Local governments have hired new police chiefs, fired officers for misconduct, added body cameras and taken other actions that have proved to not be enough to stop police brutality.
What is needed are serious and comprehensive reforms in legislation, policies and procedures that will hold police officers accountable for brutality and address the problem of systemic racism in policing.
The proposed legislation would revise the federal criminal police misconduct statute to make it easier to prosecute officers who are involved in misconduct “knowingly or with reckless disregard.”
The package would also change “qualified immunity” protections for police “to enable individuals to recover damages when law enforcement officers violate their constitutional rights.”
And it would create a National Police Misconduct Registry, a database to try to prevent officers from transferring from one department to another with past misconduct undetected, the draft said.
