The U.S. Justice Department and the city of Louisville have reached an agreement to reform the city’s police force after an investigation prompted by the fatal police shooting of Breonna Taylor and police treatment of protesters, officials said Thursday.
The U.S. House passed the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act in March, but the bill has stalled in the even-divided Senate. The measure would prohibit federal, state, and local law enforcement from racial, religious, and discriminatory profiling.
“For too long, we have endured the pain of watching or seeing the deaths of people of color, particularly Black men and women, at the hands of rogue police officers who operate with impunity and take it upon themselves to be the arbiters of life and death,” Congresswoman Maxine Waters declared. “The trauma that our communities feel is only made worse by the ways in which we are forced to reckon with the reality that Black people are over 3.5 times more likely to be killed by police than white people, and Black teenagers are 21 times more likely to be killed by police than white teenagers.”