WASHINGTON, May 25 (Reuters) – U.S. President Joe Biden tried to reform federal and local police with a broad executive order on Wednesday, the second anniversary of George Floyd’s death, while urging a seemingly unmoved Congress to act on police and weapons reform. .
The order directs all federal agencies to review their policies of use of force, creates a national register of officers fired for misconduct, and will use grants to encourage state and local police to restrict the use of force. asphyxia and neck restraints. Read more
“It’s a measure of what we can do together to heal the soul of this nation, to address the deep trauma of fear, the exhaustion, especially black Americans, that they have experienced for generations,” Biden said.
Register now for FREE and unlimited access to Reuters.com
Sign up
He hadn’t signed it before, he said, because he hoped Congress would pass a police reform law under Floyd’s name. The bill collapsed in the U.S. Senate last September under Republican opposition.
Biden spoke the next day of a mass shooting at a Texas elementary school, and blamed Congress in its opening statements for its failure to write stronger gun laws.
“Where’s the backbone? Where’s the courage to face a very powerful lobby,” he said, apparently referring to the gun lobby and Republican opposition to stricter gun restrictions.
The White House police order restricts the use of tickets without calling for a limited set of circumstances, such as when an announced entry would pose an imminent threat of physical violence.
“I don’t know any good cop who likes a bad cop,” Biden said.
Floyd, a black man suspected of approving a counterfeit bill, was killed when Derek Chauvin, a white Minneapolis police officer, knelt on his neck on May 25, 2020, while three other officers were watching. The incident sparked a wave of protests over racial injustice months before Biden was elected.
Chauvin was sentenced to 22 and a half years in prison last year after being sentenced for murder.
Biden was joined by members of Floyd’s family, civil rights activists and law enforcement officials, and Vice President Kamala Harris, who attacked Republicans for failing to pass a police law.
Register now for FREE and unlimited access to Reuters.com
Sign up
Report by Andrea Shalal, Rami Ayyub and Jarrett Renshaw in Washington; Edited by Heather Timmons and Howard Goller
Our standards: Thomson Reuters’ principles of trust.