Obama Signs Bill Creating “Amber Alert” System for Violence Against Police Officers

While protests are happening across the country from police killing unarmed citizens, President Obama does this. – Sean Anthony

Source: Activist Post | Carey Wedler

On Tuesday, President Barack Obama signed a new bill intended to help keep better track of violent attacks against law enforcement. S.665 is also known as the Rafael Ramos and Wenjian Liu National Blue Alert Act of 2015, named for two NYPD officers killed late last year. It will set up infrastructure at the local, state, and federal level to keep meticulous track of acts committed against police. According to Congress’ website, the bill will create a Department of Justice-sponsored “Blue Alert” system, which mirrors the Amber Alert system created to locate abducted children.

The bill defines “Blue Alert” as
…information sent through the network relating to: (1) the serious injury or death of a law enforcement officer in the line of duty, (2) an officer who is missing in connection with the officer’s official duties, or (3) an imminent and credible threat that an individual intends to cause the serious injury or death of a law enforcement officer.
On one hand, there is already a system in place to record the deaths of police officers. The FBI issues a national, annual report that details the number of officers killed and attacked (it also lists accidental deaths). Last year, 51 officers were killed on the job.

Absent from the new bill was any attempt to record the numbers of murders committed by law enforcement. The deficiency in recording these figures is far more severe than recording deaths of cops. This is because the only numbers the federal government keeps on civilians are reported on a voluntary basis by local departments. Out of 17,000 local departments in America, only about 750 report heir data. In contrast, there is a high probability that departments are more eager to report the deaths of their own than the ones they cause.

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