NYC Council To Consider Several Measures Aimed At Police Reform This Month

The New York City Council will address calls for police reform and accountability at its upcoming meeting on June 18.

Prior to that, on June 9, the Committee on Public Safety will discuss six measures at a virtual meeting.

Protesters have clashed with NYPD officers frequently over the last 10 days, during demonstrations demanding reform. Demonstrators have evoked police killings of unarmed nonviolent suspects, like George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Michael Brown. Eric Garner and many others.

Looters and rioters have taken advantage of the confusion brought with the large crowds, and now police are concerned by an escalation of anti-police rhetoric by groups seeking to undermine the protests and turn them violent.

The legislation to be reviewed includes a measure to effectively ban chokeholds from being used by officers. Another that protects a person's right to record police activity. And another to establish a system used to record, track, review and evaluate officer activity to identify officers that need "enhanced training, monitoring or reassignment."

A resolution under consideration would urge the NY state legislature to make strangulation a first-degree crime. Another would call on U.S. Congress to pass the Eric Garner Excessive Use of Force Prevention act, which would prohibit police chokeholds nationwide.

As protesters have demanded the city 'Defund Police,' Mayor Bill de Blasio has pledged to redistribute some funding from the NYPD to youth and social services in communities where they are needed most.

The idea of defunding police stems from prior failures at instituting reform, leading many to conclude that cities should reduce the scope — and therefore the budgets — of police responsibilities, allocating that money instead to initiatives like mental health care, housing, community mediation and violence interruption programs.

Photo: Getty Images


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