'Blue Alert' bill, signed with fanfare, now stalled in Justice Department

WASHINGTON — President Obama signed a law last year intended to protect police officers from ambush attacks, promising to do "everything we can to help ensure the safety of our police officers when they’re in the line of duty."

Fifteen months later, his administration has yet to implement any provision of that law.

The Rafael Ramos and Wenjian Liu National Blue Alert Act of 2015 established a nationwide system to give police an early warning of threats against police officers, similar to Amber Alerts for missing children. The law sped through Congress — where it passed both chambers by a voice vote — after two New York City police officers were shot and killed in an ambush attack in 2014.

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But even after a dangerous summer of ambush-style attacks — including high-profile cases in Dallas and Baton Rouge that were in apparent retaliation for the police shootings of African-American men — the national Blue Alert still isn't in place.

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Under the Freedom of Information Act, USA TODAY requested four categories of guidance documents and reports required under the law. The Justice Department responded that no such records existed.

In a separate statement to USA TODAY, the Justice Department said it took more than a year to determine which office would be responsible for implementing the law.

"Since the passage of the Blue Alert Act, the department has devoted time and consideration to ensure the most appropriate and well suited DOJ component lead this effort," said Shannon Long of the Office of Community Oriented Policing Services, which was ultimately assigned the task. "In June, following a preliminary assessment of the Blue Alert program, the COPS Office was assigned to implement the program based on their extensive work and collaborative research on officer safety and wellness."

Obama signed the bill into law May 19, 2015. Long said the Justice Department would have an implementation plan within 60 days.

This year, at least 14 police officers have been killed in ambush attacks through July 20, according to the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund. During the same period last year, there were three.

The goal of the law was to give police an early warning system when there are specific threats against police officers. In the New York case that inspired passage of the law, the assailant had posted on Instagram that he was targeting police in retaliation against police-involved killings in Ferguson, Mo., and New York City. That information never reached New York.

"What this legislation is going to do is to initiate a Blue Alert system so that when we know there is an active threat against law enforcement, that the alerts are going out at a comprehensive and expeditious way," Obama said at a rare signing ceremony for the bill, flanked by members of Congress and family members of fallen officers. "That prevents the possibility that other officers may be caught by surprise, and it ensures that appropriate steps can be taken as quickly as possible."

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Obama touted the program again in a speech to the International Association of Chiefs of Police in Chicago last October. "We need to start by supporting you, the men and women who walk that thin blue line," he said. "We’re creating a nationwide Blue Alert system and launching anti-ambush training programs to help keep officers safe."

And in a proclamation for Peace Officer Memorial Day in May, Obama again touted the law, which he said he proudly signed "because each fallen peace officer is one too many."

One issue: While Congress required the Justice Department to establish the program, it didn't appropriate any additional money. And it specifically banned the Blue Alert coordinator from traveling in order to implement the law. Long said the Justice Department would try to implement the portions of the law that don't require significant funding while it asks Congress for more money.

The Congressional Budget Office estimated the cost of the system at $1 million.

But supporters of the law say the federal government wouldn't be creating a system from scratch. Twenty-seven states have already established Blue Alert programs — including, most recently, North Carolina on July 11. The federal role is to encourage similar systems in other states and to link them together in one network.

"We have the system already," said Tom Berry, founder of the Blue Alert Foundation. "If they’re just sitting there trying to reinvent the wheel, they’re crazy."

The system has two purposes: giving police an early warning about threats and disseminating information about suspects when those threats are carried out.

A national Blue Alert system was one of the recommendations of Obama's Task Force on 21st Century Policing. "Some similar state systems do exist, but there are large gaps; a national system is needed," the task force report said. "In addition to aiding the apprehension of suspects, it would send a message about the importance of protecting law enforcement from undue harm."

But it's difficult to know how often the Blue Alerts are used, and how effective they are. The Texas Department of Public Safety, one of the first states to implement the system, won't discuss the program and has asked the Texas attorney general to block the release of any data about the program.

"Revealing the responsive documents concerning the Blue Alert system would provide wrong-doers, terrorists and criminals with invaluable information concerning the efforts of different jurisdictions to coordinate and respond to criminal acts involving injury to police officers," Assistant Attorney General Nick Lealos said in a letter to the Texas attorney general.

"The documents include checklists, activation plans, detailed responses to specific incidents of injury to police officers, and information concerning response times and tactics in communicating blue alerts to law enforcement and the public. Release of this information would illustrate the process involved in activating the blue alert system, reveal how long it takes to do so, and potentially reveal details of the institutional efforts to use the blue alert system, which in turn could be used to interfere with law enforcement or prosecution," he said.