TUESDAY, MAY 24 , 2022. THE WASHINGTON POST EZ SU A
BY CLEVE R. WOOTSON JR.A few days after George Floyd
was murdered, presidential
hopeful Joe Biden addressed the
nation, speaking passionately
about police reforms that he
stressed could not wait another
month, let alone another election
cycle: banning police choke-
holds; rules for use of force; a
review of every police depart-
ment’s hiring, training and de-es-
calation practices.
“No more excuses,” Biden de-
manded, urging Congress to put
a bill on then-President Donald
Trump’s desk within days. “No
more delays.”
Two years later, it’s Biden who
sits behind the presidential desk.
And his emphasis often appears
to be less on how quickly the
nation’s police departments can
be reformed than on how quickly
they can add officers.
“To every governor, every may-
or, every county official, the need
is clear, my message is clear:...
Spend this money now that you
have,” Biden said in a speech
from the Rose Garden earlier this
month, flanked by police chiefs
from across the country. “Use
these funds we made available to
you to prioritize public safety. Do
it quickly before the summer
when crime rates typically surge.
Taking action today is going to
save lives tomorrow. So use the
money. Hire the police officers.”
Two years after Floyd’s murder
sparked demonstrations for po-
lice reform and a movement to
confront systemic racism, the
push to rehabilitate police de-
partments has stagnated.
A bill bearing Floyd’s name
aimed at overhauling police
practices died in the Senate, even
after Biden urged legislators to
get it done in his first address to
Congress.
T he administration has been
mulling for months whether
Biden should issue an executive
order on police reform, leaving
civil rights leaders frustrated at
the delay and whether it will
result in any enduring improve-
ment.
More deeply, those who have
pushed hardest for reforms wor-
ry about what they see as an
about-face on equitable policing,
or at least a faltering of will, as a
surge in crime creates pressure
on Biden and his party to stand
unwaveringly with the police.
“We’re now contending with
elected officials who are now
defaulting to the same narrative
that we know does not offer any
solutions to the issues that we
face, meaning it is a lot easier to
just default to the knee-jerk ‘we
need more police on the streets’
argument,” said Amara Enyia, a
policy research coordinator for
the Movement for Black Lives.
“It’s a reaction that takes abso-
lutely no thought and that
doesn’t take into account what
the research shows about the
conditions that create safety. But
it’s just something that fits neatly
within a campaign cycle.”
Republicans are trying to
throw Democrats on the defen-
sive by branding them as a party
that stands for defunding the
police and tolerating chaos and
violence. Some midterm election
ads have already sought to sway
voters with images of violent
protests, burning cities and bra-
zen crimes.
Those political winds, com-
bined with near-universal Re-
publican opposition to Demo-
cratic efforts at police reform,
have blunted much of the mo-
mentum that arose after Floyd’s
death. In one stretch earlier this
month — during National Police
Week, when the country tradi-
tionally honors fallen officers —
Biden’s public appearances fo-
cused on a pro-police message on
three of four days.
On May 13, he urged commu-
nities to use pandemic relief
funds to bolster police depart-
ments to head off anticipated
increases in crime over the sum-
mer.
T wo days later, he spoke at the
National Peace Officers’ Memori-
al Service on the lawn of the U.S.
Capitol. Then he held a ceremony
to award medals of valor to nine
police officers and six firefighters
in the East Room of the White
House.
“Folks, the answer is not to
abandon the streets,” Biden said
at the police officers’ service. “It’s
not to choose between safety and
equal justice. And we should
agree: It’s not to defund the
police. It’s to fund the police.
Fund them with the resources,
the training they need to protect
our communities and them-
selves, and restore trust among
the police and the people.”
It’s not that Biden has re-
versed himself on any specific
policies, but rather that his em-
phasis and rhetoric have shifted.
Two years ago, Biden enthusi-
astically embraced the racial jus-
tice movement sparked by
Floyd’s killing, speaking at
Floyd’s funeral, meeting with the
murdered man’s family in Hous-
ton and at the White House, and
inviting Floyd’s brothers to speak
at the Democratic National Con-
vention where Biden was nomi-
nated.
Later, when the officer who
knelt on Floyd’s neck was con-
victed of murder, Biden vowed to
Floyd’s family that he would get
something done on police reform
in Floyd’s name.
All of that helped Biden create
a contrast with then-President
Donald Trump, who criticized
what he described as “lawless”
racial justice protests in Demo-
cratic-led cities, highlighted inci-
dents of violence amid the dem-
onstrations, and in some cases
dispatched federal troops be-
cause, he said, he needed to
protect federal property.
After Derek Chauvin was con-
victed of Floyd’s murder, Vice
President Harris, too, made im-
passioned comments. “America
has a long history of systemic
racism,” Harris said in a televised
speech at the White House.
“Black Americans, and Black
men in particular, have been
treated through the course of our
history as less than human. Black
men are fathers and brothers
and sons and uncles and grand-
fathers and friends and neigh-
bors.”
