George Floyd’s family lobbies Biden for U.S. police reform on anniversary of death

Relatives of George Floyd met with President Joe Biden at the White House on Tuesday, lobbying for passage of police reform legislation in their loved one’s name on the first anniversary of his killing by a police officer since convicted of murder.

Floyd, a 46-year-old Black man who died in handcuffs with his neck pinned to a Minneapolis street under a white policeman’s knee, has become the face of a turbulent national reckoning with racial injustice and police brutality.

His dying words, “I can’t breathe,” were echoed as a slogan in widespread street demonstrations that convulsed the United States and the world last summer in the midst of the coronavirus epidemic.

A bipartisan group of lawmakers in Congress has been working to hammer out legislation bearing his name, the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act, designed to overhaul U.S. law enforcement practices and make them more accountable.

“If you can make federal laws to protect the (national) bird, which is the bald eagle, you can make federal laws to protect people of color,” Floyd’s brother, Philonise, said on the White House driveway he after five other members of the family met with Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris in the Oval Office.

“We have to act. We face an inflection point,” Biden said in a statement issued by the White House afterward. “The battle for the soul of America has been a constant push and pull between the American ideal that we’re all created equal and the harsh reality that racism has long torn us apart.”

Earlier in the day, Floyd’s family, including his daughter, Gianna and two other brothers, met on Capitol Hill with House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a Democrat, and other lawmakers who promised to secure passage of the legislation, currently stalled in Congress.

“We hope to bring comfort to your family by passing this final bill very soon,”

Pelosi said.

Senator Tim Scott, the lead Republican negotiator on the measure, told reporters on Tuesday that a main point of contention remained qualified immunity, a legal doctrine that shields individual police officers from lawsuits in certain circumstances.

Republicans oppose provisions in the bill rolling back such immunity, while many liberal Democrats say they would only support a bill that abolished it.

“We have a long way to go still, but it’s starting to take form,” Scott said.

FLOYD’S LIFE CELEBRATED

In Minneapolis, a foundation created in Floyd’s memory by some in his family organized an afternoon of music and food in a park near the downtown courtroom where Derek Chauvin, the former officer, was convicted last month of murdering Floyd.