12 AMERICAN POLICE BEAT: SEPTEMBER 2017 P resident Donald Trump has named David Muhlhau- sen, from the con- “These grants also un- necessarily performing functions that are the re- sponsibility of state and local governments.” With respect to the COPS office, Muhlhausen “basically doesn’t know what he’s talking about,” James Pasco, executive director of the FOP, told HuffPost. “I know he’s got a dis- tinguished academic back- ground,” Pasco added, “but I hope that he’s aware that it’s the program ad- ministered by COPS re- cruiting, hiring, training and keeping law enforce- ment officers at the pro- fessional level they’re at today that lets him sleep safely in his bed every night.” Ron Davis, the former director of COPS under Obama and co-chair of the President’s Task Force on 21st Century Policing, was careful not to go too far with any criticism. “I would hope that his opinion would not impact his ability to work with and support the mission of the COPS office, which, by the way, is heavily supported by every police union, chief, sheriff, mayors – all people who actually do the work,” Davis noted. “My concern is that the Justice Department under this administration seems Total COPS office grants to local law enforcement in 2005: $598 million 2014: $214 million 2018: ???????? to be going backwards ver- sus forwards. We’re trying to advance 21st century policy, and they’re trying to get us stuck into a time in the 1990s when not only were we ineffective, but we were having significant collateral damage to our communities of color,” Davis said. Muhlhausen declined to comment. Above: David Muhlhausen Perhaps this is why asset forfeitures are on the rise at all levels of LE Like many federal agencies, NIJ is in the midst of a mas- sive makeover. “Though we often joke that our field trainees are still in diapers, it turns out that rookie Officer Johns was not buying these for himself. “Officers responded for a shoplifting call at a gro- cery store and learned that a young mother, with her infant son, was caught by security attempting to steal two packs of diapers. After she purchased some groceries she did not have enough money leftover to buy the diapers. Officer Johns consid- ered the situation and then made the decision to purchase the diapers out of his own pocket. “Though it’s but a snapshot of some of the work your officers are doing daily, we still wanted to take a mo- ment to thank Officer Johns for not just fairly enforcing the law, but also for the empathy he showed for an innocent child put in a difficult situation.” “You don’t have to be so nice...” but feel free to do so if that’s who you are – from Laural (MD) PD Facebook page Bye-bye federal grants? servative Heritage Founda- tion, to head the National Institute of Justice – DOJ’s research and development division. Muhlhausen is a long- time opponent of the Jus- tice Department’s Office of Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS), which has distributed bil- lions of dollars to lo- cal law enforcement over the past two de- cades. “The COPS pro- gram has an exten- sive track record of poor performance and should be elimi- nated,” Muhlhausen wrote in 2013.