Bernie Sanders in his press conference in South Carolina today answered the question from Guardian about whether the police should be mandated to report all officer-related deaths in their custody, and even before that question was finished, Bernie Sanders said, “YES!”
No wonder why he said yes so fast. It’s common sense, and it’s a shock it hasn’t been mandated already or required of police agencies to do so.
Guardian: “Senator Sanders, you’ve said that investigations of police killings should be handed over to the Justice Department, and they’ve begun a pilot program where they can track officer-involved deaths, something previously only being done by media outlets like the Guardian. But such information remains voluntary. Do you think police departments should be mandated …”
Sanders [interrupts]: “Yes!”
Guardian: “… to report to the federal government when they kill Americans and would you support pending legislation to force them to do so?”
Sanders: “Yes. Let’s rephrase it. You made a judgment: ‘They kill.’ When individuals die under police apprehension or police custody should that be mandatory? Yes.”
This is common sense, and should already have been in place, but it’s not. We need President Sanders to make sure this is a policy that is adopted and in place so all people can be confident that the police will always be held accountable for their conduct towards Americans in their custody. He gets it, and he’s real.