'We don't need to overreact.' Jeff Sessions says 'politically correct policing' will 'demoralize' officers

Jeff Sessions saw the video of Derek Chauvin kneeling on George Floyd's neck for nearly nine minutes, as the black suspect told the white officer that he couldn't breathe and cried out for his deceased mother before he died.

The former attorney general said it was "very troubling" to watch and that "it certainly appears" the now-fired Minneapolis police officer "lacked justification."

"I've always believed in speedy trials, and if they have sufficient proof, it's appropriate to move expeditiously with a case," Sessions said in an interview. "This can't be stampeded. You can't capitulate to a lynch mob. But if you've got good proof, I think it's good to make arrests promptly."

The Memorial Day killing has led to massive nationwide protests and shined a fresh spotlight on police brutality across the United States, generating bipartisan calls for action. Sessions said no one is above the law, and officers who commit crimes should be prosecuted fully. But he repeatedly expressed concern that it will lead to an overreaction that he fears will ultimately make communities less safe.

Sessions lamented "the anti-police mood" and the "hostility" many innocent officers face for doing their jobs properly, which he complained has been fanned by local politicians. He warned that more officers might even get wounded in the line of duty because elected officials don't defend their "good people."

"I call the problem politically correct policing," Sessions said in a 45-minute phone conversation from Mobile, Ala., on Tuesday. "We don't need to overreact. These are our police officers. We have them out there defending us every day. We have to protect them and stand with them."

Sessions is running to win back the Senate seat that he gave up in January 2017 so he could lead the Justice Department. He faces former college football coach Tommy Tuberville in a GOP primary runoff. President Donald Trump has backed Tuberville because he remains angry that Sessions recused himself from overseeing the probe into Russian interference in the 2016 election. But Sessions has remained loyal despite occasional Trump tweetstorms against him.

When we talked, he praised Trump's handling of the civil unrest and defended his successor Bill Barr's order to forcibly clear largely peaceful protesters out of Lafayette Square before Trump walked across the square to pose for photos in front of St. John's church. "He understands law and order well," Sessions said about Barr. "And I trust his judgment and his legal expertise there."

Asked what he thought of the president threatening to invoke the Insurrection Act of 1807, which would allow the deployment of active-duty U.S. troops over the objections of governors and mayors, Sessions said Trump is well within his right to do so. He called it a quintessentially "Trumpian" move, which he intended as a compliment, to reassure citizens that Trump is doing all he can to keep them safe. This puts him at odds with other former Trump Cabinet secretaries and national security veterans, including former secretary of defense Jim Mattis, who have decried the militarization of the response to the protests.

It also comes as D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser, D, formally demands that Trump "withdraw all extraordinary federal law enforcement and military presence" from the capital city. Bowser renamed the street in front of the White House "Black Lives Matter Plaza" on Friday and emblazoned the slogan in massive yellow letters on the road, escalating her dispute with Trump.

Sessions warned that mayors and police chiefs are not just responsible for disciplining bad officers but making sure that they don't "demoralize" good ones. "The worst thing that can happen is if police get disgusted, and they feel like they are not supported, that if they do anything - even if they're attacked by criminals or antifa - they will have to go to a disciplinary review and may be fired," he said. "They want to know that their officials know how hard the job is and have respect for what they do every day and how often they take unjust abuse and denigration from crazy people and criminals and just disrespectful persons."

Sessions argued that there was an overreaction after the 1968 riots. "One of the great errors that was made in the past was when police facing hostility after the '68 riots . . . basically just said, 'If you don't want me in the community, I'm not coming there.' And the communities became crime centers," he said. "I met with African American citizens as a United States attorney in the early 1980s, and they wanted police presence. They were sick of being afraid in their neighborhoods."

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Sessions demurred when I asked whether he believes there's systemic racism in law enforcement. "I am well aware of the sensitive nature of race relations in big cities," he replied. "It's just a reality. I believe the police departments know that, too, and they try to make sure that they handle all these situations properly. Can there be improvement? I'm sure there can be, but it's a lot different than it was 20 years ago, 30 years ago, 40 years ago. I'm going to tell you: It's a lot better, and a lot of training has gone into that. And you have more racially diverse police forces, too. That's helpful."

While progress has certainly been made, police remain consistently much whiter than the people they serve in most urban areas.

Sessions said there is nothing wrong with local police departments reviewing and updating training procedures to become more racially sensitive based on "additional things we've learned that can minimize misunderstandings and hostility in the future."

"But that does not mean you can't arrest a criminal who is . . . terrorizing our community and making kids afraid to go out on the streets in front of their home," he said. "I think it's a great country, and I reject totally this idea that our country is irredeemably flawed and should be fundamentally remade. That is just a prescription for disaster and chaos and must be firmly rejected."

He decried the growing calls on the left to "defund" big-city police departments. "It's weird that a mayor would treat a police department as if he has no responsibility for it," Sessions said. "Overwhelmingly, the African American community is not rioting or doing any kind of illegal activities. The largest marches are peaceful and responsible. When you plead with the community for restraint and responsible action, you need to know that the people who are rioting are not listening to you. Their goal is not to reform the police department's procedures, have better training to minimize errors that occur or to create more respect for the police officers. Their goal is to destroy the police department. A lot of these are anarchists who don't believe in any real law and never have."

Wading into the debate over enforcement tactics, Sessions acknowledged that most protesters have been peaceful but said he "strongly" believes anyone who has been violent or looted must get "more than a slap on the wrist." He believes this is critical to deter additional unrest during the summer months to come.

"The prosecutors can't just let everybody out on bail two hours after they're arrested because the people are right back on the streets again," he said. "People who deliberately participate in mob action and riotous action and are caught violating the laws shouldn't be released while the riots are still ongoing."

Sessions strongly defended his record as the nation's chief law enforcement officer, especially his deference to local police departments. He severely curtailed pattern-or-practice investigations that investigate entire departments for misconduct and rolled back a series of other reforms that President Barack Obama's administration had implemented. "First and foremost, most of these cities where the violence occurs are dominated by leftist mayors and city councils," Sessions said. "It's their responsibility to run the police departments."

Sessions said the Justice Department can step in if a department is "fundamentally out of control," but he said consent decrees - court-approved agreements between the Justice Department and local law enforcement agencies, which were common in the Obama era - are "a very, very extreme thing" to impose because they take control out of the hands of local officials who are directly accountable to voters. He noted that local prosecutors and state attorneys general can still bring charges against officers, but he complained that consent decrees put too much power in the hands of federal judges, who are authorized to impose changes.

"Federal judges don't know how to run police departments," Sessions said. "It's ridiculous to think that they do. Cities should oversee their own department. . . . That's the way the system is supposed to work, and I believe in the system."

Sessions, who, like Trump, is 73, believes that a "significant," but underappreciated, factor in Trump's 2016 upset victory was public unease with a rise in violent crime, killings and opioid overdoses during the final years of the Obama presidency. "There were a lot of people that believed that we needed more order and strength, and they saw that in President Trump," he said.

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