Democrats unveil police reform bill

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Here’s some of what congressional Democrats’ bill would do, according to summaries obtained by NBC News and the Associated Press:

Reform “qualified immunity” for officers, making it easier for people whose constitutional rights were violated to recover damages

yes

Change the federal standard of criminal police behavior from “willful” to acting “knowingly or with reckless disregard,” to address the difficulty of prosecuting officers

yes

Start a federal registry of police misconduct and require states to report use of force to the U.S. Justice Department

no

Ban police use of choke holds and carotid holds, and condition funding for state and local departments on barring the practices

On the fence. It is banned in a lot of places already.

Stop the use of “no-knock” search warrants in drug cases in the U.S., while also making state and local money contingent on stopping use of the warrants

yes

Give the Justice Department subpoena power to carry out “pattern and practice” investigations into police department conduct

waste of time and money

Provide state attorneys general with grants to carry out pattern and practice probes and create a process for independent investigations into uses of force

waste of time and money

Require training on racial bias and implicit bias at the federal level, and condition state and local funding on offering training

waste of time and money

Curb transfers of military-grade weapons to state and local police

Absolutely fricking not.

Classify lynching as a federal hate crime

Relevancy? fricking pandering.

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Reform “qualified immunity” for officers, making it easier for people whose constitutional rights were violated to recover damages

Change the federal standard of criminal police behavior from “willful” to acting “knowingly or with reckless disregard,” to address the difficulty of prosecuting officers

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Start a federal registry of police misconduct and require states to report use of force to the U.S. Justice Department

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Ban police use of chokeholds and carotid holds, and condition funding for state and local departments on barring the practices

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Democrats in both chambers introduced sweeping reforms on Monday designed to combat racial disparities in the criminal justice system — the party’s much awaited legislative response to recent police violence against African Americans that's sparked mass protests across the country and beyond.

Crafted by leaders of the Congressional Black Caucus, the Justice in Policing Act aims to rein in the use of excessive force by law enforcers, particularly the violence targeting blacks and other minorities, who die disproportionately at the hands of police.

The package — the most aggressive crack down on law enforcement to arrive in decades — would establish a federal ban on chokeholds, eliminate the legal shield protecting police from lawsuits, mandate the use of body cameras nationwide, ban military-style weapons for police and create a national database disclosing the names of officers with patterns of abuse.

It also includes a bill passed by the House earlier this year that would make lynching a federal hate crime.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) and other Democrats rolled out the legislation Monday morning, immediately after they held a moment of silence and took a knee in the Capitol Visitors Center for 8 minutes and 46 seconds — the exact time that a white Minneapolis police officer knelt on the neck of a handcuffed African American man, George Floyd, before he died.

Democratic leaders framed the reforms as a crucial and long-overdue remedy to racial injustices in law enforcement, which they described as a systemic plague rooted in hundreds of years of slavery, bigotry and cultural bias.

“When George Floyd called out for his mother, when he was subjected to that knee in the neck, it was just a continuation of some horror that has existed in our country for a very long time,” said Pelosi, flanked by other Democratic leaders and Black Caucus members.

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Reform “qualified immunity” for officers, making it easier for people whose constitutional rights were violated to recover damages

yes

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