WASHINGTON (AP) — The anniversary of George Floyd’s death was supposed to be a milestone moment, a time to mark passage of legislation to “root out systemic racism” in the criminal justice system, in the words of President Joe Biden. Instead, Floyd’s family visited Washington on Tuesday to mourn with Biden and prod Congress to act as they commemorate the loss of their brother, father and son one year ago.
“Today is the day that he set the world in a rage,” Floyd’s brother Philonise said, addressing reporters at the Capitol alongside family members, Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other lawmakers. “We need to be working together to make sure that people do not live in fear in America any more,” he said.
Later, family members spent an hour with Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris at the White House.
“It was a remembrance of what happened to my brother,” Philonise Floyd said. He said of the meeting with Biden, “It was great, he’s a genuine guy.”
Related Story: George Floyd had ‘violent criminal history’ — Minneapolis police union chief
Biden told them “he just wants the bill to be meaningful and that it holds George’s legacy intact,” said George Floyd’s nephew Brandon Williams.
A sister, Bridgett Floyd, stayed away, aiming to come only when there is a bill to be signed into law.
“That’s when I will make my way to D.C.,” she said from Minnesota.
George Floyd’s death sparked a global reckoning over racism and growing calls for police reform, but a legislative response has been elusive. Still, congressional negotiators remain optimistic about the prospects for a bill and they’ve displayed a steady solidarity that’s unusual for such talks, striking a consistently optimistic tone and never publicly sniping at each other.
“We hope to bring comfort to your family by passing the final bill very soon,” Pelosi said.
It’s a high-profile legislative fight where Biden has notably taken a back seat, preferring to leave the work of crafting a compromise to lawmakers on Capitol Hill, in contrast to his fevered advocacy, both public and private, for his infrastructure bill and the COVID-19 relief package.
“We have been respecting the space needed for negotiators to have these discussions,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki said.
She and congressional negotiators declined to offer a new deadline for reaching an agreement. California Rep. Karen Bass, the top House Democratic bargainer, said talks would continue “until we get the job done” while the top Republican bargainer, South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott, said separately that negotiations “have a long way to go still but it’s starting to take form.”
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The Democratic-controlled House approved a sweeping bill in March that would make it easier for individual police officers to be sued and charged with crimes. It would also ban chokeholds, limit no-knock warrants and create a national database of officers with histories of complaints and disciplinary problems.
That bill has gone nowhere in the Senate, where the 50 Democrats will need support from at least 10 Republicans to overcome a bill-killing filibuster. GOP lawmakers have preferred more modest changes.
While Biden set the anniversary of Floyd’s death as the initial deadline for legislation to reach his desk, the issue of police reform is a particularly politically thorny one. Congressional negotiators have struggled to find a compromise that can make it through an evenly divided Senate.
Ben Crump, the Floyd family’s lawyer, called on Biden to “reiterate that we need to get it passed.”
White House advisers say Biden and his team have been in frequent touch with Capitol Hill negotiators over the legislation, but they believe this is an issue in which a high-profile public campaign by the president may do more harm than good.
But some activists say they’d like to see the president be more outspoken in advocating for the bill.
“President Biden has left it to members of Congress, and it’s in their hands right now. But the president will need to step up to make sure we get it across the finish line,” said Judith Browne Dianis, executive director of the Advancement Project, a racial justice organization.
Still, it’s up to Congress, said Wade Henderson, interim president and CEO of The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, in a statement to the AP.
“It’s absolutely vital that members of Congress put partisan politics aside and pass meaningful reform to hold police officers responsible who act outside of their oath to protect and defend,” he said.
Floyd died on May 25, 2020 after former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin kneeled on his neck for more than nine minutes, while Floyd repeatedly said he couldn’t breathe. His death sparked months of nationwide protests focused on racism and a renewed debate over police reform in the U.S. Chauvin was convicted last month on multiple charges stemming from Floyd’s death.
Congressional negotiators’ chief stumbling block has been “qualified immunity,” which generally shields individual officers from civil lawsuits. Democrats have wanted to eliminate that protection while South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott, the lead Republican bargainer, has proposed retaining that immunity for officers but allowing lawsuits against police departments.
While progressives and many criminal justice reform advocates are insistent that the bill eliminate protections for individual officers, some Democrats, most notably House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn of South Carolina and Senate Democratic Whip Dick Durbin of Illinois have said they could see a compromise on the issue. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., has said he wouldn’t support any bill that ends qualified immunity.
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“We need to be working together to make sure that people do not live in fear in America any more,” he said”. Yep, put antifa, blm and criminals in prison and we will not have to live in fear!
