George Floyd Death Jubilee emphasized continued police abuses

Five years after George Floyd was murdered by a police officer by Minneapolis, the civil rights lawyers in California say that systemic police authorities remain and that the wave of public pressure has come to reform since then has decreased since then – according to legal setbacks, institutional resistance and what they describe as the balls of the right to adjust.

The lawyers Adanté Pointer and V. James Desimone-two top-class civil rights lawyers who sued the law enforcement authorities across California for excessive violence were largely unchanged. In separate statements that were presented this week, the lawyers offered an unvarnished assessment of the Post-George-Floyd landscape, with permanent legal protection for the police, the rollback of government transparency and the continued use of dangerous reluctance tactics that led to more death.

ZEGER, co -founder of the company based in Oakland and a nationally recognized civil rights champion, said that the dynamics of the historical protests 2020 had occurred by governments at every level coordinated efforts to suppress public disagreements and the expansion of the accountability.

“The first change has been attacked since the murder of George Floyd,” said Pointer. “Government measures at all levels try to restrict people's ability, to recover complaints and to hold the government into account.”

Pointers cited growing obstacles to access to the press, increased arrests of journalists who cover protests, delays when accessing public records and a worrying rollback from federal transparency tools – in particular the reduction of its law enforcement agency by the Ministry of Justice. “All of this seems to have an impact on public demonstrations,” said Pointer. “We have to see how ready to renew public demands for the responsibility of the police.”

While Derek Chauvin, the official who was convicted of murder of George Floyd, remains behind bars, pointers warned that the larger systems that are uncontrolled to the misuse of the police remain. “Very little has changed in the past five years. The police still have not ducked out, unarmed people are still shot or seriously injured, and people in a mental crisis still die because the police regularly regard them as criminal threats.”

One of the most important legal obstacles to justice, said Pointer, is a qualified immunity – a judicial doctrine that protects police officers from civil lawsuits, even if they violate constitutional rights. “Qualified immunity gives the officials a free pass,” he said. “You know that even your illegal behavior does not lead to a lawsuit in which you are personally held accountable.”

Pointer warned that the doctrine is not used across the country, with the federal courts interpret it in very different ways. “In the ninth circuit it is imperfect, but does not always block claims. In Florida it can prevent you from even making a lawsuit,” he said. “This doctrine is not based on the constitution. It is a judge law that has become stronger over time, especially in politically conservative jurisdiction that the police are increasingly treating as protected class.”

He was concerned that the current Supreme Court of the United States with its conservative majority could continue to postpone the doctrine in order to undermine civil rights cases across the country. However, he found a possible opening for reforms: “Judge Clarence Thomas recognized that qualified immunity is the product of the judge law,” said Pointer. “There is a piece of hope that he could join liberal judges to limit or even remove them because it violates the 14th change.”

V. James Desimone, a civil rights lawyer based in Los Angeles, said that George Floyd's death led to an increasing examination of the police's economic application, dangerous restraint practices are still widespread-in particular, the use of susceptible positioning and body weight, which can lead to “position drive”.

Desimone pointed out the death of Shayne Sutherland in October 2020, a man who died after the police officers from Stockton kept him in advance for eight minutes while he was tied up with handcuffs. “Instead of bringing him into a” recovery position “on his side or sitting, as the Ministry of Justice recommended in 1995, the officials held him on the ground,” said Desimone. The city finally included the case for 6 million US dollars.

However, after Stockton had adopted a new guidelines for the power from Lexipol after the facility-a private political provider based in Texas, which was used by many police stations, Desimone replaced the dangers of such restrictions. “Lexipol's guidelines claim that terms such as” positions -asphyxia “and” excited delirium “are controversial and not generally recognized,” he said. “This is dangerously misleading. The guidelines of the US Ministry of Justice are clear: as soon as a suspect is tied up with handcuffs, they have to sit on their side or sit.”

Desimone also represented Daniel Rivera's family, who died in Los Angeles in 2020 after LAPD officers kept down more than three minutes after several Taser missions. “Even after the officials had been complained, they passed during the deposit that they didn't go wrong,” he said. The city paid 3.9 million US dollars to pay the case.

“Police officers need clear training courses and enforceable guidelines that they warn of the dangers of the positional level,” said Desimone. “It is not enough to have a vague language. We need explicit guidance based on medical science.”

He also criticized the growing dependence on Lexipol's guidelines he said that they were taken over with little transparency or community input. “You are vague, you lack the accountability obligation and you will incorporate the guidance of federal authorities.”

While some progress has been made – like the ban on choke gold in several jurisdiction – Desimone said that a lack of national reporting standards makes it difficult to assess how often dangerous reluctance tactics are still used. “There is no uniformity in the reporting of taking police deaths. We don't even fully know how many George Floyd deaths still occur.”

With the fifth anniversary of Floyd's death, both lawyers stated that they are still concerned that the legal, political and institutional inertia that protects the misconduct of the police remains intact and even gains strength in some parts of the country.

Desimones warned that many activists and communities not only remain traumatized by police, but also by the violent suppression of the following protests. “The Black Lives Matt protests are not that widespread, and this is partly due to the violent reaction of the police,” he said. “Many demonstrators suffered life -changing injuries. The price for the exercise of their first amendments was high.”

Nevertheless, both lawyers said that the fight for accountability must continue. “The current shift towards authoritarianism by federal authorities motivates activists to renew protests,” said Desimone. “We need real reforms – not just slogans, not just settlements.”

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Adanté pointer Daniel Rivera Department of Justice Derek Chauvin George Floyd Justice Clarence Thomas Lexipol Shayne Sutherland Us -Oberster Court V. James Desimone