Local

New police reforms announced at local, national levels

ATLANTA — In the next few hours, we expect to learn about a new plan for change following the deaths of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery and now, Rayshard Brooks.

In the last 24 hours, Atlanta’s mayor and President Donald Trump announced police reform measures.

Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms issued two new administrative orders: Use of force and a comprehensive review of how policing should be handled by the city of Atlanta.

Also, the interim chief of police must immediately adopt and implement these changes.

The immediate police reform changes are:

  1. Requiring officers to intervene when they seeing another officer using force beyond what is reasonable and reporting deadly use of force to the on duty supervisor.
  2. Providing lawful restrictions on when an officer may use deadly force at a suspect who is in a moving car.
  3. Applying de-escalation techniques to gain voluntary compliance.
  4. Requiring all use of deadly force to be reported to the citizens review board.

President Trump met privately for at least an hour with several families whose loved ones were killed by police, including Botham Jean, and Arbery, who was shot to death after being chased down by a retired officer in coastal Georgia.

The president also signed an executive order which encourages local police departments to follow standards on use of force and de-escalation and to report instances of police misconduct to a national registry but the order does not band chokeholds.

“We need action right now, similar to the immediate response we had from congress to deal with coronavirus – we need to deal with the pandemic of violence in America. There must be bipartisan legislation,” said attorney Lee Merritt.