'Will get people killed': Trump's 'dangerous' law enforcement cuts slammed as 'reckless'

The Trump administration has terminated five federal contracts in New Jersey that funded law enforcement work to fight opioid addiction, violence, and hate and bias incidents, cuts that Attorney General Matt Platkin blasted Wednesday as reckless and dangerous.

The Department of Justice notified state officials of the cuts by email Tuesday and ordered the state to pay back all unspent and unobligated balances or face unspecified “enforcement actions.” The contracts, combined, are worth nearly $13.1 million, but Platkin’s office couldn’t immediately say how much remains unspent and must be returned.

Platkin railed against the cuts during a Wednesday media briefing and vowed “to pursue all options,” although he did not specify what that might be.

“There was no warning. We were not consulted on how this would impact ongoing law enforcement efforts in New Jersey. These are current grants in place. We have never seen this before,” Platkin said. “This is not a way to run government. This is not a way to promote public safety.”

The notices said the funding was cut because it “no longer effectuates Department priorities.”

“The Department has changed its priorities with respect to discretionary grant funding to focus on, among other things, more directly supporting certain law enforcement operations, combatting violent crime, protecting American children, and supporting American victims of trafficking and sexual assault, and better coordinating law enforcement efforts at all levels of government,” the notices say.

Three of the contracts terminated, totaling just over $3 million, supported efforts to prevent and reduce hate and bias incidents in New Jersey. The largest pot of funding, nearly $2 million, was allocated under the Matthew Shepard & James Byrd Hate Crimes Program, which helps police and prosecutors do outreach and investigate and prosecute hate crimes motivated by the victim’s race, color, religion, gender, or other protected characteristic.

Also cut was No Hate in the Garden State, an education campaign Platkin’s office launched in September, and the Community Peacemakers Collaborative, a statewide community mediation program that trains people how to respond to bias incidents.

The cuts come as hate and bias incidents have risen in recent years, with 2,706 reported last year and 644 reported for the first three months of this year, state police data shows.

The feds also axed a $4 million grant that supported violence intervention and prevention work and $6 million allocated under the federal Comprehensive Opioid Abuse Program, which helps public officials develop diversionary programs to keep drug offenders out of prison and help them recover from addiction.

Such programs are life-saving law enforcement, “not woke liberalism,” Platkin said, adding that they’ve helped drive down violent crime and drug overdoses.

“To say, ‘We’re going to cut programs that protect people from bias, that help people with opioid addiction, that keep guns off our streets’ — it’s irresponsible, it’s reckless, it’s dangerous, and it’s going to get people killed,” Platkin said.

He added: “I hope the attorney general, Elon Musk if he’s involved in this, the president of the United States, starts thinking about the impacts that their decisions that are being made for political purposes have on the ground and affect people’s lives in communities that I am in every single day, that they don’t come to. And if they want to cut law enforcement programs that affect my state, I damn well want to be called, at a minimum.”’

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