Trump appears to advocate rough police treatment of suspects
29 July 2017 4:59 PM GMT
Talking tough on illegal immigration and violent crime, President Donald Trump appeared today to advocate rougher treatment of people in police custody, speaking dismissively of arresting officers who protect the heads of handcuffed suspects while putting them in patrol cars. "Don't be too nice," said Trump. He visited Suffolk County, New York, to highlight administration efforts to crack down on illegal immigration and violent crime, and in particular the street gang known as MS-13, which has terrorized communities on Long Island and in other parts of the country. The president urged Congress to find money to pay for 10,000 Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers "so that we can eliminate MS-13."
Trump said the administration is removing these gang members from the United States "but we'd like to get them out a lot faster and when you see ... these thugs being thrown into the back of the paddy wagon, you just see them thrown in rough, I said, 'Please don't be too nice.'" Trump then spoke dismissively of the practice by which arresting officers shield the heads of handcuffed suspects as they are placed in police cars. "I said, 'You could take the hand away, OK,'" he said. The audience included federal and law enforcement personnel from the New York-New Jersey area, some of whom applauded Trump's remarks. The president offered no details on when and where he would have made those comments. Trump talks regularly about cracking down on MS-13, or Mara Salvatrucha. The gang is believed to have originated in immigrant communities in Los Angeles in the 1980s and then entrenched itself in Central America.
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