Durbin, Duckworth Join Booker, Warnock, Butler, Colleagues To Announce Reintroduction of George Floyd Justice In Policing Act

WASHINGTON –  U.S. Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-IL), Chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, and U.S. Senator Tammy Duckworth (D-IL) joined U.S. Senators Cory Booker (D-NJ), Rev. Raphael Warnock (D-GA), Laphonza Butler (D-CA), Ed Markey (D-MA), Mazie Hirono (D-HI), Alex Padilla (D-CA), and Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) to announce the reintroduction ofthe George Floyd Justice in Policing Act of 2024, the most comprehensive bill to reform law enforcement and strengthen police accountability in our country’s history.

The sweeping legislation was first introduced in 2020 in the aftermath of George Floyd’s murder in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and is the first bill aimed at ending police brutality and changing the culture of law enforcement departments by holding police accountable in court for egregious misconduct, increasing transparency through better data collection, and improving police practices and training. The late Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee (D-TX-18) reintroduced companion legislation in the House earlier this year.  

“More than four years ago now, George Floyd died on the streets of Minneapolis with the knee of a police officer on his neck—an image that haunts me to this day. His murder ignited a much-needed American conversation around law enforcement training, inherent bias, use of force, and consequences for wrongdoing. But unfortunately, Congress was unable to pass any meaningful legislation to enact change,” said Durbin. “Last month in my home state, Sonya Massey was shot and killed by a police officer in her own home after calling 9-1-1 for help. The senseless killing of Sonya Massey has once again drawn national attention to the lack of Congressional action that permits these kinds of killings to keep happening. The House did its job in 2020 and passed the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act. Unfortunately, but not surprisingly, Senate Republicans refused to join Democrats to pass this meaningful police reform legislation. I urge my Republican colleagues to reconsider this time around and join us on a bipartisan basis to create safer communities for all Americans.”

“We cannot accept that in the United States of America we continue to bear witness to the tragic, preventable and all-too-common deaths of Black men and women at the hands of law enforcement—it is completely unacceptable and unjustifiable,” Duckworth said. “Families like Sonya Massey’s, Laquan McDonald’s, George Floyd’s and Breonna Taylor’s who have experienced heartbreak are no less deserving of justice than any other family, but too often they don’t get it. I’m proud to join my colleagues in re-introducing the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act today, and that provisions of my legislation to promote objective and independent investigations into the use of deadly force by police officers were included in this comprehensive police reform proposal. It’s long past time our country acts to ensure accountability within our law enforcement agencies and provide justice to those who have lost loved ones.”

Specifically, the Justice in Policing Act would:

1. Hold police accountable in our courts by:

1. • Amending the mens rea requirement in 18 U.S.C. Section 242, the federal criminal statute to prosecute police misconduct, from “willfulness” to a “knowlingly or recklessnessly” standard;
   • Reforming qualified immunity, a legal doctrine that as currently interpreted shields law enforcement officers from being held legally liable when they violate an individual’sconstitutional rights; and
   • Improving the use of pattern and practice investigations at the federal level by granting the Department of Justice Civil Rights Division subpoena power and incentivizing independent investigative structures for police-involved deaths through grants.

2. Improve transparency into policing by collecting better and more accurate data of police misconduct and use-of-force by:

1. • Incentivizing police departments to report use of force information to the FBI Use of Force database, the National Decertification Index and National Law Enforcement Accountability Database;
   • Incentivizing police departments to check misconduct records in the National Decertification Index and National Law Enforcement Accountability Database before hiring officers; and
   • Mandating state and local law enforcement agencies report use of force data, disaggregated by race, sex, disability, religion, age.

3. Improve police training and practices by:

1. • Ending racial and religious profiling;
   • Mandating training on racial bias and the duty to intervene;
   • Banning no-knock warrants in drug cases;
   • Banning chokeholds and carotid holds;
   • Changing the standard to evaluate whether law enforcement use of force was justified from whether the force was reasonable to whether the force was necessary;
   • Limiting the transfer of military-grade equipment to state and local law enforcement;
   • Requiring federal uniformed police officers to wear body cameras; and
   • Requiring state and local law enforcement to use existing federal funds to ensure the use of police body cameras.

4. Establish practices and programs to reduce negative police interactions and better use police resources through grants to:

1. • Establish programs that hire, employ, train, and dispatch mental health and social service professionals to respond to police calls involving individuals having a mental illness or an intellectual or developmental disability, experiencing a mental health crisis, or under the influence of a legal or illegal substance;
   • Establish unarmed civilian government departments to enforce traffic violations; and
   • Establish local task forces to develop innovative law enforcement and non-law enforcement strategies to enhance just and equitable policing.

To read the full text of the bill, click here.

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