James and Grace Lee Boggs Center

05/10/2025

Recently, Trump signed two executive orders that threaten the very fabric of our daily lives and hold the potential to completely alter how we understand our relationships to the use of police powers and local self-determination.

The most dangerous effort is to “protect” local police. It is hard to imagine a more lethal or protected group of people in the United States. As Elie Mystal, writing in the Nation observed:

Holding police officers accountable when they commit crimes or violate the constitutional rights of those they’re allegedly here to “serve and protect” is one of the most difficult things to do in law. The police are protected by powerful, well-funded, and well-lawyered unions. They are protected by the judicial doctrine of qualified immunity, which prevents them from being personally sued for monetary damages when they damage or destroy property or lives. They’re protected by prosecutors and district attorneys who work alongside them and are often reluctant to charge them with crimes. And then, even when police officers are charged with crimes, they are often protected by sympathetic (white) juries who give the cops a pass when they brutalize or harass unarmed citizens. The entire system is designed to help cops get away with crime.

In this atmosphere it should startle everyone to see an executive order entitled “Strengthening and Unleashing America’s Law Enforcement to Pursue Criminals and Protect Innocent Citizens,” In the order, using aggressive language, asserting dubious facts, and claiming to protect only “innocent” citizens, the full power of the Federal Government is being directed to defend police officers accused of abuses and crimes, to prosecute state and local officials, and to bring vast federal resources together to police people.

There should be no question that we are witnessing a scaffold for martial law and for the deployment of military power to be used against people who disagree with Trump and his agenda.

In Detroit we have more than sixty years of experience in holding local police accountable for their actions. In the months to come we will need to draw on that experience, on our imaginations, and our courage to exert the control of the people over the forces of destruction.