From the Center for Investigative Reporting in PRX, this is revealed.

I'm Al Etzen.

We're at the end of a political campaign season that took place alongside what may be the

largest protest movement in this country's history.

Tens of millions of Americans have taken to the streets to oppose racism and police brutality.

The president Donald Trump reacted in a way that was predictable.

He made his views about policing clear back in 1989 when he took out a full page ad in

four New York newspapers.

It was in reaction to the arrest of the Central Park 5, now known as the Exonerated 5.

They were black and Latino teenagers who would be charged, convicted, and eventually exonerated

for the rape of a jogger in Central Park.

Trump's ad called for the death penalty.

More than that, it called for politicians to give police departments back their power

to unshackle them from the constant chant of police brutality.

Something Trump repeated throughout his presidential campaign in 2016.

After his election, he told a crowd of police officers when they arrest people and throw

them in the back of the van, please don't be too nice.

Like when you guys put somebody in the car and you're protecting their head, you know,

the way you put their hand, don't hit their head and they've just killed somebody, don't

hit their head.

I said, you can take the hand away, okay?

But as president, it was more than just words.

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