The Justice Department's call for all police officers to be issued body cameras and undergo retraining in dealing with minority suspects is moving toward a federalized police force, warns Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke.
Appearing Tuesday on Fox News Channel's
"Your World with Neil Cavuto," Clarke said he has no problem with police wearing cameras, but said that "this transforming local policing" is just a knee-jerk reaction to the shooting of unarmed black teenager Michael Brown by white police officer Darren Wilson in Ferguson, Missouri in August.
"This is a slippery slope toward federalizing local law enforcement," Clarke said. "That's something that the founders of this country resisted, and it was talked about by Congress after World War I."
The issue was raised as recently as the 9/11 Commission Report, but the idea was rejected, he said.
"We don't have a national police force nor do we want one because of civil liberty issues," Clarke said. "This is an attempt by the justice department to emasculate the American police officer, to turn them into social workers."
Clarke, who is black, said there is a time for police to be sensitive to the needs of minorities and other members of the community, but there also is a time when officers need to use deadly force to protect themselves and members of the public.
And he said that while he favors using body cameras to protect both police and the public, it will be local police departments who have to pay for the storage capacity of the pictures taken.
"So if my board is going to take money away from me for other vital resources that I need for my officers because they need some of that money for the storage capacity necessary for cameras, I think that discussion needs to be had," Clarke said.
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