Trump's executive order on policing is pro-police and doesn't call for major changes

• President Donald Trump signed an executive order on policing Tuesday that's primarily concerned with avoiding the demonization of police.
• The executive order is meant to respond to nationwide protests over police brutality and racism and comes as Trump's polling numbers are rapidly tanking.
• But it's low on substance and doesn't go nearly as far as other proposals regarding policing in the US from activists and lawmakers.
• As Trump announced the executive order at the White House on Tuesday, he showered law enforcement with praise.
• "Without police, there is chaos," Trump said. "The vast majority of police officers are selfless and courageous public servants."

President Donald Trump on Tuesday signed an executive order on policing that does not address the demands of activists who've flooded America's streets or go nearly as far as legislation proposed by Democrats and Republicans in Congress.

As Americans demonstrate against the use of excessive force by police, the president showered law enforcement with praise and called for more "law and order" in the US. Trump's executive order is primarily concerned with not demonizing police officers.

"We will have reform without undermining our great police officers," Trump said in announcing the executive order on Tuesday. "Americans want law and order. They demand law and order. They may not say it; they may not be talking about it, but that's what they want. Some of them don't even know that that's what they want. But that's what they want."

"Without police, there is chaos," he added.

Before Tuesday's announcement, which took place in the White House's Rose Garden, Trump said he met with the families of victims of police violence, including Ahmaud Arbery, Botham Jean, Antwon Rose, Jemel Roberson, Atatiana Jefferson, Michael Dean, Darius Tarver, Cameron Lamb, and Everett Palmer.

Trump's executive order is more about optics than making major changes

Trump's executive order calls for the creation of a national database to track police misconduct. It also emphasizes the need for the increased involvement of mental-health professionals in policing to help deal with nonviolent situations involving issues such homelessness and addiction. Additionally, the executive order seeks to use federal grants to incentivize departments to reach certain standards on their use of force.

There is overwhelming public and bipartisan support for an outright ban on choke holds, but Trump's order does not go that far. "As part of this new credentialing process, choke holds will be banned — except for if an officer's life is at risk," Trump said.

With protests against police brutality and racism occurring in virtually every major US city over the past few weeks — largely catalyzed by the killing of George Floyd — the Trump administration has been under increasing pressure to offer policy proposals directed at reforming policing.

Earlier this month, Trump controversially threatened to use the US military to quell protests and unrest across the country over Floyd's death. That same day, law enforcement violently dispersed peaceful protesters to clear a path for Trump to take a photo with a Bible at a nearby church. This incident did not help matters and sparked widespread condemnation — including from former top advisers to the president.

The president's polling numbers have been tanking amid the protests and his response to the coronavirus pandemic. More than 116,000 people have died from COVID-19 in a matter of months under Trump's watch.

Trump's executive order came well after a variety of proposals were put forward by various localities and congressional lawmakers. With polling showing strong support for the nationwide demonstrations, the order is an effort to answer the call for policing reform without taking steps that might anger or alienate law enforcement.

"The vast majority of police officers are selfless and courageous public servants," Trump said on Tuesday as he made it clear that he opposes efforts to disband and defund police departments. "Law and order must be further restored nationwide."

Beyond Trump's executive order, here are some of the most notable proposals that have recently been put forward:

• House and Senate Democrats want to ban choke holds, end no-knock warrants in federal drug cases, and create a national police-misconduct registry.
  • House Democrats have put forward the Justice in Policing Act, the most sweeping law-enforcement overhaul proposed by Congress in recent decades. It focuses on increasing police accountability and curbing some of the most controversial police tactics.
  • The bill would put an end to qualified immunity, which protects law-enforcement officers from civil lawsuits; create a higher federal use-of-force standard; log a national registry of police misconduct; and ban choke holds and no-knock warrants.
  • House leaders have rejected calls to defund police departments.
  • "We want to work with our police departments," House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said last week. "There are many things we call upon our police departments to deal with — mental-health issues, policing in schools, and the rest — that we could rebalance some of our funding to address some of those issues more directly. But this isn't about that."
• Senate Republicans, led by Sen. Tim Scott, support significantly fewer far-reaching changes, which they're preparing to unveil in new legislation this week.
  • Some of the measures in the GOP bill will be similar to those in the Democratic bill, including a national database of law-enforcement misconduct, a ban on neck restraints and no-knock warrants, and a lower legal bar for civil lawsuits against officers, The Washington Post reported.
  • But Republicans have rejected other measures proposed by Democrats, including ending qualified immunity, which Scott has called a "poison pill" for the GOP.
• Black Lives Matter cofounder Alicia Garza is calling for a national defunding of police and the reallocation of resources to social services, including housing and healthcare.
  • "So much of policing right now is generated and directed towards quality-of-life issues, homelessness, drug addiction, domestic violence," Garza told NBC News.
  • "What we do need is increased funding for housing, we need increased funding for education, we need increased funding for quality of life of communities who are over-policed and over-surveilled," Garza added.
• Joe Biden, the presumptive 2020 Democratic presidential nominee, wants to spend $300 million more on community policing.
  • Biden has said he doesn't support calls to defund the police but that funding should be conditional on the department's standards.
  • "I support conditioning federal aid to police based on whether or not they meet certain basic standards of decency and honorableness and in fact are able to demonstrate they can protect the community and everybody in the community," Biden told CBS News last week.
  • Biden announced last week that he was still calling for an additional $300 million in federal funding "to reinvigorate community policing." He also wants to see increased investment in "mental health services, drug treatment and prevention programs, and services for people experiencing homelessness," he wrote in a USA Today op-ed.
  • "That may also mean having social service providers respond to calls with police officers," Biden added.
  • While many progressives are calling to reduce police interaction with Black and brown communities, Biden has long argued that having more police officers on the streets improves safety.
  • And Biden's record on policing and criminal-justice policy has long been scrutinized by progressives, who point to the 1994 crime bill he championed as a reason for mass incarceration, harsh sentencing, and the criminalization of poverty.
• Sen. Rand Paul, a Kentucky Republican, wants to stop the federal militarization of local police departments' and end no-knock warrants, like the one that led to Breonna Taylor's killing in Louisville.
  • Paul is drafting legislation that would ban no-knock warrants, which allow the police to enter a residence without identifying themselves or the reason for their entry. He said he was motivated by the March killing of Taylor, who was shot by police officers who raided her apartment in the middle of the night.
  • "After talking with Breonna Taylor's family, I've come to the conclusion that it's long past time to get rid of no-knock warrants," he said. "This bill will effectively end no-knock raids in the United States."
  • Paul also supports a bipartisan bill, the Stop Militarizing Law Enforcement Act, that calls for a ban on the transfer of military weapons to local police departments.
  • "I support our officers, but I do not believe it is beneficial for neighborhoods across the United States to have the same kind of military-grade weapons that are commonly used in Afghanistan," Paul told Business Insider in a statement.
  • Notably, Paul has prevented a federal anti-lynching bill from becoming law, saying it defines lynching too broadly.
• Some local leaders and civil-rights groups have also put forward proposals.
  • New York City Council Speaker Corey Johnson wants to make "significant cuts to the NYPD budget and reinvest that money in communities" and "get cops out of schools, out of homeless services, and out of mental health."
  • Ed Mullins, the president of the NYPD sergeants union, supports ending arrest quotas, expanding police departments' Big Brother Big Sister programs, and creating "public service announcements" that "explain what transpires during a police encounter."
  • The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, along with several hundred civil- and human-rights groups, is calling for eight key policing reforms, including a national use-of-force standard, a ban on choke holds, and an end to racial profiling.