Two years after the death of George Floyd, Joe Biden signs an executive order to reform the police

Published on: 05/25/2022 – 04:55 The American president will publish, on Wednesday, an executive order reforming the police services at the federal and local levels. The date of the signing of this text is highly symbolic, two years after the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis. Two years after the murder of George Floyd, President Joe Biden will sign, Wednesday, May 25, a decree to further supervise the police, but which does not go as far as the major police reform he had promised during his campaign. The text provides in particular for the creation of a national register of federal and local agents to identify all reports, disciplinary procedures and complaints concerning members of the police, according to a press release from the White House which exposes the content, described as “historic”. The American states and local communities, endowed with very extensive powers in matters of police and justice, will be “encouraged” to fill in this register and will be able to consult it. all federal agencies to revise their use of force policies and will restrict the use of military equipment during police operations. It also prohibits the use, still at the federal level, of carotid strangulation or compression techniques, except in exceptional situations. It also restricts the possibility of entering a place without warning. The Biden administration will also ask federal law enforcement agencies to generalize the use of body cameras during arrests or searches, and to broadcast the images quickly in the event of a fatal accident. This executive order will affect approximately 100,000 federal law enforcement officers, but the White House hopes to use federal spending to expand to more than 700,000 state and local communities. A campaign promise The date of the signing of this “Executive Order” is symbolic, two years after the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis, which had triggered huge demonstrations against racism. This African-American had died, asphyxiated, after a police officer had pressed his knee on his neck for a long time. Joe Biden will sign the decree in the company of members of his family, as well as families of other victims of police violence, has said a senior White House official during an interview with the press. He said law enforcement officials will also attend the ceremony. “If the nation is to heal, we must recognize that deadly interactions with law enforcement disproportionately affect people who are black or skinned. dark”, commented the White House. Joe Biden, in his campaign for the presidency, had promised a deep reform of the police, passing by the law and not by the instrument, more limited, of the decree which is not necessary than at the federal government level. But the Democratic president, whose party does not have a sufficient parliamentary majority, did not succeed, to the great disappointment of associations fighting against racism and against police violence. With AFP and Reuters