America's seeing his biggest protests in
decades and George Floyd's brother has
made clear the demand honor George and
make the necessary changes that make law
enforcement the solution and not the
problem
[Music]
but how do these process across America
translate into long-term change what's
stopping police reform in the US this
Washington Post headline cuts to it it
reads protesters hope this is a moment
of reckoning for American policing
experts say not so fast and the article
quotes Lorenzo Boyd of the University of
New Haven he says we have 400 years of
history of policing that tell me things
tend not to change and the heart of this
is the use of force by us policing we
saw it in that horrific video of George
Floyd and we've seen it time and time
and time again since there are two
interlocking issues here us policing is
violent statistics show you're six times
more likely to die in police custody in
the u.s. than in the UK and twice as
likely as in Australia and we know that
that violence is disproportionately
directed at african-americans so what
can be done well you can try and stop
certain types of policing for example
chokeholds are banned in New York San
Francisco LA and now in Minneapolis too
but rules are often set locally so a
nationwide shift is harder to deliver
you need accountability now sharpton
turn to this in his eulogy that George
Floyd's view
and people know they will go to jail
they go keep doing it cause they
protected by wickedness in high praises
of course not everyone would describe it
precisely that way but there's
widespread agreement that better police
accountability is needed
the problem is police forces have long
resisted increased oversight which
brings us to police culture some argue
there's no issue here for those who see
it differently
well Minneapolis is taking the nuclear
option others want to defund the police
arguing that the root causes of crime
are better addressed by shifting police
money into social services Joe Biden
though doesn't agree he says if he
becomes president he'll increase police
funding but with more strings attached
no I don't support defunding police I
support conditioning federal aid to
police based on whether or not they meet
certain basic standards of decency
honorable listen maybe those strings
will work but powerful people within us
policing don't see a problem with its
culture stop treating us like animals
and thugs and start treating us with
some respect for better or for worse the
unions are certainly central to his ktk
those who are calling for radical reform
of the American policing system and an
end to police brutality particularly
against African Americans would like to
bypass the unions or would like to find
a way to get the police unions not to
have so much power in this country next
there's the militarization of the police
u.s. police forces have billions of
dollars worth of military equipment
we've seen that in the last two weeks
but America is an armed society and the
majority of those killed by u.s. police
are armed any demilitarization of us
police surely requires a huge shift in
gun laws and there's no sign of that and
then there's the president sometimes
you'll see some horrible things like we
witnessed recently but 99 I say 99.9 but
let's go with 99 percent of them are
great great people
Donald Trump sees himself as a
law-and-order president pushing police
reform doesn't really fit with that
there's one other thing look at what's
happened to attitudes towards the black
lives matter movement when public
opinion shifts sharply like this all
sorts of political possibilities open up
but when I saw that graph I thought of
Al Sharpton telling George Floyd's
family I'll be here when the TV trucks
have gone his point being America is
paying attention to racial injustice
right now perhaps the biggest challenge
for those demanding police reform is to
keep it that way