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Calls rise for independent probes of US police shootings

South Carolina police Officer Michael Slager was filmed standing over the body of Walter Scott seconds after he shot the fleeing man five times.

Several Democrats are proposing a bill that would withhold federal funds from municipalities, which are not willing to allow third-party prosecutions of US police officers who use brutal force.

The push for the bill, the Police Training and Independent Review Act, came in the wake of a series of police killings, including the shooting of an unarmed African American boy and the grand’s jury decision to acquit the officers involved of any charges.

Timothy Loehmann was not indicted for opening fire on the 12-year-old Tamir Rice while playing with a toy gun on November 22, 2014. Loehmann’s partner, Frank Garmback, who was present at the time of the incident, was not indicted either.

“We’ve been on break for two weeks when a lot of this has hit the fan, particularly in Cleveland,” said Rep. Steve Cohen (D-Tenn.), the bill's author. “With bipartisan support on criminal justice reform, I hope this can become a part of it. It’s essential it happens.”

Cohen described it as a conflict of interest to ask local prosecutors to conduct an investigation into the same local police with whom they cooperate so closely.

“If a DA [district attorney] indicts a police officer often times the action is taken adversely by law enforcement,” he said, citing as an example what happened to Mayor Bill de Blasio in New York in 2014 following the death of Eric Garner.

Garner, a 43-year-old African American, died after being placed in the chokehold by Daniel Pantaleo on Staten Island on July 17, 2014.

Although a grand jury did not indict the white officer who killed Garner, officers with the New York Police Department turned their back on de Blasio during a memorial service to protest comments the mayor made following Garner’s death.

Appearing on ABC News, de Blasio refused for three times to respond to a direct question whether he respected the decision by the grand jury in Garner’s case.

De Blasio called for “an honest conversation” about “a history of racism” in the United States.

Cohen’s bill has, so far, appealed to 53 Democratic cosponsors, and he said he is currently negotiating with Republicans to convince them to support the measure too.

“Right now there’s percolating support,” he said.

The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) has already announced it would support the bill, saying in a May letter to Cohen that the bill would help communities restore the integrity and trust needed between law enforcement officers and the American people.

People in the US have been frequently protesting following the deaths of several unarmed African Americans at the hands of white officers and grand jury’s decisions not to indict them.

Police in the United States killed about 1,150 people in 2015, with the largest police departments killing at least 321 African Americans, according to data compiled by an activist group that runs the Mapping Police Violence project.

 


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