Bill responds to pleas for police reform
It was a horrible day for America, the day Derek Chauvin placed a knee on George Floyd, pinning his neck to the street.
Floyd was a man who friends and relatives eulogized as kind and loving, a man who did not deserve to die at the hands — or knee — of a police officer. That is the tragic shame of this episode; fear and hatred live on our streets, fear and hatred that turn innocent African Americans into instant suspects, condemned without benefit of a trial. No reasonable person could deny the injustice, the insanity, of this situation.
The question we raised in Sunday’s editorial was, where do we go from here?
One answer is the streets, where thousands of protesters continue to demand change and justice, carrying placards and chanting prayers from coast to coast.
Another answer — less emotional but potentially enduring — can be found in the halls of Congress, where legislators are working to craft bills that will tame rogue cops without undermining the authority of good ones.
“George called for help, and he was ignored,” his brother, Philonise Floyd, told the House Judiciary Committee during an oversight hearing on policing and law enforcement accountability. “Please listen to the call I’m making to you now. To the calls of our family and the calls ringing out in the streets across the world. Honor them, honor George, and make the necessary changes to make law enforcement the solution and not the problem.”
House and Senate Democrats have drafted a bill, the Justice in Policing Act, which would ban chokeholds and make it easier to prosecute police misconduct.
The most transformational measure of the legislation would end “qualified immunity,” a controversial legal provision that grants police officers broad immunity from civil lawsuits. Qualified immunity has protected officers who do not deserve to be protected.
“We cannot settle for anything less than transformative structural change,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said.
The legislation would also create a national registry to prevent sanctioned officers from being rehired by other police departments.
“The martyrdom of George Floyd gave the American experience a moment of national anguish,” Pelosi said. “True justice can only be achieved with full comprehensive action.”
Led by Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C., the Senate is working on its own legislation, focusing on proposals to increase training that would reduce the possibility of chokeholds and other potentially lethal forms of restraint.
While Scott seemed to reject outright bans on chokeholds and qualified immunity, Republicans and Democrats have demonstrated a capacity for bipartisan cooperation when it comes to justice and policing issues.
With a coalition of Republicans and Democrats, the Senate passed the First Step Act in 2018, judicial reform that emphasized treatment and rehabilitation over punishment and retribution.
The country is starved for another bipartisan meeting of the minds, but in the meantime, states have joined the fray, working on police reforms to make their police departments more accountable. In New York, legislators voted to repeal a state law that allows police departments to shield disciplinary records. The Texas Commission on Law Enforcement will mandate implicit bias training. And while we don’t agree with the calls to literally “defund the police,” we do agree with extensive examinations of police funding and priorities.
Nothing can bring George Floyd back, but what police reform may do is prevent future tragedies.