|
Justice in Police Act forum
By Tricia Hall
Sojourner’s Truth Reporter
The Congressional Black Caucus held a public forum on
Thursday, June 11 on the ‘Justice in Policing Act.’ The act
focuses on the elimination of police brutality, ending
racial profiling and abolishment of qualified immunity. The
forum was chaired by Congresswoman Karen Bass (D. CA), who
was elected in 2018 to serve as chair of the 55 members of
the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC).
The forum follows a judicial committee hearing that occurred
the day prior and was organized into two sets of panelists.
The first set of panelists: Connie Rice, co-founder and
co-director of the Advancement Project; Darius Bellinger,
CEO of Chasing23; Alicia Garza, co-founder of Black Lives
Matter; and Raheem DeVaugh, activist and Grammy nominated
singer and songwriter discussed the state of policing today.
|
Congresswoman Karen Bass |
|
The second set of panelist: Council Member Jeremiah Ellison
of Minneapolis City Council Ward 5; Jumane Williams, City of
New York public advocate; Wesley Lowery, Pulitzer Prize
winning national correspondent covering law enforcement,
race and justice; Patrisse Cullors, co-founder of Black
Lives Matter and founder of Dignity and Power Now discussed
reimaging how policing is done.
“We’re in a historic moment in our country. The CBC have
worked on this issue for decades,” said Bass. “The slow
torturous murder of George Floyd by a uniformed police
officer was an outrageous, tragedy, and embarrassment of our
country in front of the whole world. Members of Congress, we
have the opportunity in front of us right now, to examine
police practices in America and legislate reform to police
practices. We can also provide communities with
opportunities to examine and reshape policing polices in
their neighborhoods.”
“I think justice in policing is important for two reasons,”
said Rice. “We need a national standard of police
departments and evoking the 14th Amendment rights
of African Americans when state and local power will not.
However, there have been changes that improve policing.
There are actual investigations and inspector generals now,
chokeholds are banned, and a number of police departments
have made substantial progress.”
The panel witnesses spoke in reference to The Justice in
Policing Act that was introduced by the House of
Representatives on June 8. Witnesses shared personal stories
during their five-minute opening remarks and in response to
Congressional questions. “Even when we capture incidents on
camera, there are powerful police unions that will spin the
story,” said Garza. “Somehow the black person killed
themselves, choked themselves, shot themselves, hung
themselves, or somehow hurt themselves. We’re tired of being
gaslighted and bullied into accepting the unacceptable. We
have money to put officers in schools but not counselors.”
Several members of CBC raised concerns about police training
and cited years of alarming police-involved incidents dating
back to the civil rights moment. “We have to look at how we
recruit officers for these police departments,” said
Congressman Bennie Thompson (D.MS). “We must look at
training, not just one-time training, but on-going training
that occurs on an annual basis. These officers should have
to qualify mentally just like their firearms. We should also
discuss residency requirements, when the residence
requirements changed, officers just showing up for work.
When community policing went away, things changed.”
The witnesses provided real-life examples based off their
childhood experiences, opinions on access to basic needs,
and police and community relationships.
“The way I was brought up, we didn’t talk about government,
we saw police as enforcement only, said Bellinger. “I stand
with the young people who are in support of defunding
police, but I also believe in first responders and public
safety. A city budget reflects its values, if a city spends
three times more on enforcement than education and
supporting those folks who feel attacked, that speaks
volumes. It’s not about abolishing police but creating
collaboration with police.”
One of the first panelists during the second discussion was
an elected official from Minneapolis. He cited four examples
of African-American men who died from an officer involved
shooting and shared his frustration over lack of progress.
“As an elected official, we have the obligation to keep all
of our people safe. Not all victims are black, but we are
disproportionately detained, and those officers have no
consequences,” said Councilman Ellison.
In addition to the councilmen and community activities, the
second panel discussion included a journalist that began
researching police involve shootings since the Eric Garner
incident. He testified that there isn’t a national
requirement to report officer involved shootings and over
the course of six years there are almost 1,000 incidents of
officer involved shooting deaths. “The data represents that
African Americans are disappointedly killed more than other
populations, not just killed by police but unarmed killed by
police,” explained Lowery.
The proposed legislation would grant power to the Justice
Department’s Civil Rights Division to issue subpoenas to
police departments to investigate bias, provide grants to
state attorneys general to create an independent process to
investigate misconduct or excessive use of force by police
forces, establish a federal registry of police misconduct
complaints and disciplinary actions, enhance accountability
for police officers who commit misconduct, require federal
uniformed police officers to have body-worn cameras, require
marked federal police vehicles to be equipped with dashboard
cameras.
The legislation would also require state and local law
enforcement agencies that receive federal funding to ensure
the use of body-worn and dashboard cameras, restrict the
transfer of military equipment to police, require state and
local law enforcement agencies that receive federal funding
to adopt anti-discrimination policies and training programs,
prohibit federal police officers from using chokeholds or
other carotid holds, prohibit the issuance of no-knock
warrants, change the threshold for the permissible use of
force by federal law enforcement officers, and mandate that
federal officers use deadly force only as a last resort. |
