July 28, 2017
President Donald Trump on Friday encouraged police officers to be rough with suspects they are placing in custody, an apparent joke Baltimore officials criticized as inappropriate in light of police reform efforts here and elsewhere.
Trump was speaking to officers in Suffolk County, New York, to highlight his administrations efforts to crack down on illegal immigration and the street gang known as MS-13. But he took a moment to criticize police officers who he thinks treat suspects too gingerly.
When you see these thugs being thrown into the back of a paddy wagon you just see them thrown in, rough I said, Please dont be too nice, Trump said, eliciting laughter from officers. Like when you guys put somebody in the car and youre protecting their head, you know, the way you put their hand over? Like, dont hit their head and theyve just killed somebody dont hit their head. I said, You can take the hand away, okay?
A spokesman for Mayor Catherine Pugh characterized Trumps comments as insensitive.
Police misconduct or acts of brutality is not a joking matter, Pugh spokesman Anthony McCarthy said. We are working diligently in Baltimore to build relationships of trust and respect between our police officers and the community.
Billy Murphy, an attorney speaking on behalf of Grays family, said Trump should be condemned for the statements.
For a president of the United States to encourage the police with a wink and a nod to be violent to citizens ... shows that the president is not in any way committed to justice for all people, he said.
Supporters of police and of Trump emphasized that his statements were a joke. The group Blue Lives Matter said the reaction was overblown.
"Do these people actually realize that this was a joke and not a policy change?" the group wrote on its website. "It seems not."
The presidents comments come as Baltimores Police Department works to carry out sweeping reforms laid out under a consent decree with Trumps Department of Justice. A federal judge approved the agreement in April, requiring city police to limit how and when they can engage suspects, to better train officers on how to interact with residents, and to enhance civilian oversight.
The Suffolk County Police Department issued a statement after Trumps remarks. It said the department has strict rules & procedures relating to the handling of prisoners. Violations of those rules are treated extremely seriously. As a department, we do not and will not tolerate roughing up of prisoners.
Eric Kowalczyk, who served as the Baltimore Police Departments spokesman during the unrest that followed Grays death, called the presidents comments very disturbing and said they only further damage tenuous relationships between police departments and minority communities across the country.
Sometimes appropriate force is necessary, Kowalczyk, who now works as a communications consultant, wrote on Twitter. This disgusting call for violence is exactly why so many communities of color don't trust police!
Both the American Civil Liberties Union and the NAACP Legal Defense Fund referenced Grays death in denouncing Trumps statements. The legal defense fund said Trumps mocking of the treatment of arrestees as they are escorted into a police vehicle is particularly reprehensible in light of the police in-custody death of Freddie Gray in Baltimore.
The ACLU said the country is weary of the type of policing that Trump espouses, linking it to the deaths of Gray and New York man Eric Garner and saying it only makes it harder for police to investigate and solve crime.
Baltimore City Councilman Brandon Scott, chairman of the councils public safety committee, said city residents should be outraged by the presidents comments.
Its an unfitting comment for a president of the United States, but its a fitting comment for this president who is unfit to be president, Scott said.
