Floyd’s death shouldn’t trigger police funding cuts, Barr tells Arkansas officials

Atty. Gen. William Barr speaks to reporters at the Governor's Mansion in Little Rock on Thursday in this still of video provided by the governor's office.
Atty. Gen. William Barr speaks to reporters at the Governor's Mansion in Little Rock on Thursday in this still of video provided by the governor's office.

[Video not showing up above? Click here to view » https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=svSTpwzwvgk]

The death of George Floyd in Minneapolis while in police custody was a “ghastly event” that was “jarring for the nation,” but it shouldn’t trigger funding cuts for crime-fighting efforts, Atty. Gen. William Barr told Arkansas law enforcement officials this morning.

Public safety officials understand “the need to address that kind of activity, the excessive use of force and the concerns of the African American community about police abuse or being singled out or treated as second class citizens,” Barr said during a roundtable at the Embassy Suites in Little Rock.

Slashing law enforcement funding “is the exact opposite direction that we have to go,” Barr said. “We have to support, provide more support, more training, and more resources to the police, not defunding police.”

This is Barr’s first visit to Arkansas since becoming the nation’s 85th attorney general.

He was joined at the event by Atty. Gen. Leslie Rutledge, U.S. Atty. Cody Hiland, U.S. Sen. Tom Cotton and U.S. Rep. French Hill, plus a couple of dozen others, including representatives of police and sheriffs’ departments and a variety of state and federal agencies.

Inside, a majority of the participants were unmasked, though many were socially distancing themselves, sitting more than six feet apart.

Outside the hotel, protesters stood outside, waving signs, while armed Federal Bureau of Investigation agents, dressed in military-style camouflage, looked on.

Motioning towards the security officials, Natalie James of Little Rock portrayed the men as potential threats.

“I don’t like my business taxes, my personal taxes, going to militarize people to attack me,” she said.

In recent weeks, she’s seen peaceful protesters sprayed with chemical agents by men with government agents, she said.

“I’m a thriving professional and to be tear-gassed is something that I never would have thought ever would have happened. I thought that only happened in a state of war,” she said.

Barr was scheduled to have lunch with Gov. Asa Hutchinson, a former U.S. attorney and onetime head of the Drug Enforcement Administration.

After fielding questions from the press, he planned to meet with business leaders later in the afternoon.

Barr’s trip to Arkansas comes one day after he attended a forum with community leaders at a historically Black congregation in Columbia, S.C.

Read Friday's Arkansas Democrat-Gazette for full details.

This story was originally published at 12:18 p.m.

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