George Floyd Was Murdered One Year Ago
George Floyd’s murder on May 25, 2020 launched the largest protest in the world.
Following Floyd’s murder at the hands of a police officer May 25, 2020, Senate Republicans and House Democrats wrote separate proposals for police reform. Amid partisan bickering, efforts fizzled out just weeks later.
Now, on the first anniversary of Floyd’s death, Congress has yet to pass the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act which calls for an end to racial profiling, the creation of a national database where misconduct can be tracked and shared between jurisdictions, mandatory racial-bias training on the federal level, and the codification of lynching as a federal hate crime.
The bill is an amalgam of police-reform legislation that includes a federal ban on the use of chokeholds as well as no-knock warrants in drug cases. It also also modifies qualified immunity, a doctrine stating that government officials, or in this case, law enforcement, cannot be sued for violating a person’s constitutional rights lest those actions violate “clearly established” law. Limits for the transfer of drones and other military-level weapons to police departments and an increase of dashboard and body cameras are included as well.
Despite widespread criticism of the Floyd Act by Republicans, the bill does not call for defunding of police, a platform Black Lives Matter activists and protesters nationwide have made the centerpiece of their demands.
With 225 co-sponsors in the House, Floyd’s law will more than likely pass in that body, but it will almost certainly fail in the Senate where Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has said it has no chance of passage.
Democrats like California Representative Karen Bass, who also chairs the Congressional Black Caucus, and Texas Representative Sheila Jackson Lee, who is Black, delivered strong statements as the merits of the law were debated.
“What is the value of black lives? Are black lives valued? Is a black life valued? Are all black lives valued? Living in the skin that I live in obviously for all of my life … I realized that question was never answered by this nation,” said Jackson Lee after hearing fellow legislators reject the idea that “systemic racism has plagued every aspect of our society.”
For instance, Florida Representative Matt Gaetz issued the qualifier of “all lives matter” when California Representative Eric Swalwell asked Republicans if they could “unequivocally” state that black lives matter.
“I think it’s clear my colleagues would like to put up a straw man about the uncomfortable conversation we need to have about race. In police shootings, we talk about the act, but we don’t get to the harder part,” Swalwell said. “Nobody is disputing what the officer did here with Mr. Floyd should be defended. … Until you are willing to get rid of the straw man, the confusion, all of the different tactics you’re using to avoid the hard conversation about race in America, we’re not going to get where we need to be and not just in policing.”
President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris will meet with the family of George Floyd on Tuesday, May 25 to remind the country and lawmakers of the desperate need to reform America’s centuries-old practices of policing that disproportionately affect Black Americans. The day of remembrance will also be used to remind elected officials that there are steps this country can take to blunt the scourge of police violence.
Many local and state governments are moving faster than the federal government in passing police reform measures. 24 states and Washington, DC have passed police reform legislation. Nearly 50 bills and resolutions directly bear George Floyd’s name.
