WHEN YOUR ONLY CARD IS THE RACE CARD:

Police leaders across the country moved quickly to distance themselves from -- or to outright condemn -- President Trump's statements about "roughing up" people who've been arrested.

The swift public denunciations came as departments are under intense pressure to stamp out brutality and excessive force that can erode the relationship between officers and the people they police -- and cost police chiefs their jobs.

Some police leaders worried that three sentences uttered by the president during a Long Island, N.Y., speech could upend nearly three decades of fence-mending since the 1991 Los Angeles Police Department beating of Rodney King ushered in an era of distrust of police.

"It's the wrong message," Chuck Wexler, executive director of the Police Executive Research Forum, told Washington radio station WTOP while speaking of the trust-building work that departments have undertaken since King's beating. "The last thing we need is a green light from the president of the United States for officers to use unnecessary force."

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