(Timothy A. Clary/AFP/Getty Images)
New York Attorney General Letitia James has introduced a new bill that would limit the use of force by police officers. James hopes to change the state’s use of force law “from one of simple necessity to one of absolute last resort.” In addition, James hopes to punish officers who use “far more force [than] is necessary.”
“In New York, our laws have essentially given police blanket defense to use force in interactions with the public, making it exceedingly difficult for prosecutors to go after officers who have abused this power,” Gwen Carr, Eric Garner‘s mother, said at a press conference alongside James.
New York Attorney General Letitia James has proposed legislation that would limit the use of force legally allowed by police in New York.
James recently unveiled her Police Accountability Act, which would only allow for a use of lethal force as a last resort after an officer has made attempts at de-escalation and issued verbal warnings.
She said the recent racial justice movement started by the death of George Floyd is only a part of the motivation for the proposal.
“I don’t need to tell you the names. The death of George Floyd, Daniel Prude, Duante Wright, Breonna Taylor, Eric Garner, and the list goes on,” James said.
"This has rekindled a flame of righteousness, and righteous indignation that has been smoldering for centuries. We are in the midst of a racial reckoning in this country."
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Stop and frisk hasn’t disappeared
Bill de Blasio’s vocal criticism of the NYPD’s use of stop and frisk under then-Mayor Michael Bloomberg helped vault him to victory in 2013. In a city of a million issues, it became
the issue. Now Maya Wiley – de Blasio’s former counsel, who has many of his allies on her team – is hoping to make it an issue again, twice targeting Eric Adams for defending the tactic in the first official Democratic primary mayoral debate Thursday night. Adams, a retired cop, called stop and frisk “a great tool” in an interview with CBS New York last year and said that the police force under Bloomberg was simply using it wrong. Adams has been saying the same thing for a decade – while also loudly, proudly, criticizing the racist