Federal Takeover of Local Police
Bob Reid
We see demands for “police reform” featured in news articles and opinion pieces almost daily. In policing, as with any human activity, there will always be the occasional screw-up, but today’s extraordinary attention paid to the infrequent law enforcement mistake is all out of proportion to the good work our municipal police do every day.
The underlying problem is said to be a lack of uniformity in law enforcement training, and I suspect there is a hidden agenda in the wide broadcast of these “news” items. By repeatedly showing bodycam videos of the occasional mistake, Americans are being taught to distrust our police forces.
Hopefully, local government leaders understand what is actually going on here. Those behind this publicity campaign are encouraging a “groundswell” of popular support for mandating all local police forces nationwide undergo “standardized training.”
This training will, of course, be developed by federal authorities. And, once police training has been standardized nationwide, there will obviously be a continuing need to test and evaluate local police forces for compliance with these “new national criteria.” Thus local police forces will, in effect, come under federal control.
So long as local control is maintained, the feds have little day-to-day authority over what our local police departments do, or how they do it. Citizens who prefer our police forces remain under local control should be prepared to defend against this underhanded effort to wrest control of policing from city and county governments.