Royce West
By ROYCE WEST
Texas State Senate
Many Americans have been moved to stunned resignation that yes, police misconduct exists after viewing the final nine minutes of George Floyd’s life.
It’s also time for leaders who are not Black or minorities to stop acting like these heinous acts, administered by the hands of law enforcement, do not happen or have not occurred.
Those motivations are why I authored SB30, The Community Safety Education Act in 2017, which instructs officers and citizens on how they should respond during interactions with law enforcement – hopefully for reasons of self-preservation.
The bill’s language has been incorporated into Texas’ drivers’ license exams, along with driver training, defensive driving courses and law enforcement instruction.
For the same reasons, I authored body camera legislation in 2015 and passed Texas’ first statutes that prohibited racial profiling by law enforcement and placed cameras inside patrol cars in 2001.