Former Obama White House senior adviser Valerie Jarrett said this week that the Department of Justice (DOJ) needs to address the unrest in Minneapolis sparked by the police-involved death of George Floyd.
“I don’t have any expectation that he will but that’s why it’s up to us, the American people, to call him to do so,” Jarrett said Thursday on MSNBC, referring to Attorney General William Barr.
Jarrett said the Trump administration “basically decimated” the civil rights bureau of the DOJ, noting that President Obama commissioned a panel to study “21st century policing” that was thrown out during the Trump administration.
“Where are the Justice Department folks, are they on the ground in Minneapolis? What are they doing to ensure that the demonstrations are peaceful and that people are talking to one another and working through this horrendous grief?” Jarret said. “We expect action, we expect justice.”
On Friday, Barr issued a statement on Floyd’s death, calling the viral video of the police encounter “harrowing to watch and deeply disturbing.”
He announced the DOJ and the FBI are investigating whether the officers in Minneapolis violated federal civil rights laws.
Separately, authorities in Minneapolis announced that one of the officers involved in Floyd’s death and later fired, Derek Chauvin, would be charged with third-degree murder and manslaughter.