Biden orders police reforms two years after Floyd killing

Among other changes, agencies will update use-of-force policies to emphasize de-escalation

Washington — President Joe Biden signed an executive order Wednesday aimed at preventing and punishing police misconduct, a step that came on the second anniversary of the police killing of George Floyd but fell well short of the sweeping reform legislation the White House had hoped would be law by now.

The order authorizes the formation of a national accreditation system for police departments, and it will create a national database of federal officers who have disciplinary records or face substantiated misconduct complaints. Federal law enforcement agencies also will update their use-of-force policies to emphasize de-escalation.

“It’s a measure of what we can do together to heal the very soul of this nation, to address profound fear and trauma — exhaustion — that particularly Black Americans have experienced for generations,” Biden said. “And to channel that private pain and public outrage into a rare mark of progress for years to come.”

Biden was joined by civil rights leaders, police officials, members of Congress and family members of victims of police violence, including Floyd and Breonna Taylor, a Black woman killed by police in Louisville in 2020. The event came at a tense moment in the aftermath of several mass shootings, including one in which Black residents of Buffalo were attacked at a grocery store.

The order was the result of a monthslong process that began in earnest after the collapse last September of congressional efforts to craft a bipartisan bill. Police groups denounced a leaked draft in January that cited “systemic racism” in the criminal justice system, and the order then went through several iterations after that based on input from police groups and civil rights advocates, according to White House officials.