Police union head to AG: Officers need armor
NEW YORK -- In the aftermath of the attack on Dallas police that left five officers dead and nine people wounded, including two civilians, the head of the nation's largest police association met Friday with U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch.
James Pasco, the Executive Director of the National Fraternal Order of Police, spoke to CBS News before and after his meeting with Lynch, during which he criticized the FBI's tracking of police-related violence and the White House's demilitarization initiatives.
The Department of Justice confirmed that the meeting happened, but declined to comment on it.
Pasco said President Barack Obama's decision in 2015 to ban federal transfers of some excess military equipment to police departments has left officers in the field vulnerable. The move came after widespread outrage following the heavily armed response in 2014 to protests of the police shooting death of Michael Brown, in Ferguson, Missouri.
Pasco noted that few of the officers involved in the Dallas shooting were wearing body armor or Kevlar helmets while guarding the protest over two men killed by police last week in Louisiana and Minnesota.
"They need to be properly equipped," Pasco said. "You know the Obama administration has really made it difficult for law enforcement to have the right equipment."
He said departments have become focused on the optics of such gear, but Kanya Bennett, legislative counsel to the American Civil Liberties Union, said in an interview with CBS News that police should be concerned with the message that heavy equipment sends.
Bennett pointed to the use of SWAT gear in response to protests this weekend in Baton Rouge, where last week Alton Sterling was shot and killed by police.
"The visualization, the optics are disturbing. It is only going to harm or jeopardize public safety," Bennett said. "The federal government should be making sure that they are not complicit in another Ferguson-like response."
Bennett noted that police departments are still able to acquire excess military equipment through the Department of Defense's 1033 program, but they face stricter guidelines on training and use.
Pasco said he sought the meeting with Lynch, as opposed to the White House, because she has long had a good relationship with police.
"She has credibility with us, that's why we're going to see her," Pasco said.
He said the military equipment issue is of particular concern, because targeted ambushes of police officers are on the rise. Pasco cited figures compiled by the National Law Enforcement Memorial Fund, which tracks such attacks. The Dallas attack was the 11th ambush of police in 2016, according to the fund, up from eight in 2015, and on pace to pass the 15 attacks that occurred the year before.
Those figures contradict annual FBI estimates, which found just six officers were killed in ambushes in 2015, and eight in 2014.
Pasco said he also brought up the FBI's statistics with Lynch, calling them "incomplete, to say the least."
Only about half of local police agencies report data to the FBI about assaults and killings of officers, and the Fraternal Order of Police wants local police departments to be mandated to report both assaults on police and incidents in which police officers assault or shoot civilians.
"(Lynch) was sympathetic and she understands our position, but I wouldn't go as far as to say that she took a position on this," Pasco said.