President Joe Biden signed an executive order on policing and spoke more about the elementary school shooting that killed 19 children and two adults during a press conference Wednesday at the White House.
He signed the order in the presence of the families of Breonna Taylor, who was killed by police in Kentucky in 2020, and George Floyd, who was killed by Minneapolis officer Derek Chauvin. Today marks the two year anniversary of George Floyd’s death.
“I know progress can be slow and frustrating, and there’s a concern that the reckoning on race inspired two years ago is beginning to fade,” Biden said, according to NBC News.
What does Biden’s executive policing order include?
Per NBC News, the order focuses on national policing efforts. The order:
- “Creates a national registry of officers fired.”
- “Encourages state and local police to tighten restrictions on chokeholds and so-called no-knock warrants.”
- “Restricts the transfer of military equipment to law enforcement agencies.”
- “Mandates all federal agents wear activated body cameras.”
The database of disciplinary records will cover more than 100,000 officers, senior administration officials told The Hill.
“It’s a measure of what we can do together to heal the very soul of this nation,” Biden said, per The Hill. “To address profound fear and trauma, exhaustion that particularly Black Americans have experienced for generations, and to channel that private pain and public outrage into a rare mark of progress for years to come.”
What did Biden say about the Second Amendment?
At the beginning of the speech, Biden again addressed the shooting in Uvalde, Texas, that happened on Tuesday and mentioned that he will be traveling with first lady Jill Biden to Texas in “the the coming days.”
“The Second Amendment is not absolute,” he said. “When it was passed, you couldn’t own a cannon, you couldn’t own certain kinds of weapons. There’s always been limitations.”
He repeated a call to consider “common sense” gun control and take action against the gun lobby.
What do police groups think about Biden’s policing order?
National Sheriffs’ Association (NSA) President Sheriff Vernon Stanforth spoke with Fox News Digital about the order and regrets not being involved in the execution of the order.
“By choosing not to listen to elected law enforcement the President missed hearing from the rest of the Country,” Stanforth told Fox News Digital. “Unfortunately, [he] hand-picked who he and his staff would share the actual verbiage with and who they would take input from. Law enforcement operates in every county in America, not just in East and West coast cities.”
The Major Cities Chiefs Association (MCCA) worked closely with the administration on the order and warned it should continue to be consulted about any changes, per Fox News.
“Instituting effective and meaningful reform without jeopardizing law enforcement’s ability to keep our communities safe is exceptionally complex,” the group shared in a statement to Fox News Digital. “Therefore, as this Executive Order moves to the implementation phase, the Administration must continue to collaborate with law enforcement stakeholders like the MCCA.”