Jago Times "English Edition" Best Online Newspaper
AUSTIN — The Black Legislative Caucus, joined by the family of George Floyd, announced Thursday that it would introduce a bill in the next legislative session that would ban choke holds statewide and narrow use-of-force rules for police officers.
The Houston native was killed in Minneapolis Police Department custody on May 25 after a veteran officer, Derek Chauvin, knelt on his neck for nearly nine minutes.
His death sparked a nationwide outcry and calls for police reform.
At a virtual news conference Thursday, Floyd’s brother Rodney Floyd and his cousins Tera Brown and Shareeduh Tate, as well as civil rights attorney Benjamin Crump, were in virtual attendance for the announcement of the George Floyd Act. The bill also would seek to end arrests for non-jailable, fine-only violations.
Tezlyn Figaro, senior advisor of the George Floyd Foundation, said these issues were among those the family and the nonprofit are fighting for since Floyd’s death put them into the spotlight.
“What made this case unique is the world had an opportunity to see almost nine minutes of a deliberate choice, where the duty to render aid was not even an option,” Figaro said.
Protests swept the state and the country in the days, weeks and now months following the tragedy. Major Texas cities like Dallas, Houston and Austin have already placed bans on choke holds, though the enforcement of these bans has come into question throughout the summer.
Rep. Harold Dutton acknowledged that body cams and no-knock warrants were not addressed in this bill, but he said there will be separate bills that address these policies.
This bill focuses on the duty to intervene, which is key to ending police brutality, he said.
“This says that we’re going to help the good officers. When people talk about officers, they always seem to suggest that all officers aren’t bad,” Dutton said. “Well this is for the officers who aren’t bad. They need to intervene.”
The Texas Legislative Black Caucus acknowledged that there will be opposition to this bill, but as the news conference came to an end Dutton said Floyd’s death has provided a rare opportunity for change.
“When we talked about it before, sometimes people didn’t really get the message,” Dutton said. “Now they have seen it. Now they have seen it, and what they saw, I think, touched their conscience. And I think the legislature is not exempt from that.”
Sen. Royce West and Dutton both urged Gov. Greg Abbott to put the George Floyd Act up for debate during the first part of the session.
“Since I’ve been here, I don’t know that there’s been any more important emergency work to be done,” Dutton said.