House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, speaking, and other Democratic lawmakers introduced legislation to overhaul policing laws, on Capitol Hill on Monday.
Photo: michael reynolds/ShutterstockThe movement to reform policing appeared to gain traction with some lawmakers after nearly two weeks of protests sparked by the killing of George Floyd and a weekend of some of the largest demonstrations to date.
On Monday, House Democrats unveiled an overhaul of policing laws that would make it easier to prosecute officers for misconduct, collect national data and establish new training programs to counter racial bias.
In Minneapolis, where Mr. Floyd was killed in police custody, a veto-proof majority of the city council agreed Sunday to begin the process of disbanding the police department—a necessary step, council members said, after decades of incremental police reform.
“Our commitment is to end our city’s toxic relationship with the Minneapolis Police Department, to end policing as we know it, and to re-create systems of public safety that actually keep us safe,” Minneapolis City Council President Lisa Bender said Sunday.
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New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio on Sunday vowed a “next wave of reform” including shifting funding from the city’s police department to youth and social services and supporting increased transparency in police discipline.
Mr. Floyd, a 46-year-old black man, was killed on May 25 after police officers arrested him for allegedly trying to pass off a counterfeit $20 bill. Video that circulated widely showed a white police officer, Derek Chauvin, with his knee on Mr. Floyd’s neck as Mr. Floyd pleaded for mercy and said he couldn’t breathe.
Pallbearers bring George Floyd’s casket into the Fountain of Praise church for a viewing and services on Monday in Houston.
Photo: Mario Tama/Getty ImagesIn Houston, where Mr. Floyd grew up and where a public church viewing was to be held Monday, American flags lined roadway medians and vendors sold T-shirts and signs printed with Mr. Floyd’s face as Houstonians lined up to bid goodbye to one of their own.
“It’s history,” said Tanya Forte, 53, who didn’t know Mr. Floyd but lined up with her friend two hours before the viewing began.
She said she wanted to teach her daughters that “when something like this happens in America, participate and show up, because it could have been any of us.”
Ms. Forte, who joined protests last week in downtown Houston, said she was grateful they had remained peaceful there and was touched by how the protests have become nationally widespread.
“It brings tears to my eyes to know that people other than African-Americans want to see change,” she said.
Former Vice President Joe Biden is traveling to Houston on Monday to meet privately with the Floyd family, according to a campaign aide. The presumptive Democratic presidential nominee also plans to record a video message for Mr. Floyd’s funeral service on Tuesday.
Mr. Biden is expected to unveil additional policies around police oversight and racial justice in the coming days.
Earl Joseph, 43, who attended high school with Mr. Floyd, had only moments in front of the casket to remember his classmate and neighbor as “a gentle giant.”
He considered the upperclassman a role model in basketball and football.
The weeks since Mr. Floyd’s death have been rough for Mr. Joseph. Monday’s viewing, to pay his respects, was the first time he has left home in recent weeks, he said. The nationwide protests haven’t made him feel any better, he said.
“We can protest, we can do whatever, but until people’s hearts change, nothing is going to change,” Mr. Joseph said.
The viewing drew people from far and wide who wanted to pay their respects to Mr. Floyd. Ed Ferris, 52, was among three members of the International Longshore & Warehouse Union who drove days from Seattle and San Francisco to Houston for the event. The video of Mr. Floyd’s killing prompted him to do so, he said.
“My eyes saw a murder, and I never want to see that again,” Mr. Ferris said.
His fellow union member, Tyrone Harvey, 61, said he spent much of the drive thinking about how to keep his 11-year-old son safe as he grows up.
“When I get back to Seattle, I have to explain to him my reason for coming out here and have another talk with him about how he’s going to respond when he turns 16 and he’s behind the wheel of a car,” Mr. Harvey said. “I want him to have some longevity.”
The largest protests remained mostly peaceful across the U.S. this weekend, as emboldened organizers said they didn’t plan to stop rallying until they saw concrete changes in police policy.
