AMERICAN POLICE BEAT: MAY 2017 27 A ttorney General Jefferson Sessions recently met with some major city police chiefs where the top cops laid out their wish lists to the new AG. The chiefs said they’d like to see a lot more technology and other gear. The chiefs also told Ses- sions that they want better technology to trace guns after shootings, more grant money, and more “intelli- gence analysts” to fight gangs and lots of other things. As the head of one major police officers’ association said, “We need more of ev- erything.” Unfortunately getting most or any of the stuff on the wish list is increasingly looking like a long shot. So far Sessions and his boss President Trump seem to be more interested in a return to the past than giving agencies and officers more resources to get the job done. Thus far the administra- tion has not offered any resources to local law en- forcement to fight crime and protect Americans from terrorism. Instead it looks like many of the resources police depend on the federal government to provide will be cut or eliminated. Sessions and the presi- dent appear to be focused exclusively on immigration enforcement, re-criminal- izing medical and recre- ational marijuana in states that want revenue and even re-introducing public rela- tions campaigns like Nancy Reagan’s “Just Say No.” But many law enforce- ment officials say that the new administration is about to get a crash course in what happens when you cut fund- ing and focus on the wrong things. “President Trump will find out very quickly that you can’t pull people off all these other things just to go do that,” said Robert Ander- son, who was the FBI’s most senior criminal investigator until his retirement in 2015. Anderson joined the bureau in the 1990s, when combat- ing violence and drugs was its top challenge. “But now he’s walking into a much different Justice Department and FBI,” An- derson said. Kerry Sleeper, assistant director of the FBI office that works with local law enforcement, said that law enforcement leaders are not likely to be thrilled with cuts to grants and programs that help police fight crime. Here’s what a few of the bosses in attendance at the meeting said they’d like to see from Sessions. Milwaukee Police Chief Edward Flynn said he would like an expansion of the work done in that city by the Justice Department’s Vio- lence Reduction Network. That effort teams officers with deputy U.S. marshals and agents with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Fire- arms and Explosives and the Drug Enforcement Adminis- tration to target high-crime areas. Baltimore Police Commis- sioner Kevin Davis has said he would like federal agen- cies to double the number of agents assigned to cities experiencing increases in violence. Chicago Police Super- intendent Eddie Johnson has said he would like to see more federal agents as- signed to the city as well as more agents and money for mentorship and after-school programs. This to many sounds like a long shot at best. With the exception of ICE and US Customs and Border Protec- tion, the President says he wants a freeze on hiring at other federal agencies such as the ATF. “Our budget’s been erod- ing,” Thomas Brandon, acting ATF director, told a congressional committee recently. But whatever Trump and Sessions do or don’t do as far as supporting local law enforcement where it counts as opposed to rhetoric, the fact of the matter is that local law enforcement is just that. Depending on what ap- pears to be a wildly unstable federal government for help might be a fool’s errand. “At the end of the day, crime is a state and local concern,” said Chuck Wex- ler, executive director of the Police Executive Research Forum, a law enforcement think tank. Bosses meet AG for talk Attorney General Jeff Sessions meets at DOJ with chiefs from across the country recently. (Photo by Mark Wilson/Getty Images) Tuckable™ 360 • Ambidextrous, tuckable IWB holster • Adjustable for both height & cant • Built from padded-ballistic nylon •  si]es Àt most concealable handguns www.desantisholster.com www.desantisholster.com 800-GUNHIDE 631-841-6300 Dept #AP57 431 Bayview Ave. Amityville, NY 11701 MSRP Style M71 5999 $ VANQUISHER™ Police Week 2017 Law Enforcement DeSantis Honors DeSantis Honors