A confidential FBI study concluded that U.S. law enforcement officers are “de-policing” amid concerns that anti-police defiance fueled in part by movements like Black Lives Matter has become the “new norm,” reports the Washington Times. “Departments — and individual officers — have increasingly made the decision to stop engaging in proactive policing,” said the April 2016 report by the FBI Office of Partner Engagement.
The report, “Assailant Study — Mindsets and Behaviors,” said the social-justice movement sparked by the 2014 shooting death of 18-year-old Michael Brown by an officer in Ferguson, Mo., “made it socially acceptable to challenge and discredit the actions of law enforcement.” The report said, “Nearly every police official interviewed agreed that for the first time, law enforcement not only felt that their national political leaders [publicly] stood against them, but also that the politicians’ words and actions signified that disrespect to law enforcement was acceptable in the aftermath of the Brown shooting.” As a result, “Law enforcement officials believe that defiance and hostility displayed by assailants toward law enforcement appears to be the new norm.”