From New York to Los Angeles, and in cities of all sizes in between, protesters asked officials to defund police departments and redirect those funds to other programs. They called for banning police chokeholds and revamping law-enforcement training programs.
After a largely peaceful demonstration in Washington, D.C., President Trump ordered the National Guard to withdraw from the capital, and mayors in New York City, Chicago and Philadelphia lifted curfews Sunday.
Photos: Protests Across the Nation
The protests appeared to be prompting lawmakers to act.
The federal legislation unveiled Monday wraps together a flurry of bills endorsed by various lawmakers with a new focus on holding police officers accountable for misconduct. Republicans and Democrats have said Congress should respond to the public pressure from protesters demanding change.
“Today this moment of national anguish is being transformed into a movement of national action,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D., Calif.) told reporters Monday. “We cannot settle for anything less than transformative, structural change.”
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Minneapolis city council members said in regard to their vote to disband the city’s police department, they “don’t have all the answers about what a police-free future looks like” but vowed to work with the community over the next year, according to a statement Ms. Bender posted on Twitter. The police department didn’t respond to a request for comment.
A U.S. district judge in Denver signed a restraining order barring the city’s police from using chemical weapons or projectiles against protesters acting peacefully. In Buffalo, N.Y., two police officers were charged Saturday with felony assault in connection with a Thursday night altercation that injured a 75-year-old protester. The officers pleaded not guilty, according to Tom Burton, a lawyer for the Buffalo Police Benevolent Association, which represents the officers.
Andrea Jenkins, vice president of the Minneapolis City Council, spoke at “The Path Forward'” meeting at Powderhorn Park on Sunday.
Photo: Jerry Holt/Zuma PressCalifornia Gov. Gavin Newsom called for state police to stop using strangleholds, and Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti is proposing cutting police funding and putting the money into social services in minority communities.
The Los Angeles police union said any cuts to police funding would “undoubtedly affect not only police operations, but more importantly the community members we serve each day.”
Leaders of several of the weekend’s protests stressed the importance of keeping gatherings peaceful, and in some cases they chanted that they were using their right to protest peacefully.
Many protesters said they didn’t plan to stop demonstrating until they see substantial criminal-justice overhauls.
People walk on a Black Lives Matter sign painted on the street near the White House on Sunday.
Photo: joshua roberts/ReutersNear New York City’s Times Square on Sunday, speakers took to the stage to urge protesters to keep going and try to attend meetings of powerful people, including Congress, to be agents of change. Chivona Newsome, co-founder of the Greater New York branch of Black Lives Matter and a Democratic candidate for the city’s 15th congressional district, said the movement had entered its most important stage.
“We know that nothing happens for marginalized people unless there’s an agenda, unless there’s legislation,” she said. “There would be no civil rights, there would be no voting rights and we would still be in bondage if there wasn’t legislation.”
The Justice Department is investigating Mr. Floyd’s killing to determine whether Minneapolis police officers willfully violated his civil rights. Mr. Chauvin faces charges from the state of Minnesota of second-degree murder; three other officers who were at the scene of the arrest were charged with aiding and abetting second-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter. U.S. Attorney General William Barr said investigators were examining things such as the officers’ training and the department’s use-of-force policies.
The Trump administration was criticized for deploying National Guard troops and federal law-enforcement personnel who used smoke canisters and pepper balls to clear Lafayette Square in Washington, D.C., Monday before Mr. Trump went to St. John’s Church, across the street from the White House.
D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser said Sunday that Mr. Trump’s response to the protests hadn’t quelled them but motivated more people to turn out for peaceful gatherings. “What Americans saw was federal police forces tear-gassing peaceful Americans and how they responded made clear to the president that Americans would exercise their First Amendment rights and do it peacefully,” Ms. Bowser said on ABC.
—Kristina Peterson contributed to this article.
Write to Jennifer Calfas at Jennifer.Calfas@wsj.com and Elizabeth Findell at Elizabeth.Findell@wsj.com
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