Crime rise fears reel back police reform legislation
Measures came after killing of Black Americans
Row Vaughn Wells traveled to the Tennessee Capitol last week hoping to preserve the small silver lining that emerged from the death of her son, who was fatally beaten last year after being pulled over by Memphis police. In his memory, the city passed the Tyre Nichols Driving Equality Act, barring officers from conducting certain traffic stops for lowlevel violations, among other measures.
But now state lawmakers are advancing legislation that would nullify the Memphis law. On Monday, state Representative John Gillespie, the bill’s sponsor, ran into Wells and her husband in the Capitol, where they had come to watch the debate on the legislation.
Gillespie, a Republican, appeared taken aback at seeing them, Wells recalled in an interview, then collected himself.
“I hope you understand,” he said.
“I don’t,” she shot back. Gillespie’s measure is part of a groundswell of legislative and voter pushback against reforms initiated over the past four years after the police killings of Black Americans, including Nichols, Breonna Taylor, and George Floyd. Each killing stunned Americans and inspired activism, unrest, and a racial reckoning that translated into hundreds of bills aimed at curtailing law enforcement powers and reshaping how police do their jobs.
In some cases, lawmakers and voters now say, those changes needed to be finetuned to work well. In others, they are trying to address community backlash at measures that have been labeled anti-police, as well as a perception that crime has worsened while police have been hamstrung by policy changes.
Florida lawmakers are considering a bill that would ban civilian-run police review boards; Louisiana legislators voted in favor of a law that would make it harder to sue police officers; cities including Portland, Ore., and Los Angeles have restored police funding that was cut after Floyd was killed.
Under pressure to address high-profile incidents of crime on New York’s subway system, Governor Kathy Hochul last week said she would send the National Guard underground to help police with random searches of riders’ bags. San Francisco voters last week approved loosening the rules around police surveillance and allowing officers to pursue suspects in their cars even for some misdemeanor violations. And in Washington, D.C., lawmakers passed a massive public safety bill that increases punishments for a range of crimes and adjusts or walks back accountability measures that addressed police transparency and rules for neck restraints and vehicular pursuits.
In Tennessee, Gillespie declined an interview request but explained his bill in a written statement that said Memphis, where crime has ticked up in recent years, has become “a safe haven for criminals.”
“We cannot allow any local government to embolden criminals by nullifying our state laws and demonizing law enforcement,” he wrote.
President Biden pushed back against the notion of rising crime in his State of the Union address Thursday evening, pointing to a sharp decrease in the national murder rate and a national decline in violent crime “to one of the lowest levels in more than 50 years.”
Lieutenant Tracy McCray, president of the San Francisco Police Officers Association, acknowledged that crime is down in San Francisco, but described walking down the street and seeing people under the influence of drugs. She cited personal experience with car break-ins — her own car window was smashed — as part of the reason she supported the policing changes passed by voters in “Proposition E,” which, among other elements, expanded the use of vehicle pursuits to “violent misdemeanors.”