Expansive on-camera media coverage of the brutal killing of African-American George Floyd by a White Minnesota police officer has ignited nationwide public support for remedial federal, state and local police reforms.
The federal level response was sabotaged by rank partisan Democratic political hackery.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and his united party-line-voting colleagues have blocked regulatory policing legislation terms that had majority support on both sides of the U.S. House aisle. The apparent purpose was to deny the Trump administration credit for passage of a popular bill going into the November election.
The vote was not only just against the bill. It was a vote against even considering the bill.
A motion to proceed would have simply opened up negotiations, debate and an amendment process that could have narrowed the remaining differences.
There was no credible justification for Schumer’s lame claim that he did so because the Senate law-enforcement proposal prepared by African-American Republican Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina was a "bad bill." That proposed Justice Act had much in common with the Justice in Policing Act, favored by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
Both bills addressed the same problems, and covered the same federal powers that would: limit the use of choke-holds; increase the use of police body cameras; enhance transparency of misconduct records; train officers in areas such as use of force and racial bias; and promote hiring of officers who demographically represent the communities they serve.
The Scott bill would require state and local governments to report each year to the FBI’s National Use-of-Force Data Collection on police interactions that cause death or serious injury.
Many police departments already report this information.
Democrats originally pushed to go much further, requiring law-enforcement agencies to report all traffic stops and pat-downs by race and ethnicity of both the officers and civilians involved to show "patterns and practices" of policing.
Sen. Scott’s bill would also require states and cities to report data they collect to the attorney general. The AG would then publish a public report that states and cities can decide for themselves whether and when the data can be used.
Democrats would ban this process.
The majority of Republicans strongly oppose a constitutionally questionable Democrat proposal to eliminate police "qualified immunity" from prosecutorial protections that congressional members generously grant to themselves.
Qualified immunity applies only to protecting officers from civil - not criminal - lawsuits that could be filed by virtually anyone for anything, including false charges intended to target good cops by bad offenders.
Forcing modestly-salaried police operating in dangerous and highly litigious environments to purchase costly liability insurance will drive many highly qualified individuals and candidates out of a vital profession that is under demoralizing “defund police” movement attacks.
The Democrat House and Republican Senate bills both recognize a need to address controversial issues surrounding the use of no-knock warrants. A tragically representative case involved the March 26 death of Breonna Taylor, a black Kentucky woman who was shot by police during what her family said was a botched raid on her home.
According to a lawsuit filed by Ms. Taylor’s mother, officers from the Louisville Metro Police Department broke through the door of the home unannounced around 12:40 a.m. to execute a search warrant for drugs (which were subsequently not found.)
Although a judge had approved a "no-knock" search warrant, meaning police did not have to knock or identify themselves before entering the home, police officials said on that day at a news conference that officers had knocked several times and "announced their presence as police who were there with a search warrant." The lawsuit from Taylor's family contradicted that claim.
Police officials also reported that after forcing their way in, three in plainclothes officers "were immediately met by gunfire." Ms. Taylor was in bed with her boyfriend, who according to the lawsuit, fearing a home invasion called 911, grabbed a legal gun and shot an officer in the leg. Police returned fire, mortally shooting Taylor eight times.
It’s important to understand that police powers are granted by the Constitution primarily to state and local governments. The federal role is limited to the use of financial leverage to affect changes. Although feds contribute a small share of police budgets — a mere 6% in New York City — ties on that money can still be instrumental to influence policies.
Accordingly, most of the responsibility and hard work to reform policing policies and methods must be accomplished by states and municipalities. This includes hiring, training, and discipline, most particularly involving tough collective bargaining with police unions to dismiss bad cops.
Nevertheless, leadership actions by the U.S. Congress demonstrate clear evidence of how seriously our various national representatives truly care more about protections versus political pandering and posturing for election advantages.
As Senate Majority Whip John Thune, R-S.D. said on the Senate floor, "To refuse even to allow debate on this bill suggests that Democrats are more interested in attempting to score political points on this issue than in actually doing anything about reform."
Meanwhile, Democrats seem to believe they can kill progress, blame the Republicans in the process, and ride the issue to November.
Larry Bell is an endowed professor of space architecture at the University of Houston where he founded the Sasakawa International Center for Space Architecture (SICSA) and the graduate program in space architecture. Larry has written more than 600 articles for Newsmax and Forbes and is the author of several books. Included are: "Cyberwarfare: Targeting America, Our Infrastructure and Our Future" (2020), "The Weaponization of AI and the Internet: How Global Networks of Infotech Overlords are Expanding Their Control Over Our Lives" (2019), "Reinventing Ourselves: How Technology is Rapidly and Radically Transforming Humanity" (2019), "Thinking Whole: Rejecting Half-Witted Left & Right Brain Limitations" (2018), "Reflections on Oceans and Puddles: One Hundred Reasons to be Enthusiastic, Grateful and Hopeful" (2017), "Cosmic Musings: Contemplating Life Beyond Self" (2016), "Scared Witless: Prophets and Profits of Climate Doom" (2015) and "Climate of Corruption: Politics and Power Behind the Global Warming Hoax" (2011). He is currently working on a new book with Buzz Aldrin, "Beyond Footprints and Flagpoles." Read Larry Bell's Reports — More Here.
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