Tyre Nichols’s death renewed push for George Floyd Act. What’s in it?

After video footage of the brutal beating of Tyre Nichols stunned the nation, calls to revive the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act are growing louder.

Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Texas) plans to reintroduce the act after the State of the Union address on Feb. 7, according to Ben Crump, the Nichols family’s attorney. A “duty to intervene” element, in honor of Nichols, will be added, too, Crump said during Nichols’s funeral Wednesday.

The George Floyd Justice in Policing Act - named after the 46-year-old Black man killed by Minneapolis police in 2020 - passed the Democratic-controlled House in March 2021. But negotiations broke down in the Senate soon after. Facing fizzled-out police reform efforts, President Biden last year signed an executive order with some initiatives similar to those in the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act. However, Biden’s order applies only to federal law enforcement agencies, and executive orders can be reversed by future presidents.

Nichols, a 29-year-old Black man, died Jan. 10, three days after being beaten, kicked and pepper-sprayed by five Memphis police officers. The videos released last week spurred renewed demands for action on police reform, including from Biden, who Monday said that Congress should pass the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act “right now.”

[Emotional farewell for Tyre Nichols in Memphis marked by calls for justice]

It’s been more than a year since the bill had any traction in Congress. Here’s some of what the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act of 2021 would do:

- Limit the transfer of military-grade equipment to police departments

The bill would limit the transfer of military goods, such as drones, to local and state law enforcement agencies.

- Require officers to complete training when another uses excessive force

Police officers would receive guidance on racial profiling, implicit bias and intervention.

- Increase the use of body cameras

All federal officers would be required to wear body cameras, and all marked federal police vehicles would be required to use dashboard cameras. The resulting footage must be released on request under the bill. Federal funding would also be available to ensure that local and state law enforcement use body cameras, but release of local and state footage would be left up to state law.

- Create a national database for officer misconduct allegations

The bill would create a National Police Misconduct Registry to compile data on complaints and records of police misconduct across the federal, state and local levels. Law enforcement agencies will have the ability to research an officer’s background before hiring, which may prevent officers who are removed for misconduct from being hired by other agencies.

- Ban no-knock warrants and chokeholds, in some cases

No-knock warrants allow police officers to enter a premises without knocking or announcing their presence. Louisville police killed 26-year-old Breonna Taylor after raiding her home on a no-knock warrant. The practice would be banned in federal drug cases; the warrants would still be allowed in other scenarios.

The use of chokeholds also received greater scrutiny since the death of Floyd, after a Minneapolis police officer held his knee to Floyd’s neck for several minutes. Under the bill, chokeholds would be banned at the federal level.

The bill asks state and local governments to pass similar laws, and those that fail to do so would lose access to federal funding.

- Restrict the use of qualified immunity

This provision would make it easier to bring charges against offending police officers.

Under qualified immunity, police officers are protected from individual liability. This makes it nearly impossible to prosecute police officers for violating someone’s civil rights. The George Floyd Justice in Policing Act sought to bar officers from qualified immunity, but this was a primary sticking point during bipartisan Senate negotiations last year. Most Republicans argued that allowing lawsuits against police officers would cause them to adopt less-effective tactics.

The bill also lowers the “criminal intent” standard - from “willful” to knowing or reckless - to convict an officer in a federal prosecution.