POLICE CHANGES:
But activists demand more
Since Ferguson shooting, 24 states have passed laws regarding police.
JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. — When a white Ferguson policeman fatally shot a black 18-year-old nearly a year ago, the St. Louis suburb erupted in violent protests and the nation took notice. Since then, legislators in almost every state have proposed changes to the way police interact with the public.
The result: Twenty-four states have passed at least 40 new measures addressing such things as officerworn cameras, training about racial bias, independent investigations when police use force and new limits on the flow of surplus military equipment to local law enforcement agencies, according to an analysis by The Associated Press.
Despite all that action, far more proposals have stalled or failed, the AP review found. And few states have done anything to change their laws on when police are justified to use deadly force.
National civil rights leaders praised the steps taken by states but said they aren’t enough to solve the racial tensions and economic disparities that have fueled protests in Ferguson, Baltimore, New York and elsewhere following instances in which people died in police custody or shootings.
“What we have right now in the country is an emerging consensus as to the need to act,” said NAACP President Cornell William Brooks. “What we don’t have is a consensus as to how to act, what to act on and how to do this in some kind of priority order.”
The AP analysis of legislation passed in all 50 states found the greatest interest in officer cameras that can capture what transpires between police and civilians.
Sixteen states passed body-camera measures this year, ranging from resolutions merely creating study panels to state grants subsidizing cameras and new laws on how they can be used. Numerous cities from coast-tocoast, including Ferguson, also began using the cameras without waiting for legislative direction.
“Right now, all law enforcement has an image problem,” said California Assemblyman Reginald Jones-Sawyer, a Democrat from Los Angeles whose budget subcommittee allotted $1 million for a pilot project outfitting some Highway Patrol troopers with cameras. “They’ve got to show that they can police their own.”
More than a half-dozen states passed bills addressing racial biases or profiling by police. Colorado, Connecticut and Illinois all approved measures requiring training on bias-free policing. Bills in Oregon and Tennessee require local policies against racial profiling, and Maryland and Rhode Island approved bills requiring racial demographic data on subjects to be collected and reported.