ALONG with all the commucrats who SUPPORT ANITFA and blm!!
“We need to be working together to make sure that people do not live in fear in America any more,” he said.
And let’s not live in ignorance, either. While it is sad that the Floyds lost a family member, it is imperative that the reason for that loss is not trivialized. George has been placed on an undeserving pedestal—not because , as a Black man, he lost his life interacting with the police—but because the Left is pushing a manufactured race crisis in this country and the ingredients existed in that instance to enable the Media to embellish and dramatize it to the point of being beyond ludicrous. And let’s not forget the insane financial settlement with the city of Minneapolis.
The race card is being way overplayed here while stirring rage and emotion and the Floyd family is gaming the system. Even if there was error on the part of the police in Floyd’s arrest, it should not have turned into a three-ring circus. What remembrances, in such grand fashion, are there for the countless other victims—regardless of color—who have lost their lives in similar fashion. They are important to their families, too. Perspective please.
Crump is a “user” atty. He gets huge fees suing govt, under the guise of helping a family. Govt pays off. Floyd was a thug, criminal, druggie etc.
He makes him a hero and gets millions. Check out how many black families he has gotten monies for. It is such a racket.
I wonder, how much taxes he’s PAID On all those millions in awards he’s won??
Crump is nothing but a race baiting slug, just as Sharpton and Jackson. If they think they can make a buck playing the race card they’re on the way there. If the voters don’t get rid of those elected officials that were stupid enough to pay the family of that two bit criminal all those taxpayer dollars, then they are as stupid as the stooges they elected.
They come together to mourn the loss of a brother,,,,who was lost and a loser way before he copped out. Where were all these relatives when George was alive, in deep trouble with drugs and dependency who would now make the day of his untimely death a “cause celebre”. I can readily see why Joe would join the family to hold George’s legacy intact, a legacy of black community social dependency and debilitated drugged minds that keep the black community in their place separated from success, enslaved in one party dependency and vulnerable to collective vote manipulation. His death has become a gold mine for George’s family whose gold lined coffin cost more than George ever earned in a year. Fitting indeed that Joe and Nancy Celebrate prime time victimhood which only encourages others to view themselves as victims as well, to feed the voting roles of a political party that can only collectively win elections by diminishing the spirit or exceptionalism and success of the individual, which collectively destroys communities and nations.
That’s something i often wonder, after EVERY TIME WE hear of this or that THUG being killed by cops, and you then see all these ‘tear struck family members’ crawl up to the nearest mike, to whine “WHY HIM”..
WHERE THE hell was you caring for him, and trying to keep him on the straight and narrow BEFORE HAND!?
floyd died the way he lived.
like a thug!
and i do not care what the blacks say about it because the stats do not lie black men do the majority of violent crime in america.
it is so bad that even the local news stations will not show the mug shots of black thugs!
Every year in the U.S. there are ~5,000 African-Americans men, women and children killed and 96% of them were killed by fellow African-Americans.
How many bodies do Africans-Americans have to step over to get to the one that you think is important only because a White police officer was involved?
This is most dangerous time in US history for our survival as a free & prosperous nation based on free market capitalism, private property rights & enforcement of law & order.
Our Dem run local, state & federal govts are populated by Marxist / globalist zealots, political power mongers, seditionists, thieves & iiars.
A nation of 330 million is being forced to revere & make false heroes of black drug addicts, career criminals & thugs & millions of illegal aliens whose main contribution to society has been the blatant defiance & violation of our laws.
We must not submit to domination by criminals of any race or the lawless violent mobs led by fringe groups of militant BLM, antifa terror orgs & the Soros orgs intent on global dictatorship who are being supported, funded, protected & defended by Dem run govt authorities & lawmakers, the propagandist media & the China & cheap foreign labor dependent tech & Corp profiteers.
Will Biden meet with George Floyd’s victims ???
OR the families of all the COPS killed in the past 2 years???
Never have so many made such a big fuss over someone so unworthy. Why shower tens of millions on his family and treat them like some kind of moral authority when they raised a drug addicted felon with a career highlight threatening a black pregnant woman with a knife? How are blacks not EMBARRASSED to honor a petty thug with a golden coffin and his family that didn’t raise him right? And why are Dem whites insisting everyone grovel to the idea of SPECIAL rights for black criminals so they run NO risk of harm when resisting arrest, raising the risk for police? This is a world gone mad. Law abiding blacks should be ashamed of the high criminality their youth inflict on society, not doing self-righteous posturing on behalf of their criminals.
Looks like the libtard troll has been out today.