Susan Rice, the White House domestic policy adviser, called the leaders of the nations largest policing groups last month to promise a significant reset in their relationship as the Biden administration finished an executive order on police reform, a move that averted a potential breach that had been brewing for months, according to several people briefed on the calls.
The groups welcomed Ms. Rices outreach, which amounted to a vow to incorporate more of their thinking in the order and possibly an implicit mea culpa. The White House had solicited input from the groups, but had not engaged with them on substance and details; their frustrations only soared in the days before her phone calls, when they were blindsided by the leak of an 18-page draft executive order that contained language they found objectionable. ... Yes, we need police on the streets, well equipped, but we need them to have the cooperation and trust of the community. These things are not in opposition they are mutually reinforcing, Ms. Rice said.
She also noted that the draft executive order was not close to being done, and that many issues remained unresolved.
One sticking point is a guideline that could push federal officers, and most likely the state and local police, to tighten their use-of-force standard, which regulates when officers can shoot. Civil liberties groups have lauded the change, but police leaders have said they cannot abide it. ... the White House did not shift its approach, and in late December it circulated a draft of its executive order to other executive branch agencies for comment. Blurry images of that draft leaked, and a copy was published on Jan. 5 by The Federalist, a conservative website. Enraged law enforcement groups especially disliked the tenor of the orders policy preamble, which spoke of systemic racism in the criminal justice system.
Mr. Pasco said he told the Justice Department and the White House that issuing that version of the order would cause an irreparable rift between Biden and the police. Another group leader told the administration the headline would be Biden turns his back on police.
That raised alarms. Mr. Biden has been mindful of his relationship with the police, especially since major police unions with which he had previously worked with endorsed President Donald J. Trump during the 2020 election.
Some officials have said they understood that the draft was nearly ready for publication when it leaked. But White House officials have countered that impression. Dana A. Remus, the White House counsel, called it a very early draft that was not close to being ready.
Either way, its publication led Ms. Rice to make conciliatory phone calls with an eye toward more substantive discussions.
Since then, Ms. Rice said that law enforcement, civil rights groups and others had shared their reactions and officials were trying to be responsive to what weve heard.
Mr. Pasco said the leaked order featured provisions everyone could agree on, like standardizing and improving credentialing for police agencies; creating a national registry of police officers who have been fired for cause after due-process hearings so those officers are not rehired by other departments; tightening restrictions on when the police can use so-called no-knock warrants in raids; and banning the transfer to the police of military equipment like flash-bang grenades.
But a section about using force remains a point of contention. Under current law, officers may shoot if they fear for their lives or those of people around them. The draft order allows for deadly force only as a last resort when there is no reasonable alternative, in other words only when necessary to prevent imminent and serious bodily injury or death.
The policy change and others in the order apply only to federal law enforcement, but the state and local police could be encouraged to also adopt the changes because of a provision about federal discretionary grants. (Discretionary grants make up a small portion of the billions of dollars that Congress earmarks for local law enforcement.)
Earlier versions of the order had explicitly called for making such grants conditional on adopting the new policies, according to officials who worked on the draft. But the leaked version is softer, saying that the money should be distributed in a manner that furthers the policy goals, like the use-of-force standard.
Civil-rights groups are insisting that the use-of-force language remain in the final order. Udi Ofer, the deputy national political director of the American Civil Liberties Union, said that Mr. Biden had the authority to bring to life a strong standard that will save lives.
But Mr. Pasco portrayed the provision as a deal breaker, arguing that it would open the door for hindsighted second-guessing of officers. He said that the White House should instead focus on ideas for which there was consensus.
It remains unclear what the administration will do. For now, however, police group leaders say they have the opportunity to make their case more strongly.
we need to break up the one actual union in this country that has a huge negative effect on everyone living here, the police union. they've got to much political power.
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Taarsidath-an halsaam. Quando il gioco e finito, il re e il pedone vanno nella stessa scatola
I really hate the term "fear for your life", because that can mean anything.
And if you're that easy to scare, you should probably not be in Law Enforcement.
If a domestic call ends with unarmed people getting shot because an armed officer in a flak jacket "feared for their life", there was a terrible lapse in their training.