SACRAMENTO—It wasn’t a surprise when President Donald Trump penned his recent executive order that calls “for cities to unleash high-impact local police forces.” In 2017, the president told a police audience about handling crime suspects: “When you see these thugs being thrown into the back of a paddy wagon. You just see them thrown in—rough. I said, ‘Please don’t be too nice.’”
The official line was that he was just joking, but even some police officials were uncomfortable with making light of police brutality. In the ensuing years, Trump’s rhetoric has only gotten worse. His recent use of the word unleashing wasn’t by accident. Unleash means “to let happen or begin something powerful that, once begun, cannot be controlled.”
The purpose of the Constitution is to put the leash on the government and its agents. In the Declaration of Independence, colonists complained that the British king “sent hither swarms of officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance.” Police officers are the front line between the government and the people—and few others have such power to deprive us of our liberties and lives.
Many conservatives applauded the order, arguing that he’s merely empowering police to do their jobs. But police and prosecutors have plenty of tools. Similarly, this administration has mocked the constitutional process of due process, whereby the accused get their day in court. That protects the innocent more than the guilty by simply requiring the government to prove its case.
As someone who has covered police-abuse cases, I can guarantee that officers make mistakes, can be overly aggressive and on occasion are corrupt. After the 1980s-era War on Drugs, police often have used tactics more appropriate to an occupying military force rather than to civilian police officers. If you think police should be unrestrained, get back to me after a SWAT team gets the wrong address and invades your house instead.
This is not about letting police do their jobs. Let’s say a President Kamala Harris or Gavin Newsom—or whichever potential Democratic politician keeps you awake at night—issued an executive order calling for the feds to “unleash high-impact” IRS, ATF or EPA officers. Would you say, “That’s great, they’re just cracking down on tax cheats, illegal guns and environmental scofflaws”?
Of course not. You’d instead fear they are going to tread on the rights of honest taxpayers, legitimate gun owners and law-abiding business owners. You’d believe the purpose of the executive order would be political. In 2023, for instance, a Republican-controlled House subcommittee called on the IRS to end “unannounced field visits” because they believed the agency was targeting conservative groups, abusing its power and harassing ordinary citizens.
I expect this argument to fall on deaf ears given the inconsistent positions taken by members of each political tribe. As an aside, I saw a pickup truck with a “don’t tread on me” flag bumper sticker and one of those blue-striped flags symbolizing support for police. Who, exactly, does the driver think will tread on his rights? We’re all supportive of police who honestly and legally use their authority to battle crime, but only the most naïve person would believe that unleashing them from legal constraints will only hobble gang-bangers and felons.
In many ways, police already have been unleashed from reasonable limits. Consider the issue of civil asset forfeiture, whereby police officers, FBI agents and other law-enforcement officials take the homes, cars and cash of people who have never been accused of a crime. That also started with the War on Drugs. Federal officials argued that the best way to stifle criminal gangs was to take their assets.
That’s a fair point, provided it’s bound by normal, legal standards—i.e., forcing the government to prove an underlying crime before engaging in a taking. Unfortunately, police take what they want based on their own claims—and then force the owners to prove their innocence to reclaim their life’s savings. This is what unleashing looks like in the real world.
As one of the founders of that program has argued, it “has turned into an evil itself, with the corruption it engendered among government and law enforcement coming to clearly outweigh any benefits.” And that abuse only involves our property. Imagine the abuses that will result when police are free to use whatever violence they deem necessary—and when those who abuse their powers are given even more protections from accountability.
Sure, most police officers are honorable, which makes it all the more appalling to incentivize bad ones. “Bad cops are the product of bad policy,” wrote Radley Balko, author of “Rise of the Warrior Cop.” “And policy is ultimately made by politicians. A bad system loaded with bad incentives will unfailingly produce bad cops.” These Trump actions provide all the wrong incentives—and law-abiding citizens have much more to fear from them than criminals.
Steven Greenhut is Western region director for the R Street Institute and a member of the Southern California News Group editorial board. Write to him at sgreenhut@rstreet.org.
