Congress seeks action on ‘Blue Alert’
Bipartisan group pushes for progress in letter to Lynch
The authors of a law creating a national “Blue Alert” system demanded answers from the Justice Department about why the system to prevent ambush attacks against police isn’t up and running.
In a letter to Attorney General Loretta Lynch on Wednesday, the bipartisan group said it’s concerned by the lack of progress made in implementing the law, which President Obama signed in May 2015. The letter follows a USA TODAY report Tuesday that the Obama administration waited more than a year to determine which office in the Justice Department would be responsible for running the operation.
“I want to know who dropped the ball,” said Rep. Bill Pascrell, D-N.J., the House sponsor of the Rafael Ramos and Wenjian Liu National Blue Alert Act of 2015. “The person who’s responsible for this should be fired.”
Ramos and Liu were New York police officers shot and killed in an ambush a few days before Christmas in 2014. Authorities in Maryland knew of a threat the suspect posted online but had no way to alert police in New York — eventually sending a fax a minute before the fatal shooting.
Ambush attacks against police have spiked this year from suspects seeking retaliation for police shootings of AfricanAmerican men.
“The heart-wrenching deaths of the officers killed in Dallas and Baton Rouge remain a national tragedy,” Pascrell wrote in the letter, co-signed by Sen. Ben Cardin, D-Md.; Sen. Lindsey Graham, R- S.C.; and Rep. Dave Reichert, R-Wash. “They are also a grave reminder that we must do everything we can to help ensure the safety of our police officers when they’re in the line of duty.”
The national Blue Alert system would give police instantaneous alerts about threats to police officers, missing officers and suspects in the assault or killing of an officer. Twenty-seven states have systems, but there’s no clearinghouse to disseminate alerts across state lines.
“Congress has always been criticized for not coming together and doing something. We had a coming together. It was a voice vote. It passes, and then we find out nothing happened,” Pascrell said.