Minnesota Governor Tim Walz signed a police reform bill Thursday that includes a neck restraint ban like the one used on George Floyd before his death, but some activist groups say the legislation does not come. far enough away to tackle inequality.
The bill prohibits strangleholds and training based on fear or “warrior style.” It also imposes a duty to intercede with officers who see a colleague using excessive force and changes the rules on the use of force to emphasize the sanctity of life.
FILE: Minnesota Governor Tim Walz provides an update in St. Paul, Minnesota on the state’s plan to mitigate the impact of COVID-19 on long-term care facilities.
(Star Tribune via AP)
The move creates a new advisory council for the state board that licenses officers, makes changes to arbitration rules that affect police unions, and requires more training to deal with people with mental health problems.
But critics say the bill is not as comprehensive as advocates of police reform would have liked. Earlier this month, Democratic Speaker of the House of Representatives Melissa Hortman said the restoration of offenders’ voting rights and the granting of primary jurisdiction to the Minnesota Attorney General’s Office over the prosecution of police officers they were removed from the table in the reform negotiations.
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Michelle Gross, president of the local defense group Communities United against police brutality, called the reforms of the bill “a fruit of little importance.”
“The autism training we thought was important to have … and we also like the fact that it prohibits fear-based training (which) is something we’ve been working on for a long time,” he said. . “But a lot of what we wanted wasn’t even given a second look.”
Gross’s group, along with other local advocacy organizations, introduced eight police reform bills during the special session, two of which were included in the package approved earlier this week. The legislation includes requiring the police to have their own liability insurance, ending the statute of limitations for a civil wrongful death lawsuit, and allowing the families of those killed by the police to view body camera images 48 hours later. of his death.
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Gross said they will return with more reforms to prevent lawmakers from moving on from police reform, a process that she says is far from over.
“For every special session they may have, we will be there demanding change,” he said. “And once the regular session starts next year, we will be there again, with our bills, demanding a change.”
Associated Press contributed to this report.