But turning rhetoric into
change has proved daunting, giv-
en the razor-thin Democratic
majorities in Congress and an
American public increasingly
spooked by rising crime. In 2021,
a dozen major cities, including
Louisville, Philadelphia and
Portland, Ore., set homicide rec-
ords.
In June 2020, amid the nation-
wide racial justice protests,
about a quarter of Americans
supported cuts in police funding,
according to a Pew Research
Center survey. By October 2021,
that had fallen to 15 percent, and
the drop was even starker among
voters who leaned Democratic.
Biden’s political pivot is a
lesson in the limited powers of
the presidency, said Michael
Fauntroy, director of the Race,
Politics and Policy Center at
George Mason University. As a
result of a paper-thin governing
majority, Fauntroy said, Biden “is
limited at this point to rhetoric
and symbolism.”
“As a Black man in America, I
definitely want more done. But
as a political scientist, and some-
body who has followed this stuff
throughout my career, I under-
stand why things haven’t been
done,” Fauntroy said. “It doesn’t
matter how passionate or how
good an idea is. If you can’t get 60
votes in the Senate and 218 in the
House, then you can’t do it.”
The Senate is politically split
50-50, with Harris casting tie-
breaking votes if necessary, and
60 votes are needed to pass most
legislation through that cham-
ber. In the House, Democrats
hold a 221-208 edge with six
vacancies. Adding to Biden’s
challenge, as the November elec-
tions approach, fewer lawmakers
are prepared to cast risky votes
that could be used against them.
The White House argues that
bolstering police departments is
not at odds with reforming them.
Former White House press secre-
tary Jen Psaki said this month
that the administration is still
mulling an executive order on
police reform, and had delayed
in hopes that Congress would
forge something more enduring.
And she said Biden’s recent
message that cities should use
pandemic relief funds to beef uppolice departments reflects the
need to confront gun crime
across the country. “It’s not just
about pumping funding into po-
lice departments, it’s about en-
suring that there are enough
cops on the beat to crack down
on violent crime, to crack down
on illegal guns that are the cause
of 77 percent of crimes across the
country,” Psaki said.
Biden has acted unilaterally in
some areas. His Justice Depart-
ment implemented a ban on
chokeholds and carotid re-
straints for federal officers, be-
gan requiring agents to wear
body cameras, and severely limit-
ed the use of so-called no-knock
warrants like the one that fac-
tored into the 2020 killing of
Louisville resident Breonna Tay-
lor.
Those changes do not cover
the thousands of state and local
police departments across the
country, but the White House
hopes many of those depart-
ments will use the new federal
rules as a model.
In another effort to address
racial justice, Biden recently par-
doned three people and commut-
ed the sentences of 75 nonviolent
drug offenders, amid calls for
leniency in a system that dispro-
portionately affects people of
color.
And the White House has
stressed that increased police
funding is part of a broader set of
policies to combat gun violence
and make law enforcement more
equitable.
“The mass mobilization that
we saw after the murder of
George Floyd was not only about
policing or criminal justice is-
sues, it was about the need for
racial justice,” said Chiraag
Bains, special assistant to the
president for criminal justice.
“We are seeing its impact in
terms of translating that com-
mitment to equity into policy
throughout the government’s
work, not just in our criminal
justice reform and policing.”
Biden’s supporters also say his
balanced position reflects public
opinion, since polls show that
most Americans do not want
widespread cuts in police budg-
ets. An effort to dramatically
reduce police funding failed in
Minneapolis, the epicenter of the
George Floyd protests. And the
administration stresses that
many of the mostly-minority
communities that had some of
the most passionate demonstra-
tions are also plagued by rising
crime.
But Biden’s pivot in messaging
has angered an array of activists
and leaders. Many see crime as
the product of decades of divest-
ment in America’s most vulner-
able neighborhoods, and they
contend that the only solution is
a reinvestment in people and
communities, not just in the
police that patrol them.
That reaction also could reso-
nate politically. Black voters have
long been one of the Democratic
Party’s most loyal voting blocs,
and if large numbers of them
come to believe Biden and his
party have failed to fulfill their
promises, they could stay home
in November’s midterms.
Angela Lang, a Milwaukee po-
litical organizer who founded
Black Leaders Organizing for
Communities in 2017, said voters
tend to speak of the need to
rebuild the resources that help
their community flourish, from
health care to housing.
“When we go out in the field
and knock on doors, we always
start the question with ‘What
does it look like for our commu-
nity to thrive?’ ” Lang said. “Peo-
ple always talk about we need
investments in mental health.
We need investments into afford-
able housing. We constantly have
a housing crisis in Milwaukee.... And so people are talking
about all the different ways they
want their community to be
invested in order for it to thrive.
And it doesn’t include more po-
licing.”
2 years after Floyd’s death,
police reform stalls in U.S.
OLIVER CONTRERAS FOR THE WASHINGTON POST
President Biden presents the Medal of Valor to Officer Anthony
Giorgio of Florida during a White House ceremony on May 16.Biden n ow often speaks
on funding enforcement,
hiring new officers