(CHICAGO) It is looking less likely that Chicago Police will be subject to a federal consent decree. The Washington Post broke the story that Attorney General Jeff Sessions has ordered Justice Department officials to review reform agreements with troubled police forces nationwide.
That also throws into question whether the Sessions Justice Department will enter into new consent decrees with cities such as Chicago, which was the subject of a wide-ranging Justice Department civil rights probe in the last year of the Obama administration, spurred by the police shooting of LaQuan McDonald in 2015.
Sessions wrote a two-page memo that says agreements reached previously between the Obama Justice Department ‘s civil rights division and local police departments will be subject to review by his two top deputies, throwing into question whether all of the agreements will stay in place.
In January, before President Trump was inaugurated, President Obama’s Attorney General Loretta Lynch traveled to Chicago to issue a scathing report accusing Chicago Police of violating the civil rights of African-Americans and other minorities.
Trump and Jeff Sessions have said that efforts such as consent decrees to crack down on bad cops hurt police morale.
Bill Cameron reports:
Read the entire Washington Post story here:
