Trump announces surge of federal law enforcement in more U.S. cities to fight crime

The protests against police brutality, sparked by the killing of George Floyd in May, have continued into their third month, spurring elected officials to reexamine policing and department budgets.

Here are some significant developments:

• President Trump vowed that additional federal agents will be sent to Chicago and Albuquerque as part of a law enforcement surge called “Operation Legend.” In an afternoon speech, he attacked the idea of diverting funds from police departments to other services, and blamed increases in violence in cities on the movement that supports defunding police. About 200 federal agents, drawn from across the Justice Department, are planned to be deployed in Chicago.
• The House of Representatives is scheduled to vote Wednesday on whether to remove Confederate statues from the Capitol. The bill under consideration would also replace the bust of Supreme Court justice Roger B. Taney, who delivered the majority opinion in the 1857 case that declared that Americans of African descent could not be citizens, with a bust of the court’s first black justice, Thurgood Marshall.
• A coalition of former and current prosecutors have banded together to defend St. Louis city prosecutor Kim Gardner, who is facing intense criticism for filing weapons charges against two Missouri lawyers who brandished guns at protesters in June.