Article first published in the Minneapolis Spokesman-Recorder
By Ashleigh Fields and Robert Weiner
Can you imagine gasping for your last breath of air, face to the pavement unjustly at the hands of the police? This is a painstaking reality for many black men. Daunte Wright, Freddie Gray, Michael Brown, and George Floyd are just a few of the recognizable names out of the thousands killed at the hands of law enforcement each year.
Unfortunately, four years after Floyd's passing, the issue of police brutality still has a stronghold on our society.
"The time has come for the federal government to create structural change with meaningful reforms," Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee (D-TX-18), who passed away this weekend, notably said after re-introducing the George Floyd Policing Act in the House earlier this year with 154 co-sponsors.
Leaders in the House and Senate floor must pick up the torch and uplift Jackson-Lee's legacy by ensuring this bill has the support it desperately needs to pass.
This week, during the Republican National Convention, Samuel Sharpe Jr. of Milwaukee was shot and killed by multiple out-of-town police officers because of an altercation involving a knife.
Weeks before the Convention, D'Vontaye Mitchell was murdered in cold blood on June 30 outside of the Milwaukee Hyatt Regency, where security guards pinned Mitchell to the ground.
Both families have been shattered since the incidents and are struggling to hold officers accountable for the loss of life. Our police need to be held accountable for perpetuating a cycle that upends lives.
The George Floyd Policing Act, which failed to pass in 2021, has a strong chance of changing what we now accept and expect as parts of commonplace American culture.
The bill, which would have established a federal registry of police misconduct, allows the Department of Justice to investigate police departments with a pattern of unfair practices and restrict qualified immunity for reckless disregard of the law. It was perhaps the most expansive piece of legislation with a strong potential for success.
"The only path toward preventing more black people from being killed by the very people who are sworn to protect them is to implement meaningful accountability, transparency, and reform of police practices like what's included in the Justice in Policing Act. Anything short of that is a failure," Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ), the Democrats' designated leader on the issue, wrote after the legislation passed in the House.
However, he and many others have been radio silent on efforts to enhance police accountability in such specific terms years after. The adjacent Justice for Breonna Taylor Act, which prevents no-knock warrants, is well-needed but speaks more to the issue of ownership and property rather than the blatant denial of human rights.
Bipartisan support from leaders like Tim Scott and Karen Bass are necessary to ensure the bill's refusal cannot rest dormantly in the halls of Congress but rise as a precedent among the people of our nation.
"When you see trouble coming, and you say nothing and you do nothing, the blood is on your hands," Scott shared passionately on the floor in January of 2023.
Over the course of that year, police managed to kill the highest number of people on record, according to the Washington Post's reporting. Scott's statement is one that timelessly rings true.
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