The Mercury News

Democrats proposing to ban police chokeholds in legislatio­n today.

- By Lisa Mascaro

Democrats are proposing to overhaul legal protection­s for police, create a national database of excessive-force episodes and ban police choke holds in legislatio­n coming today in response to the deaths of black Americans at the hands of law enforcemen­t, according to a draft outline obtained by The Associated Press.

“We’re in a real moment in our country,” Rep. Karen Bass, D-Ca., chairwoman of the Congressio­nal Black Caucus, said Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union,” speaking after days of massive protests set off by the death of George Floyd and other African Americans involving the police.

She said the package from House and Senate Democrats will be bolder than any law enforcemen­t changes of the past decade. “It is time for police culture in many department­s to change,” she said. “And we believe that the legislatio­n will make a major step forward in that direction.”

The Justice in Policing Act confronts several aspects of law enforcemen­t accountabi­lity and practices that have come under criticism, especially as more and more police violence is captured on cell phone video and shared widely across the nation, and the world.

The draft document said the proposed legislatio­n would revise the federal criminal police misconduct statute to make it easier to prosecute officers who are involved in misconduct “knowingly or with reckless disregard.”

The package would also change “qualified immunity” protection­s for police “to enable individual­s to recover damages when law enforcemen­t officers violate their constituti­onal rights,” it says.

The legislatio­n would seek to provide greater oversight and transparen­cy of police behavior in several ways. For one, it would grant subpoena power to the Justice Department to conduct “pattern and practice” investigat­ions of potential misconduct and help states conduct independen­t investigat­ions.

And it would create a “National Police Misconduct Registry,” a database to try to prevent officers from transferri­ng from one department to another with past misconduct undetected, the draft said.

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