During his presidential campaign, Joe Biden promised to pass the George Floyd policing act, and get it passed at the state level so it could have an immediate impact.
But of course, the Senate never got it passed, and here we are again looking at another case where someone lost their life due to inadequate policing.
Every year when a case happens involving police brutality, the same things happen right afterward.
The first thing that comes is public outrage. There will be immediate backlash which leads to protests across cities.
Then this is followed up by a lot of empty promises and symbolism. Then after a week of this, things get quiet, and this case isn’t brought up anymore.
This happens every time and will continue to happen unless there is a change at the state level with policing.
The George Floyd Policing Act didn’t make it out of the Senate when it was up for a vote. This bill would have brought different rules to make that needed impact.
But to see the needed change, you will have to end qualified immunity and make it so that police officers would lose their pensions.
All the other things really don’t scare the police officers, and a lot of police officers are protected by their union and constantly supported by politicians.
For the bad policing and the killings to stop, they must have something crucial on the line to subconsciously make better decisions.
That is the only way because everything else isn’t working. The protest isn’t working, the meetings with them aren’t working, the cry out for help isn’t working, and the symbolism is not working.
Biden did pass an updated bill last year in policing to appease black people, but it’s at the federal level and not the state.
Unless these officers have real consequences for their actions, we will continue to see police brutality cases that end in death for black people.