Four years after George Floyd’s murder, family calls on Congress to reform police

CNN
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On the fourth anniversary of his murder, George Floyd’s family renewed its call for Congress to pass a law named after him to reform American policing.

“Change is needed,” Philonise Floyd, George Floyd’s brother, said Thursday at a press conference where Democratic lawmakers announced their latest efforts to pass the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act.

The bill was passed in the then Democratic-dominated House of Representatives in June 2020. However, it stalled in the Senate.

Democratic Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee reintroduced the bill on Thursday, days before the fourth anniversary of Floyd’s killing, calling for police to be “held accountable for misconduct in court” and for police training and policies to be reformed.

“We have an opportunity to implement bold and comprehensive reforms to policing to correct and prevent unnecessary deaths. Congress must pass the George Floyd #JusticeInPolicingAct of 2024,” Rep. Jackson Lee wrote in a Facebook post.

Philonise Floyd agreed.

“In their eyes, they (the police) see you as a target just because you’re a person of color,” he said. “If they can pass federal laws to protect the bird, the bald eagle, then they can pass federal laws to protect people of color.”

George Floyd, a 46-year-old black man, was killed in police custody on May 25, 2020. Derek Chauvin, a white police officer, was filmed kneeling on Floyd’s neck and back for nearly nine minutes while Floyd begged for help and said he couldn’t breathe.

The following year, Chauvin was sentenced to more than 22 years in prison for murder and manslaughter in a state trial. He later pleaded guilty in federal court to depriving Floyd of his civil rights.

Three other former Minneapolis police officers were also charged at the state and federal levels and sentenced to prison for their roles in Floyd’s murder.

At the press conference on Thursday he said: Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar of Minneapolis urged her colleagues in parliament to “think of the lives that could have been saved if we had had the courage to act.”

“We need a clear national standard to uphold the promise of equal protection under the law,” she said.

The murder of George Floyd sparked a wave of protests around the world against racism and police brutality. Four years later, Floyd’s death is still painful for his family, who were inclined to join the ranks of black Americans called to action after their loved ones were killed by police.

“When I watched the video (of his death), I promised myself I had to do something. And I haven’t stopped,” Floyd’s uncle Selwyn Jones told CNN.

This spring, Jones joined Gwen Carr, the mother of Eric Garner, an unarmed black man who was also killed by police in 2014, talks about how they turned their pain into targeted activism at Harvard University.

Jones said he co-founded Hope929.org, a charity dedicated to helping people marginalized by society, to bring about change in honor of his nephew.

“What I can do is accept the atrocity that happened to him that day and make a change,” he said.

However, he is not optimistic about the fate of the legislation.

“I’m frustrated because I don’t think it will ever pass. And if it does, it will have to be heavily watered down, but we were promised that the bill would pass,” he said.

Jones said he and his family will continue to uphold Floyd’s legacy. He said he plans to attend a ceremony in Floyd’s honor in Charlotte, North Carolina, this weekend.

“It will be like it used to be,” Jones said. “Let’s all sit together, eat, drink, enjoy and take care of each other.”