January 29, 2023

Tyre Nichols’ Family Attorney Calls on Congress to Pass George Floyd Justice in Policing Act

“Shame on us if we don’t use his tragic death to finally get” the bill passed.

Civil rights attorney Ben Crump speaks at a news conference with RowVaughn Wells, mother of Tyre Nichols, and his stepfather Rodney Wells, in Memphis, Tennessee, on Friday.Gerald Herbert/AP

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On Sunday, Ben Crump, an attorney representing the family of Tyre Nichols, called on Congress to pass police reform legislation in the wake of Nichols’ death at the hands of Memphis police earlier this month. 

“Shame on us if we don’t use his tragic death to finally get the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act passed,” Crump said on CNN. The legislation, which has passed twice in the House, would limit qualified immunity for police officers, restrict the types of force police can use, and make it easier for the Justice Department to investigate police misconduct.

The five officers who brutally beat Nichols have been fired and are facing murder charges. The unit they worked for has also been disbanded.

Crump said that he and the Nichols family had made their support for the bill clear in a call with President Joe Biden. The path for the bill to become law has gotten harder now that Republicans control the House of Representatives. 

The bill would ban chokeholds and no-knock warrants in federal drug cases, as well as create a national registry of police misconduct and force police departments to collect more data, NPR reported. The bill would also push more money toward community-based policing. It would mostly affect federal law enforcement.

Crump argued that there hasn’t been federal police form legislation since Lyndon Johnson was president. “It didn’t happen with Rodney King, it didn’t happen with Michael Brown in Ferguson and it didn’t happen with George Floyd,” he continued. “How many of these tragedies do we have to see on video before we say we have a problem, America?”

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