Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) floated the idea of having the federal government take a more active role in investigating local law enforcement agencies’ killing of minorities.
Grassley, the Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, made the remarks in response to a reporter’s questions about how he was prepared to respond to recent such high profile fatal incidents that have shaken communities of color across the country—notably,in Ferguson, Mo., New York, and Baltimore.
The Senator avoided most details in his response during Monday’s Q & A at the National Press Club (also notable for Grassley’s comments on the political intelligence industry). He said that staff deliberations on reform are being planned, but did throw out a specific policy proposal under discussion that would initiate the sort of federal investigation he advocated.
“Justice department has the legal authority to do it and they have the responsibility to do it if they feel a federal law has been violated and they can investigate,” he said.
Grassley also clarified that he doesn’t want to usurp the authority of local police department’s internal investigators “as long as there’s a role of oversight for the Justice Department.”
He did note that is currently the case—at least on paper—alluding to the Justice Department’s civil rights investigations into the killings of Michael Brown in Ferguson and Eric Garner on Staten Island.
The federal investigation in Ferguson concluded in March, finding that there’s no evidence to support bringing civil rights charges against the officer who killed Brown, Darren Wilson. The entire Ferguson police department, however, was implicated in the DOJ investigation for engaging in “a pattern or practice of conduct that violates the First, Fourth, and 14th Amendments of the Constitution.”
The Brown family filed a civil suit against the city last week, alleging wrongful death.
The federal investigation into the death of Eric Garner is still ongoing.
According to data compiled by KilledByPolice.net—a websitie that attempts to track the number of Black Americans killed by cops every year; a statistic the Justice Department currently lacks–the few killings that did make national headlines last year constituted a small fraction of the more than 200 black victims of fatal police violence in 2014.
“Some of the stuff you see on television is very nerve-wracking,” Grassley said in response to a question about growing public pressure on Congress to act.
He gave an example of “a police man chasing somebody that probably did a misdemeanor…and somebody ends up getting killed in an automobile accident.”
“You’ve got to use some common sense in your work as a policeman,” the Senator said.
Despite increasingly frequent demonstrations and civil unrest that has followed recent prominent incidents, Grassley admitted that Congress could sit on its hands.
“I think it’s something you’ve got to think about and not take hasty action,” he told reporters, asking them to inquire about the issue in another month or two, and it may be that the committee will “decide not to do anything.”
The Senator from Iowa also spoke on another dimension of criminal justice reform frequently in the headlines—the debate over mandatory minimums.
The Judiciary Chairman was blasted by the New York Times in February for allegedly standing in the way of meaningful criminal justice reform, through his opposition to widespread changes in mandatory minimum sentencing. Grassley later denied on the floor of the Senate that he was stonewalling any movement, but admitted that he has problems with the legislative thrust in the area.
Speaking directly to a bill introduced by Sens. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) and Cory Booker (D-N.J.) to reform drug sentencing guidelines that unfairly target minorities, Grassley said his committee is ready to address some issues, but that he personally is “not ready to do is an across the board cut on mandatory minimums.”
