The George Floyd Justice in Policing Act, an effort to improve law enforcement accountability and root out racial bias in policing, passed the U.S. House of Representatives on Wednesday.
The bill includes a ban on police chokeholds, a ban of no-knock warrants, an end to the qualified immunity doctrine that is a barrier to holding police officers accountable for wrongful conduct, and a mandate data collection, including body cameras and dashboard cameras.
“We must restore the trust between communities and our police force, and we can’t do that without corrective action to end unlawful and unacceptable behavior,” said Second District Congresswoman Elaine Luria, who voted for passage of the bill.
“This bill takes a comprehensive and commonsense approach to improving public safety that ultimately makes our police force stronger without cutting funding,” Luria said. “Last year, flashpoints of pain in the commonwealth of Virginia and across the nation laid bare to us all just how far we have to go in addressing the deeply-rooted ills of racial bias and police-sanctioned violence in our society. Too many lives have been taken and communities devastated by police brutality and racial profiling.
“Action is long overdue. We can and must re-imagine public safety in America to make our policing systems safer for citizens and hold police officers accountable to the communities they serve, beginning with today’s passage of the Justice in Policing Act,” Luria said.
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