House passes George Floyd Justice in Policing Act

by Karen Faulkner, Worthy News Correspondent

(Worthy News) – The US House of Representatives passed the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act Wednesday, in an effort to increase police accountability and end practices that facilitate the use of excessive force against unarmed citizens, USA Today reports. Drafted by Democrats, the bill was first introduced in the last Congress after the death in police custody of George Floyd in Minneapolis on May 25, 2020.

The bill is named for George Floyd, an unarmed African American man who died after Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin kneeled on his neck for nearly nine minutes as he lay face down on the road, crying out that he could not breathe. The legislation passed in the House by 220-212 on Wednesday, compared to 236-181 last year.

Sponsor of the bill Rep. Karen Bass (D) told reporters that, 30 years after Rodney King was filmed being beaten by LA police, “we are still trying to transform policing in the United States.” Moreover, Bass said: “And since George Floyd was murdered a year ago, there have been over 100 officer-involved shootings, there have been numerous examples of officers not being charged.”

A central aim of the legislation is to end “qualified immunity” for police officers, a policy that protects public officials from being personally liable for wrongdoing while on the job. Additionally, the bill aims to prevent officers from transferring from one department to another without a national registry for checking their records. Chauvin, for instance, had 18 official complaints on his record and had been involved in three shootings, one of which was fatal.

Listing other provisions in the bill, USA Today reports that it “prohibits profiling on the basis of race or religion and provides for mandatory training on profiling. ban chokeholds, carotid holds, and no-knock warrants; require the use of federal funds to ensure the use of body cameras; establish a National Police Misconduct Registry; amend the prosecution standard for police from “willfulness” to “recklessness” and reform qualified immunity, and require stronger data reporting on police use of force.”

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