Today, exactly two years after the murder of George Floyd, President Joe Biden is expected to sign an executive order on federal policing reform.
According to the New York Times, the order will broadly direct all federal agencies to revise their use-of-force policies, establish a federal accountability database for officers who have been fired for misconduct, and incentivize state and local law enforcement to ban or restrict chokeholds and no-knock warrants.
Change does not come easy for police departments, criminal justice professor Jack McDevitt said.
The order, which has been in the works since police reform legislation failed to pass through the Senate last year, also limits the transfer of military equipment to law enforcement agencies. But two years after former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin killed Floyd by kneeling his neck for more than nine minutes, the supposed “reckoning” heralded by Floyd’s murder has yielded far less change than many had hoped.
