President Joe Biden is expected to issue an executive order to reform federal policing on Wednesday, which is the anniversary of the day George Floyd was killed in 2020, sparking protests across the country.
Floyd died hours after being handcuffed and pinned to the ground by former Minneapolis officer Derek Chauvin, who was convicted for the murder in 2021, Deseret News reported.
What will be in Biden’s executive policing order?
Biden’s executive order “will direct all federal agencies to revise their use-of-force policies, create a national registry of officers fired for misconduct, use grants to encourage state and local police to tighten restrictions on chokeholds and no-knock warrants and restrict the transfer of most military equipment to law enforcement agencies,” The New York Times reported.
The Biden administration has been working on the order for the last year, after the Senate rejected a national policing overhaul in 2021, according to The New York Times.
Why is Biden issuing an executive order on policing now?
In January, The Federalist leaked a draft of an executive order the administration was working on that would create new expectations for policing.
“I hope that the executive order strikes a balance between the legitimate concerns of the civil rights community and the legitimate concerns of the law enforcement community,” Jim Pasco, executive director of the Fraternal Order of Police, told Axios.
Biden included funding provisions for local law enforcement and other public safety measures in the American Rescue Plan passed in March 2021, per Vox. How the funding will all shake out is yet to be seen.
Damon Hewitt, president and executive director of the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, told Axios: “It can’t be a gravy train of money just for police to be police. It’s got to be money that actually — if it’s going out — leads to some different results.”