ACLU Response to Executive Orders on Crime Task Forces

NEW YORK — President Donald Trump signed an executive order to form a task force on violent crime and another executive order to form a task force on violence against police officers.

Jeffery Robinson, Deputy Legal Director of the American Civil Liberties Union and Director of the Trone Center for Justice and Equality, had this response:

“President Trump intends to build task forces to investigate and stop national trends that don’t exist. We have seen historic lows in the country’s crime rate and a downward trend in killings against police officers since the 1980s. The president not only doesn’t acknowledge these facts about our nation’s safety, he persists in ignoring the all-too-real deaths of Black and brown people at the hands of law enforcement.

“There are some cities that have had recent rises in violent crime, and they deserve help. And every locality in America wants to further reduce crime and violence. But task forces premised on misinformation, and looking in the wrong places for the wrong problems, are not the answer.”