Are Local Police Depts in Danger of being shut down?

Chauvin’s conviction by a jury of his peers apparently did not fix the so-called ‘problem’.

The left’s never-ending quest to remake society, or at least get rich by pretending to do so, is a grinding machine. After Chauvin’s conviction, PR firms coached clients to respond with the foreboding catchphrase “more work to be done.”

It was revealed by the Minneapolis Star Tribune that federal officers had a secret plan to arrest Chauvin in court for these same civil rights crimes, were he acquitted by the jury. So, why indict Chauvin and his fellow officers in spite of the jury’s decision on Chauvin? Further, why would the Justice Department involve itself in a local police matter at all—even convening a grand jury to bring charges?

The DOJ is abusing civil rights activism to undermine the rule of law.

Libertarians and classical liberals used to defend local jurisdictions against federal overreach, but no longer. The Cato Institute published a whitepaper in 2004 entitled “A Grand Façade: How the Grand Jury Was Captured by Government,” arguing that grand juries are little more than a rubber stamp for federal prosecutors. So why will Cato not stand up for the civil rights of the Minneapolis officers being railroaded by the DOJ and its grand jury?

CATO has been helping to prematurely convict Chauvin in the court of public opinion. They want ever-greater powers for DOJ prosecutors to attack local police officers stripped of their last legal defenses. But, this has been happening since the 1960s, using vague social justice ideas to undermine due process and other constitutional rights. The FBI, DOJ, and other federal police services devote massive resources to monitoring, prosecuting, and “reforming” local police using tools like consent decrees.

Local police are accused of racism; sometimes of gender inequity in hiring; sometimes of misgendering detainees. This is the unspoken and unsettling agenda behind the leftist mob’s “defund the police” slogan.

 Andrew McCarthy wrote that this is simply not a misguided replacement of police by gentle, albeit ill-equipped, social workers. It is another step toward federal anarcho-tyranny. It is finally the “suppression of politically disfavored activity by federal law enforcement while violent crime is tolerated or endorsed”.

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Wayne Creed

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