31 July, 2017
Though Trump's comments were met by applause and laughter by some of the officers sitting behind him, the Suffolk County police department didn't think Trump's words were amusing.
"When you guys put somebody in the vehicle and you're protecting their head", President Trump told a room filled with law enforcement at Suffolk County Community College Friday.
"Don't be too nice", Trump told police officers in Suffolk County, New York, during a visit to highlight his administration's efforts to crack down on the street gang known as MS-13.
He says officers place their hand on prisoners heads as a courtesy while they're getting into squad cars.
Russian Federation will likely retaliate in ways that go beyond the expulsion of United States diplomats and the seizure of American diplomatic recreation areas that took place Friday, said George Beebe, a former director of Russian Federation analysis at the Central Intelligence Agency, and others.
The approval of a little extra violence drew applause from the officers gathered at the speech, but the Suffolk County Police Department as an organization (which recently had a police chief imprisoned for beating a suspect) disavowed the remarks. It said the department "has strict rules & procedures relating to the handling of prisoners".
The president suggested that officers should hit suspects' heads on the doors of their police cars.
Barbara Arnwine, president of the Transformative Justice Coalition, a Washington, DC-based civil liberties group, said Trump is "placing people's lives in danger" and his remarks will encourage "police departments to engage in unlawful, unconstitutional behavior".
A statement was also released by the International Association of Chiefs of Police on Friday evening, although Trump was not mentioned by name. The ability of law enforcement officers to enforce the law, protect the public, and guard their own safety, the safety of innocent bystanders, and even those suspected or apprehended for criminal activity is very challenging.
GPD rejects President Trump's remarks concerning the treatment of prisoners via Twitter and Facebook. Before becoming mayor, he opposed a proposal to create a civilian board to review police conduct and famously rallied a rowdy demonstration of officers against the idea. You do something wrong, you're in more jeopardy than they are.
"President Trump's speech today was shameful, dangerous, and damages the progress our City has made toward improving police-community relations". Like, don't hit their head and they've just killed somebody, don't hit their head. "Trump praises police violence to audience of laughing cops", left-wing ThinkProgress reported.
He told officers not to worry about injuring people while arresting them.
