LOS ANGELES — During a discussion June 1 on the police protests occurring across the nation, Mayor Eric Garcetti said law enforcement departments must examine and improve the ways they recruit officers, how they train them and the oversight of officers they have in place.
Garcetti joined Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden and mayors from across the nation for the discussion on the police protests, as well as the nation’s response to the response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Biden said he spoke with the family of George Floyd, the black man who was filmed being asphyxiated by a white Minneapolis police officer, using tactics that Los Angeles Police Chief Michel Moore decried last week.
“We do see not only the pent-up pain of the pandemic, but more the repressed rage of racism in this country, and those two things [collided] in a moment when people saw the latest chapter of this dark, dark book,” Garcetti said.
Garcetti also said it’s important for law enforcement to find less lethal methods of detaining people so that communities are not traumatized by police presence.
