The Comprehensive Policing and Justice Reform Emergency Amendment Act of 2020, prohibits neck restraints and chokeholds, has restrictions on police hiring, emphasizes accountability procedures and punishments, and clarifies the meaning of deadly force.
In the last subtitle of the emergency act, “Use of Deadly Force By a Police Officer,” Council members were clearly considering the death of Floyd, as well as countless others who similarly experienced excessive force by a police officer.
“A Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) officer, after giving notice of his or her identity as such, may use or threaten to use force that is reasonably necessary to accomplish the arrest of an individual suspected of a criminal act who resists or flees from the arrest,” one subsection of the legislation says.
To ensure that we do not see these incidents take place in the District of Columbia, this subtitle would require Metropolitan Police Department officers to exhaust every alternative to deadly force when effectuating an arrest.”
Despite the major changes in the emergency legislation, Color of Change and other local activist organizations encourage the Council to continue to listen to the community and demonstrators who are fighting for a fix of the police budget.
