Minnesota Governor Tim Walz signed a police liability bill on Thursday that includes a ban on neck restraints like the one that was used on George Floyd before his death in Minneapolis, although some activist groups say the legislation is not enough. The invoice, approved by the legislature earlier this week, it also prohibits strangleholds and fear-based or “warrior-style” training, which critics promote excessive force. It 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.
“This bipartisan legislation moves us toward a critical step toward criminal justice reform,” Walz said at a press conference on Thursday. “These critical reforms are long overdue: They are aimed at strengthening transparency and community oversight.”
The move also creates a new advisory council to 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 and autism problems.
The bill passed after nearly two months of difficult negotiations that followed Floyd’s death on May 25 and the worldwide riots over police brutality and racism. Floyd, who was black, was killed when a white officer held his knee against Floyd’s neck for nearly eight minutes when three other officers handcuffed and restrained him.
Members of the Indigenous People of Color Caucus (POCI) led police reform efforts on Capitol Hill, speaking with community members and law enforcement before writing the legislation they introduced last month. POCI committee member and Speaker of the House of Representatives public safety committee Carlos Mariani said the legislation is the first step in preventing what happened to Floyd and Philando Castile, who was killed by an officer from Police in a St. Paul suburb four years ago.
“The construction of this law and its approval is a powerful acknowledgment of our collective failure in the past, of our failure in (Floyd and Castile) and many others who have been unfairly harmed at the hands of peacekeepers,” said Mariani. “We have to start with that recognition, otherwise we will continue to do what we have always done.”
Discussions about police liability legislation dominated the June special session a few weeks after Floyd’s death, but lawmakers were unable to agree on what reforms to include in the bill. Entering this month’s special session, Democratic Speaker of the House of Representatives Melissa Hortman said restoring offenders’ voting rights and giving the Minnesota Attorney General’s office primary jurisdiction over prosecution. of police officers were two issues that were removed from the table in negotiations with the Republican-controlled Senate.
Michelle Gross, president of local advocacy group Communities United Against Police Brutality, called the reforms in the bill “a minor fruit” and said the legislation is not as comprehensive as the group expected.
“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. 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 after his death. POCI Caucus members at Thursday’s press conference pointed to the statute of limitations issue as a disappointment when it did not materialize in the final package.
Walz, a Democrat, is expected to call the Legislature to the Capitol in August to extend his emergency powers in peacetime as the coronavirus pandemic continues indefinitely. 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.”
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