Tom Cotton calls on Merrick Garland to stop attacking police with last-minute consent decrees

Sen. Tom Cotton on Tuesday chastised Attorney General Merrick Garland for forcing a last-minute takeover of a dozen police departments using federal consent decrees.

He called on the outgoing attorney general to drop “these midnight lawsuits” and let the new Trump administration protect Americans from violent criminals.

Mr. Cotton, Republican of Arkansas, said in a letter to Mr. Garland that the Justice Department’s investigations into 12 state and local law enforcement agencies are “a rush to gain federal control of these agencies before President Biden leaves office” in less than two weeks. .

Consent decrees are court-approved agreements between the DOJ and local government agencies that establish guidelines for changes in the way they behave.

“No police department – ​​like any human institution – is without flaws, but federal consent decrees have a well-established and atrocious record of increasing crime and endangering law-abiding citizens.” , wrote the senator.

Mr. Cotton noted that violent crime has increased in 7 of the 12 cities that have passed federal consent decrees since 2012.

“For example, violent crime increased 61% in Los Angeles County, 36% in Albuquerque, New Mexico, 27% in Seattle, 20% in New Orleans and 19% in the Maricopa County, Arizona,” he said.

“Your department would be closest to entering into consent decrees with Minneapolis and Louisville, where murders have already reached record levels in recent years,” Mr. Cotton wrote.

“The last thing these cities need is unqualified radicals who refuse to defund the police, like Kristen Clarke, running their police departments for the next 10 years. »

Mr. Cotton said crime had skyrocketed during the Biden administration’s tenure and Mr. Garland’s tenure as attorney general.

“We should be arresting, prosecuting and incarcerating criminals – not handcuffing our police officers. I oppose your efforts to perpetuate the failed policies of this administration,” he said. “I urge you to abandon these midnight trials and let the new administration get on with protecting Americans from violent criminals.”

Mr. Garland, in April 2021, reversed a Trump administration policy introduced by Attorney General Jeff Sessions that limited the use of consent decrees to address police misconduct.

Under the Obama administration, the Justice Department often used consent decrees and court monitors to force changes in police forces that routinely engaged in misconduct amid race riots. that arose in the wake of law enforcement killings of black men in Baltimore, Chicago, and Ferguson, Missouri.

Similarly, Mr. Garland ruled that the DOJ would revive the practice of using consent decrees after Black Lives Matter riots erupted following George Floyd’s killing of then-Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin in 2020. .