Georgia House approves law for letting voters decide on dismantling local police departments

by Karen Faulkner, Worthy News Correspondent

(Worthy News) – Against a backdrop of nationwide protests and rioting over police brutality, the lower house of the General Assembly in Georgia approved legislation Friday that would allow voters to decide if county police departments should be dismantled, the Washington Examiner reports. The legislation must still be approved by the state Senate and then signed by the Governor.

Local police departments in Georgia have been criticized following the recent high profile killings of black men Ahmaud Arbery and Rayshard Brooks at the hands of white men. Glynn County police have been criticized for mishandling the case of Arbery, in which the two perpetrators claimed self-defense and were not arrested for several months. The killers were finally charged after video footage of the incident came to light. More recently, Atlanta Police Department has seen an officer charged with felony murder in the case of Rayshard Brooks.

Both Democrats and Republicans have been considering police reform in the state, the Washington Examiner reports. “They should have arrested [Arbery’s killers] at the scene, and they did not,” Republican state Rep. Don Hoga said. And Democrat state Rep. Al Williams told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution: “There have been too many missteps … It’s time to be going in a different direction.”

Some counties in Georgia have both a county police force and a sheriff’s department: the former deals with enforcing state laws while the latter manages county jails. If a county decides to abolish the county police department, the sheriff’s department will take on responsibility for what the county police force used to do.

The new legislation that would allow voters to determine whether county police departments should be abolished was passed by the Georgia lower house by 152-3.

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