‘Unless there’s change, brutality will continue’: On bended knee, Dems unveil police reform bill in wake of George Floyd’s death

Congressional Democrats rolled out a wide-ranging package of law enforcement reforms on Monday, but stopped short of jumping on the “defund the police” bandwagon that has picked up steam nationally in the wake of George Floyd’s death.

The legislation, dubbed “The Justice in Policing Act,” proposes a laundry list of mechanisms by which the federal government would step up oversight of local police departments, including extensive new bias training for officers, bans on racial and religious profiling, a national prohibition on chokeholds, the implementation of a national registry of abusive cops and a mandate for body cameras.

Before formally unveiling the bill at a press conference, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi led a group of more than 20 lawmakers in kneeling on the floor of the Capitol’s Emancipation Hall for eight minutes and 46 seconds — the exact amount of time that Derek Chauvin, now-fired Minneapolis officer, kneeled on Floyd’s neck — as the names of victims of police brutality were read aloud.

“We cannot settle for anything less than transformative structural change,” said Pelosi (D-Calif.).

But Pelosi and her Democratic colleagues were careful not to delve into “defund the police” rhetoric that has been embraced by some activists and politicians — including Mayor de Blasio — as the nation continues to reel from Floyd’s caught-on-camera death.

“This isn’t about that, and that should not be the story that leads here,” Pelosi said. “The story that leads here should be liberty and justice for all.”