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, limit federal transfers of military-style weapons to local police, 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.
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