Attorney General William Barr testified before the House Judiciary Committee Tuesday. Excerpts from his prepared remarks follow:
The horrible killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis …
Attorney General William Barr testified before the House Judiciary Committee Tuesday. Excerpts from his prepared remarks follow: The horrible killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis understandably jarred the whole country and forced us to reflect on longstanding issues in our nation. Those issues obviously relate to the relationship between law enforcement and the African American community. Given our history, it is understandable that among black Americans, there is at least some ambivalence, and often distrust, toward the police. Until just the last 50 years or so, our laws and institutions were explicitly discriminatory. It was not until ’60s that the civil rights movement succeeded in tearing down the Jim Crow edifice. Our laws finally came to formally embody the guarantee of equal protection. Since then, the work of securing civil rights has rightly focused on reforming our institutions to ensure they better conform to our laws and aspirations. That work, it is important to acknowledge, has been increasingly successful. . .. According to statistics compiled by The Washington Post, the number of unarmed black men killed by police so far this year is eight. The number of unarmed white men killed by police over the same time period is 11. . [But] unfortunately, some have chosen to respond to Floyd’s death in a far less productive way: by demonizing the police, promoting slogans like ACAB (All Cops Are Bastards) and making grossly irresponsible proposals to defund the police.
