Senate hearing gets heated as GOP senator berates Merrick Garland for not pushing ‘stop and frisk’ policies
Sen. John Kennedy (R-LA) engaged in a furious back-and-forth with Attorney General Merrick Garland on Tuesday, with the Louisiana Republican berating the nation's top lawman for not pushing local law enforcement officials to use stop and frisk on random Americans.
Kennedy initially used his time allotted for questions to attack Garland's job performance, telling the Joe Biden appointee, "I think the Justice Department is losing. I think you're losing on crime. I think you're losing on drugs. I think you're losing on immigration. I think you're losing on Chinese espionage."
The conservative lawmaker quickly changed gears and peppered the attorney general with questions, asking him if he thinks police departments are filled with bad cops.
"Let me start with crime," Kennedy began. "What percentage of cops in America do you think are bad cops?"
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"A very small percentage," Garland replied with Kennedy firing back, "How small?" and then adding, "Is it less than 10%?"
"Yes, let me be clear. We believe that most police officers follow the Constitution," Garland replied. "Most police departments do. All police officers, I believe, want to work in police departments that follow constitutional policing requirements."
That eventually led to a back-and-forth on stop and frisk, with Kennedy asking, "Why doesn't the Justice Department support stop question, and frisk?"
With Garland clarifying Kennedy must mean "stop and frisk," he added, "I don't know that the Justice Department has a position. This is a state and local role normally"
"Why doesn't the Justice Department aggressively encourage law enforcement officials to use that technique? It's been declared constitutional as you know?" Kennedy soldiered on, with Garland once again pointing out that it is up to local law enforcement officials.
"Here's what I'm asking," the GOP senator insisted. "Let's take Chicago, where you have, we haven't made any inroads and stopping the killing. Chicago is now the world's largest outdoor shooting range. We know that a lot of the shootings come from gangs. Why wouldn't you want to call the police chief, the mayor in Chicago, and say, 'look, you know who these gang members are. When you have reasonable suspicion, and objective standard, more than just a hunch, why don't you aggressively stop, question, and frisk these gang members?' You get guns off the street. You'll get drugs off the street and you get at a lot of gang members off the street. You'll stop people killing each other. Why won't you do that?"
"The best way for the federal government to stop violent crime is to work at each local level and determine and let the state and locals determine what the best use of their --," the AG attempted, only to have Kennedy cut him off.
"I'm sorry to interrupt. I'm trying to get some answers. Why won't you do that?" Kennedy accused.
"Because there is no one solution fits all that the federal government can suggest to state and local law enforcement," Garland patiently explained.
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