Report: DOJ routinely supports, protects police use of excessive force
Though Attorney General Eric Holder has frequently criticized police brutality — and his Department of Justice (DOJ) recently released a damning report on police misconduct in Ferguson, Mo. — an investigation by the New York Times finds that during Holder's tenure, the DOJ "has supported police officers every time an excessive-force case has made its way to arguments" at the Supreme Court.
On a broader level, the Holder DOJ has generally made it easier for police to use force at their own discretion and more difficult for citizens to successfully lodge a complaint. This is nothing new, though high profile civil rights inquiries like the Ferguson report have highlighted the contradictions in DOJ approaches to police behavior.
Law professor William R. Yeomans of American University argues that Holder would face immense institutional opposition from federal law enforcement should he attempt to change the DOJ's basic pro-police stance: "The institutional interests in support of law enforcement are very powerful and very real," he said.
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Bonnie Kristian was a deputy editor and acting editor-in-chief of TheWeek.com. She is a columnist at Christianity Today and author of Untrustworthy: The Knowledge Crisis Breaking Our Brains, Polluting Our Politics, and Corrupting Christian Community (forthcoming 2022) and A Flexible Faith: Rethinking What It Means to Follow Jesus Today (2018). Her writing has also appeared at Time Magazine, CNN, USA Today, Newsweek, the Los Angeles Times, and The American Conservative, among other outlets.
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