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America’s political leaders promised significant policing reforms following George Floyd’s murder.
The U.S. House of Representatives passed the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act (see the roll call vote here to know how your representative voted). But the Senate never voted on the act after receiving it in March 2021.
The act would have held police officers more accountable by limiting qualified-immunity protections that keep officers who are accused of misconduct from facing charges. The bill would have created a national registry of officers who have been disciplined or fired to keep abusive officers from jumping from department to department. The bill would have outlawed no-knock warrants and chokeholds.
Ben Crump, an attorney for Nichol’s family, said Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union,” “Shame on us if we don’t use (Nichols’s) tragic death to finally get the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act passed.”
Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) said on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” “I don’t know that there’s any law that can stop that evil that we saw,” and said that state and local governments are better suited to make decisions on policing laws.
When Joe Biden was a candidate he promised many of the reforms contained in the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act. The president did order many of these reforms on the federal level. By executive order, Biden ordered a federal registry of disciplined federal officers, banned chokeholds by federal officers and mandated body cameras on federal officers.
The Gallup polls show a divided hunger for major police policies to change. Many Black Americans want “major changes” in policing and 96% of Black Americans say some changes are needed. (You should note that a 96% response to a national poll on virtually any question is rare.)
(Gallup)
Gallup found that the most widely supported reforms include:
- requiring officers to have good relations with the community
- changing management practices, so officers with multiple incidents of abuse of power are not allowed to serve
- changing management practices, so officer abuses are punished
- promoting community-based alternatives such as violence intervention
- ending stop-and-frisk
- changing legal practices so that police officers face legal action for abuse of power or unnecessary harm
(Gallup)
The Memphis police abuse case will add to a national police officer shortage
Police departments already had the challenge to fill vacant positions before Memphis police faced charges that they murdered Tyre Nichols.
An analysis of two years of U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics and Census Bureau data shows a steady decline in both law enforcement and local government jobs during the pandemic.
It is true that there have been instances of police officers either quitting or retiring in response to how their departments dealt with protests and public criticism.
In Austin, Texas, for example, several officers resigned or retired early in the wake of the Floyd protests. The departures added more tension to a department already at odds with the community over the abrupt retirement of an assistant chief, who was alleged to have used racial slurs in reference to former President Barack Obama and others.
More officers quit or retired as a public panel reviewed department training videos that some critics said promoted racial stereotypes, contributing to a combined decline of 352 officers from the 1,600 member force in 2020 and 2021.
In Buffalo, New York, and Portland, Oregon, entire squads of crowd control and emergency response officers resigned their posts in protest over how their departments handled their interactions with protesters.
While economists believe that the social and political landscape could have contributed to burnout for police officers, they attribute the drop in police numbers largely to two other causes: COVID-19, and mass early retirements.
You can see the size of the problem by just searching Google. News stories about officer shortages show up nationwide:
(Google)
In 2018, Memphis lowered its standards to attract recruits during a police officer hiring shortage. Two of the five officers now charged in Tyre Nichols’ death were hired during that time.
WMC-TV reports that the requirements prior to the loosened guidelines said applicants must be at least 21 years old, have a valid driver’s license, have two years of cumulative active military service with an honorable discharge and have an associate’s degree or 54 semester hours of college. The new guidelines said a recruit can have five years of full-time responsible, verifiable work experience and a high school diploma. If a recruit is hired under that qualification, he/she must obtain an associate degree within four years of employment.
Is the pandemic over? WHO to decide today
Sometime today, maybe by the time you read this, the World Health Organization will announce whether the global COVID-19 pandemic, which was officially declared a “pandemic” three years ago, is over.
The announcement will be part of the WHO executive board meetings that are ongoing all this week. The expert committee that will make a recommendation to WHO Director-General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus met over the weekend.
Also over the weekend, Tedros sent signals for the second time in a week that while the time to end the ”pandemic” designation may happen soon, sometime in 2023, it likely won’t be today. Consider these two quotes:
“As we enter the fourth year of the pandemic, we are certainly in a much better position now than we were a year ago, when the omicron wave was at its peak, and more than 70,000 deaths were being reported to WHO each week.”
“When you last met in October, the number of weekly reported deaths was near the lowest since the pandemic began — less than 10,000 a week. However, since the beginning of December, the number of weekly reported deaths globally has been rising.”
COVID-19 deaths in the U.S. are still falling. But in China, where restrictions were recently lifted, deaths rose again.
“Last week, almost 40,000 deaths were reported to WHO, more than half of them from China,” Tedros said. “In total, over the past eight weeks, more than 170,000 deaths have been reported. The actual number is certainly much higher.”
Besides the uptick in cases in China, Tedros is also concerned that we may not know enough about where new cases are breaking out because there is so much less governmental testing, monitoring and reporting.
No matter what the WHO says, states and countries will determine their own responses to the virus. Canada says a WHO decision does not change the Canadian response. The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors extended the COVID-19 eviction moratorium for county residents until March 31.
New FDA rules make it easier for gay men to donate blood
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration says it is drafting new rules that will make it easier for gay men to donate blood safely. The current donor questionnaire requires three months of abstinence for donations from men who have sex with men. The new requirements will screen donors’ individual risks for HIV based on sexual behavior, recent partners and other factors.
LGBTQ advocates say today’s medical screenings make the strict questionnaire unnecessary at a time when blood banks need donors. The Associated Press reports:
In 2015, the FDA dropped the lifetime ban and replaced it with a one-year abstinence requirement. Then in 2020, the agency shortened the abstinence period to three months, after donations plummeted during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Regulators said there has been no negative impact on the blood supply as a result of those changes.
Why paper maps are sort of “in”
The Wall Street Journal reports that paper map sales seem to be rising, even though you need them less and less to get where you are going. The Journal says AAA produced 123% more maps in 2022 than 2021. The Journal says, “Fans say physical maps—though less efficient than digital options—enhance one’s journey. Among devotees: a surprising number of millennials and members of Generation Z.”
Not long ago, USA Today asked readers why they use paper maps. The most common reason is that they do not require batteries or a cell signal and some map users said too often GPS devices give less than useful directions.
