The George Floyd Act: Police Use of Force and Accountability Omnibus Bill (Thompson/West)
From a likely false
conviction by a corrupt narcotics officer to his death at the hands of police
while other police stood and watched, the case of George Floyd calls out for
justice in many different ways.
In conjunction with the George Floyd
family and the Legislative Black Caucus, Chairwoman Senfronia Thompson and
Senator Royce West authored and filed the George Floyd Act to bring to Texas a
range of reforms that will prevent others from experiencing the police
misconduct that George Floyd and other Black Texans have experienced.
Summary
of the Bill
1. Creates state cause of action for
deprivation of rights under color of law, to address qualified immunity.
2. Requires corroboration for the
testimony of an undercover police officer in narcotics cases (just as
corroboration is already required for non-police informants.) George Floyd was
among 160 people notified by Harris County that his old conviction on drug
charges, based solely on the testimony of undercover narcotics officer Gerald
Goines, could be overturned. He never got the notice.
3. Amends duties of police by adding duty
to intervene, duty to render aid, and duty to identify. Eliminates “duty” to
arrest on every minor charge to bring arrest authority into line with other
parts of the code.
4. Reduces excessive force by prohibiting
chokeholds, limiting lethal force to imminent threat of serious bodily injury
or death, requires force to be proportionate to the circumstance and the
seriousness of the underlying violation, requires officers to protect bystanders,
and terminate lethal force as soon as the threat is lessened.
5. Ends arrest for non-jailable fine only
violations other than Class C assault and Class C public intoxication and
requires a local policy.
6. Requires violations of policy and law
by police to be set out in a clear, progressive disciplinary matrix that cannot
be overturned or changed by contract with police union. With adherence to
matrix, discipline is presumed reasonable on appeal. Model will be produced in
statewide process.
Why
it is needed
Often, police conduct that people find
horrifying is not misconduct because officers
are acting as the law allows and within their training. And when someone
sues to establish that the law and training have violated their fundamental
rights, the lawsuits are dismissed because police officers enjoy what is known
as “qualified immunity.” Qualified immunity allows a court to dismiss a case
before getting to the constitutional questions if the specific right has not
been clearly established in a prior case. This is a catch 22 that has resulted
in a diminishment of our individual rights.
Texas’ lethal force statute is
exceedingly broad and allows lethal force against a suspect who is “suspected”
of a violent felony even when that person poses no immediate threat.
Texas law makes it a “duty” of police to
arrest on all charges, no matter how small, but it is NOT a duty to save a life
or intervene when another officer is doing harm.
Unnecessary arrests for fine only
violations at traffic stops generate resistance because drivers guilty of minor
infractions feel that an arrest is an abuse of authority. Officers know it is
currently legal and command people to obey. The recent incident in Keller Texas
illustrates the typical scenario. An officer asked Mr. Puentes for permission
to search. Mr. Puentes said no. Mr. Puentes became arrested for his “wide right
turn” and the officer conducted a search incident to arrest. By the end of the
incident, both Mr. Puentes and his father faced “resisting” charges and the
incident had escalated entirely out of control. There were at least 64,100 such
arrests in Texas reported by law enforcement in 2019.
This statutory framework explains better
than anything else why DAs often can’t convict when officers harm people. We have
statutorily said its ok to do so, and its even ok to stand around while
someone dies. A recent Attorney General opinion for Chairman James White noted
that Texas law does not currently require an officer to intervene to save a
life when another officer has gone too far.
Texas law says an undercover police
officer’s word is enough in a drug case, even though corrupt undercover
narcotics officers have been responsible for some of Texas’ worst human rights
scandals, from the Tulia drug sting to the Dallas “sheetrock” scandal, and most
recently Gerold Goine’s long and sordid history of false arrest in Houston.
Once conduct has been clearly established
as unacceptable, police chiefs need stronger tools to terminate problem
officers and keep them off the force. A disciplinary matrix is a tool that
ensures fairness for officers and prevents discipline from being overturned on
appeal.
The George Floyd Act identifies the most
important ways in which the statute authorizes and directs police to take
actions that local communities later find to be unconscionable and makes the
statute better -- the legacy the George Floyd family seeks.
