At a campaign stop in Green Bay, Wisconsin, Donald Trump promised to back the blue if voters return him to the White House in November.
"We will very importantly restore law and order to our country,” Trump said. “And I'm going to indemnify all police officers and law enforcement officials throughout the United States to protect them from being destroyed by the radical left for taking strong actions on crime.”
Trump’s promise to “indemnify” law enforcement officers refers to the insurance term for protecting someone from liability.
Another legal term used often in law enforcement is “qualified immunity,” a more controversial term that allows a police officer or sheriff’s deputy to avoid personal consequences, such as a family’s civil lawsuit, if the officer or deputy is involved in a fatal shooting.
Randy Sutton, a former police lieutenant who leads The Wounded Blue, says Trump’s reference to indemnification was unclear.
“I think what Trump is saying,” Sutton observes, “is that he is going to enact some type of indemnification that would be federal, and what that really looks like I don't know.”
Trump’s campaign promise to legally protect cops and bring back “law and order” dates back to late last year, when he delivered a speech in New York, according to a Dec. 21 New York Times article. A legal scholar quoted in the liberal newspaper criticized Trump's vow because police officers are already legally protected as part of the their job.
Trump supported police reform in 2020
Trump was in the last year of his first term in 2020, during the death of George Floyd. That controversial incident, which was filmed, set off a summer of race riots and kicked off the defund-the-police movement that was embraced in Democrat-led cities where police budgets were slashed as punishment.
Under pressure to take action, Trump signed an executive order in June 2020 that promoted police reforms, such as banning chokeholds and tracking the misconduct of law enforcement officers.
After the signing, Trump also heaped praise on “underfunded” and “understaffed” law enforcement officers in a Rose Garden speech.
Trump calls out liberal prosecutors
Elsewhere in his Green Bay speech this week, Trump cited the murder of Jonathan Diller, an NYPD detective. His alleged gunman has 21 prior arrests, so Trump used that suspect’s long record to criticize far-left prosecutors who are freeing criminals across the country.
“When I'm re-elected,” Trump said, “I will crack down on the left-wing jurisdictions that refuse to prosecute dangerous criminals.”
Sutton says it might take some time during a second Trump term but President Trump could remove the legal shackles and restore honor to American law enforcement.
“He could create an environment,” Sutton says, “that would really, radically change the landscape for law enforcement in the United States.”
