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The Justice Department for Criminal Cops [1]
['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']
Date: 2025-05-07
Secreted into one of Donald Trump's executive orders was a line that said pro bono lawyering would be provided to law enforcement officers, especially ones accused of using excessive force.
Now we know where that $940 million of pro bono work from law firms that caved to Trump's threats is going.
A case in Los Angeles is being turned on its head by a Trump appointed acting U.S. Attorney. Deputy Trevor Kirk was convicted in February of using excessive force against a Black woman. He faced as much as 9 years in prison, but U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli wants to strike the part of the jury verdict that Kirk injured the woman, which makes it a felony. Without that, it's a misdemeanor with a one year limit if Kirk pleads guilty to misdemeanor of deprivation of rights under color of law. You can find body camera footage and cell phone footage taken at the time online, on YouTube, at many places. All you have to do is Google: Deputy Trevor Kirk, black woman, violence. And they will come up.
Four federal prosecutors would not sign off on the plea deal and withdrew from the case. On Satuday, three of the prosecutors resigned from the Justice Department completely.
The deal also included only one year of probation and did not block him from being in law enforcement again. Truly a sweetheart deal. A judge still has to agree to the arrangement.
This is a sign of the times for Trump and law enforcement. When he said last year that there should be one day that law enforcement could be really, really rough, and that would stop crime, he wasn't kidding. He still believes in indemnifying law enforcement from police brutality charges. Giving police free reign to beat up suspects before the arrest or even after the arrest. The third degree you'd see in movies. Suspects beaten down to extort confessions. This is the type of police work Donald Trump wants.
Remember how blood thirsty Trump has always been. In 1989 Trump paid for full page newspaper ads to declare the Central Park 5 guilty, and call for the reinstatement of the death penalty. It took more than a decade for the truth to come to light that none of them were guilty. Trump has never apologized and he never will.
He said that there would be a bloodbath in the auto industry. He said that there would be a bloodbath at the border. He said that there would be a bloodbath in Washington, D.C. if he didn't win the election.
Trump talked about immigrants poisoning the blood of our country. He called migrants, animals, in order to demonize them. It's all about violence, and those that aren't on his side are targets.
January 6th is a key to understanding Trump's penchant for violence. He sat there watching it for hours. Enjoying it. Reveling in it. He only called it for it to end when too many people pressured him. Otherwise, he would have let it go on forever. Once told about Mike Pence's dangerous situation, Trump said, "So what?"
Prosecution of police for excessive force, including murder, is done by the Civil Rights division of the Department of Justice. That division is now investigating DEI wherever it finds it, instead of actually doing its job. Because that's what they've been told is the top priority. Or to threaten any city or state or organization that supports trans in women's sports.
Back in January, CNN reported that the DOJ was throwing away agreements that required police departments to reform in the face of findings of misconduct.
A memo from Associate Attorney General Chad Mizelli said, "The new administration might want to reconsider settlements and consent decrees negotiated and approved by the prior administration."
In another memo, Mizelle told the Civil Rights division not to file any "new complaints, motions to intervene, agreed upon reprimands, amicus briefs, or statements of interest" until further notice. He basically told the whole Justice Departments Civil Rights division to stop doing their job.
One of those consent degrees dealt with Minneapolis, happening years after the death of George Floyd.
The agreement was designed for "preventing excessive force; stopping racially discriminating policing; improving officers interaction with youth and protecting the public's First Amendment rights."
That's all gone now. It's open season in Minneapolis.
There's a lot of news about Trump's executive orders, but there's also the ones that he revoked. Like the one that Biden had that was designed to "advance effective, accountable policing and criminal justice practices to enhance public trust and public safety." Trump even reversed policies that he instituted in his first term.
Biden did his executive order in 2022 after Congress failed to pass the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act in 2021.
Consider the order's highlights. It permitted federal police to use force only as a tool of last resort. It curtailed when federal police could enter a home without knocking and announcing themselves and when they could use chokeholds. It mandated body cameras. It limited the transfer and sale of federal military equipment to State and local law enforcement. It required the Department of Justice to launch a national misconduct database for federal police. And, recognizing that most policing is local, it encouraged reform of state and local policing through various grants.
The strange thing is that Trump championed a lot of these policies during his first term. But, this time, he's doing everything to reverse anything Biden ever did or promoted. If Biden did it, it must be wrong, even if it was something Trump would have initially approved of in his first term.
In 2022, Attorney General Merrick Garland changed rules to require federal agents to intervene whenever they saw police officials using excessive force or mistreating people in custody.
The ACLU said in July of last year that Trump's talk of Law and Order was shorthand for repression of the Black community. During Trump's campaign he called for more protections for abusive police, including the use of violence against protesters, which he once described as a "beautiful thing to watch." How sick a mind he has.
Once again, during the campaign, he also called for greater use of the death penalty, despite the public's opposition to it. He wanted to broaden the range of crimes for the punishment and kill everyone on federal death row. Biden commuted the death sentences of 37 out of 40 people on federal death row before he left. This is one of the things that has enraged Donald Trump so much. Why he rails about the use of the auto-pen in order to invalidate Biden's pardons.
Between 2017 and 2021 the ACLU filed 430 lawsuits against the Trump administration, including the right to protest against police brutality and preventing mass surveillance by law enforcement.
Amazingly, on the Department of Justice website is a 440 page report titled: Shielded From Justice: Police Brutality and Accountability in the United States. Published in 1998, it details exactly what you think it would. How long it'll be there, who knows?
The Legal Defense Fund lists 5 instances of police being given qualified immunity that prevented justice.
Police set a suicidal man on fire. Police shot a child while firing at a non-threatening family dog. Officers purportedly stole $150,000 from two businessmen. Police killed a hospitalized man when he didn't return to his room. Police awakened a man sleeping in his car, and killed him when he drove away.
If you want the details on those cases, the link is above.
At this page on the US Commission on Civil Rights, the only link that works is to the Department of Justice. Everything else is gone. Error 404.
This page has a division of the Department of Justice that I didn't know existed. It's called the National Institute of Justice. Seems to be dated in 2020 and some links say that you're accessing archived material. The page linked says "Overview of Police Use of Force."
Here's an 18 page article written by the Fordham Law Archive of Scholarship called "Policing the Poor and the Two Faces of the Justice Department."
Trump made a career out of talking about there being a two-tiered system of justice. One for Republicans and him when he was facing his court cases, and one for Democrats. The reality is that there's three types, three tiers. There's the one for the rich, the one for the poor, and the one for Donald Trump. Now, Trump wants to create a fourth tier for law enforcement brutality.
When there is no penalty for violence, you can guarantee that there will be more of it. It happens on an all too regular basis that police are called in to a domestic violence situation or with a person concerned about the mental state of another, and things go wrong and someone dies. You don't hear or see these on the national news now because there's too much Trump. Maybe you see stories on the local news. They must be still happening, and now with Trump, possibly more often than before.
Trump loves violence. That why he goes to UFC fights and WWE matches. He gets turned on by it. Stopping police from creating violence is the farthest thing from his mind.
The problem is that this violence puts a bad light on police that actually care about how they "protect and serve." If you don't get rid of the rotten apples the whole level of trust between police and the communities breaks down.
The answer is for the four tiers of justice to go back the to the one it should be. That will never happen with Donald Trump as president. Still another reason to remove him from office.
Soon.
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