Attorney General Loretta Lynch said Friday that she hasn’t seen evidence that police around the country are less likely to do their jobs and confront possible law-breakers over fears that they might be charged with police brutality.
Earlier this year, FBI Director James Comey said he believed there is a “Ferguson effect” hitting police, named after the unrest that happened in 2014 when a Missouri cop shot and killed a black teenager, Michael Brown.
Lynch didn’t dismiss that claim, but said she has not seen anything resembling that in her experience.
“I have not seen that,” she said Friday at the Aspen Ideas Summit. “In fact, we had a recent DOJ study that looked at that issue, and the conclusion was, we need more information.”
“What I’ve seen, you know, as I’ve talked to police departments across the country and community members across the country, is a lot of change in law enforcement,” she added. “A lot of change at the level of training, a lot of change at the level of community involvement, a movement away from over-policing, a movement towards getting to know members of the community, getting to understand people and their problems.”
“I have not seen police officers shirking their responsibilities,” she said. “I have not seen police officers backing away from the hard issues that come from patrolling very difficult and often very dangerous communities.”
Instead, she said she has seen police officers seek out help from the Justice Department to ensure they have procedures in place to reduce the risk of police brutality.
