Trump's Bold Plan for the Fourth Amendment

Politico reports on an exciting development in Donald Trump's policy proposals. When asked how he would address "violence in the black community," Trump was ready with this nuanced discussion of police procedures:

“I would do stop-and-frisk. I think you have to. We did it in New York, it worked incredibly well and you have to be proactive and, you know, you really help people sort of change their mind automatically,” Trump told the questioner. “You understand, you have to have, in my opinion, I see what’s going on here, I see what’s going on in Chicago, I think stop-and-frisk. In New York City it was so incredible, the way it worked. Now, we had a very good mayor, but New York City was incredible, the way that worked, so I think that could be one step you could do.”

The Politico headline says that Trump called for "national stop-and-frisk," so that's what I'll assume he said there.

I'm intrigued to see how Trump will manage to dictate local police policy from the national level, and how Trump will manage to overcome some procedural obstacles presented by a particular arcane 18th century legal doctrine. But if this is the same Trump that is going to "open up" libel laws, I doubt that pesky technicalities like the Constitution will be much of an obstacle.

Also, "you really help people sort of change their mind automatically?" Yeesh.

Labels: