Thousands march in Washington, D.C. protesting police brutality and the killing of George Floyd in Minnesota at the hands of local police, on Saturday, June 6, 2020. Derek Chauvin, the police officer that was caught on video kneeling on Floyd’s neck for nearly 9 minutes as the unarmed, handcuffed man laid flat and unable to breathe, has been charged with third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter. Mass demonstrations have taken place nationwide since the incident took place.
We recently editorialized about the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis, the hundreds of protest demonstrations throughout the country, and what the focus should be in New Jersey. We urged “concrete measures to weed out abusive officers.” We recommended legislation providing for the licensing of police officers (as in more than 40 other states), discipline imposed at the state level and not subject to collective bargaining, the outlawing of chokeholds, study and revision of state law on civil liability for police abuse, reexamination of the community caretaker function of the police and a new approach to police recruitment. In short, we sought legislative action to begin the task of statewide police reform in New Jersey.
An update is necessary. George Floyd was brutally killed by a Minneapolis police officer on Memorial Day. We are now in August. Major protest demonstrations have subsided in most cities and the news cycle has turned elsewhere. Although police reform measures sit quietly in the New Jersey Legislature, they barely begin to approach significance in the effort to stop police violence.
