Today, Sherrilyn Ifill, the President and Director-Counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc. (LDF), issued the following statement regarding President Donald Trump’s Executive Order on Policing Reform.
“This Executive Order is an attempt to quell important national momentum on comprehensive policing reform that seeks to reimagine what policing should be in our country. If this administration were truly committed to holding police officers accountable for racist and violent misconduct, Attorney General William Barr would use his authority to immediately conduct comprehensive pattern or practice investigations in Louisville and Minneapolis, where Breonna Taylor and George Floyd were killed by police this year.
“While President Trump suggested that his Executive Order contains some police accountability provisions, in reality it includes several strategies taken from the Final Report of President Obama’s Task Force on 21st Century Policing and the recently-introduced George Floyd Justice in Policing Act of 2020. As a result, we expect the administration to be supportive of this comprehensive legislation, which, unlike the president’s Executive Order, could actually create enduring change.”
Monique Dixon, the Director of LDF’s Policing Reform Campaign, added the following:
“As protesters throughout the country have repeatedly demanded, systematic policing reform must include a reimagined vision of public safety that emphasizes investment in community education, youth services, health care, and homelessness outreach — and diminishes the role that police officers play in daily community life. President Trump’s Executive Order makes clear that his administration has no intention of advancing these critical reforms, and we must not let it serve as a distraction on the path toward achieving veritable, lasting change.
“LDF and its civil rights allies will continue to work tirelessly to ensure that policymakers and elected officials enact the federal, state, and local measures outlined in LDF’s Demands for Policing Reform that advance a vision of public safety and robust police accountability mechanisms. The countless lives lost and the tremendous unrest across the country must be met with nothing less.”
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Founded in 1940, the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc. (LDF) is the nation’s first civil and human rights law organization. LDF has been completely separate from the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) since 1957—although LDF was originally founded by the NAACP and shares its commitment to equal rights. LDF’s Thurgood Marshall Institute is a multi-disciplinary and collaborative hub within LDF that launches targeted campaigns and undertakes innovative research to shape the civil rights narrative. In media attributions, please refer to us as the NAACP Legal Defense Fund or LDF.
