“We need to help police departments get better, not diminish their effectiveness, and I’m afraid we’ve done some of that,” Sessions told the gathering. “So we’re going to try to pull back on this. I don’t think it’s wrong or mean or insensitive to civil rights or human rights. It’s out of a concern to make the lives of people, particularly in poor communities, minority communities, live a safer, happier life.”

He warned of a surging heroin epidemic, rising homicide rates in big cities and said a lack of respect for police has diminished their crimefighting efforts.

“One of the big things out there now that’s causing trouble, and where you see the greatest increase in violence and murders is somehow, someway, we undermine our respect for police and make their job more difficult,” Sessions told the National Association of Attorneys General. “We’re not seeing the kind of effective, community-based, street-based policing that we have found to be so effective.”

In his prepared remarks, Sessions also indicated that, unlike his Democratic-appointed predecessors, he believes some police officers have pulled back on enforcement because of anxiety that their actions could be recorded on video and scrutinized by the public.

Far-reaching civil rights investigations of police departments were a staple of the Obama Justice Department’s attempts to overhaul troubled law enforcement agencies.

Jonathan Smith, a former civil rights attorney in the Obama administration who headed the section that investigates police departments, called Sessions’ comments “troubling” and said further alienating police and the communities they serve will not improve public safety.

“If you want to fix what’s going on with Chicago in terms of the murder rate, you have to fix the police department at the same time,” Smith said.