Bernie Sanders passionately opined on the subject of criminal justice reform Saturday, citing the slayings of unarmed black men nationwide by police, and calling for “a set of new rules on the allowable use of force,” adding, “lethal force must be the last resort, not the first resort.”
“We must reinvent how we police America,” Sanders said.
“Sometimes you look at the television, it looks like an invading army,” Sanders said. “It looks like you’re in Iraq, rather than looking at a local police department.”
Sanders was speaking at a criminal justice reform summit in South Carolina, co-sponsored by the Black Entertainment Network (BET) and Facebook.
Sanders’ comments come after a wave of police interactions with criminal suspects that have come under scrutiny in recent years, including the deaths of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo., and Freddie Gray in Baltimore, Md., both of which set off riots in those cities, sparking a nationwide conversation on the nature of criminal justice, and calls for reform on both sides of the aisle.
“Our Justice Department must aggressively investigate — and prosecute — police officers who break the law, and hold them accountable for their actions,” Sanders said. “Very importantly, we must demilitarize police departments around this country.”
