‘This has got to stop.’ Will Floyd’s death lead to criminal justice reforms in Texas?
When Rep. Garnet Coleman first heard about the death of George Floyd, he thought, “Not again.”
“As a black man, I’m sorry, this has got to stop,” Coleman, a Democrat from Houston, said.
Floyd’s death has spurred daily protests nationwide against police brutality, pushing police departments to re-evaluate their policies. And state lawmakers said his death needs to be a catalyst for furthering criminal justice reform — and addressing systemic racism — statewide in Texas. Floyd, a black man, died May 25 after a white Minneapolis police officer pressed a knee into his neck for almost nine minutes.
“The systemic racism that corrodes every level of our criminal justice system is not only there but in all parts of our society,” Rep. Nicole Collier, a Democrat from Fort Worth, and chair of the House Criminal Jurisprudence Committee, said. “We have to have a change, something that will show the people of Texas that we are listening and we are ready to take action.”
During a press conference Tuesday, Gov. Greg Abbott said he has initiated conversations around criminal justice reform with state lawmakers and that he is “open to putting everything on the table.”
But Collier said she and other members of the Texas Legislative Black Caucus have yet to hear from him personally. The Caucus sent a letter to Abbott on Friday, requesting he meet with them next week. John Wittman, a spokesman for Abbott, said Friday that the governor’s office has not yet officially received the letter, but will be meeting with caucus members.
“When you’re talking about systemic racism, you have to have people at the table that look like the community it impacts. So if you don’t have black and brown people at the table, you’re not making meaningful change,” Collier said. “And so that’s one thing that we’re pressing upon.”
Pushing for reform
Coleman, who has served in the legislature since 1991 and chairs the House County Affairs Committee, said commissions and round tables aren’t needed to deal with the obvious.
“You can’t commission this to a solution. We need a law. We need laws and policies that create solutions,” Coleman said. “Many of us in this legislature have dealt with this personally. We don’t have to guess.”
One of the areas lawmakers plan to focus on will be strengthening the Sandra Bland Act, which Coleman authored and worked to pass in 2017.
Three days after being arrested by a Department of Public Safety trooper during a traffic stop in 2015, Bland, a 28-year-old black woman, was found hanging in a cell in the Waller County jail. Her death was ruled a suicide.
After facing opposition from law enforcement groups, the 2017 bill was eventually whittled down to largely focus on mental health issues, investigation of jail deaths, de-escalation training and data collection of traffic stops.
Lawmakers have vowed to bring provisions stripped from the original bill back once again next session, and propose bills that will limit arrests for fine-only offenses and further the use of personal recognizance bonds, which allow people to be released without paying cash and on the promise they will appear at their next court date.
Encounters with police at demonstrations nationwide have put a spotlight on police officers’ use of force, and lawmakers said that needs to be further scrutinized. Rep. Lorraine Birabil, a Democrat from Dallas, said she plans to file a bill that would hold officers liable if they witness and fail to report an instance of excessive use of force.
“We should be able to say, as an example, ‘No, we don’t believe that any department should be able to use rear naked choke hold, period. We don’t believe that any officer should ever be able to hold his knee down on someone’s neck ever, period,’” Rep. Ramon Romero Jr., a Democrat from Fort Worth, said.
Some police departments have already started to take action. Early Friday, the Dallas Police Department established a “duty to intervene” policy requiring members to attempt to stop others “when force is being inappropriately applied or is no longer required,” according to the Dallas Morning News. And in Austin, police will stop using bean bag projectiles in crowds, according to the Austin American-Statesman.
While policies like those are often local decisions that can vary from department to department, Rep. Chris Turner, a Democrat from Grand Prairie and Chair of the House Democratic Caucus, said the state has every right to play a large role in regulating training requirements.
“I think we do need to have a pretty exhaustive review of what type of training protocols are in place now in different large departments around the state,” Turner said, including policies on use of force. “And then I think the legislature has to look at those differences and determine, is it appropriate to have more statewide consistency in some of these policies?”
The Sandra Bland Act mandated de-escalation training for officers, including how to limit the use of force. But Coleman said more can be done, and his office requested the Texas Commission on Law Enforcement, which serves as the regulatory agency for all peace officers in Texas, put in a rule that includes implicit bias training in their basic curriculum.
Gretchen Grigsby, the director of government relations for the commission, wrote in an email Friday that at Coleman’s request, it has reviewed the implicit bias information already included in the basic peace officer course, and added additional info to its “Professionalism and Ethics” unit, which is the first in the entire course, “and sets the tone for the rest.”
Grigsby said implicit bias is also later revisited in the de-escalation unit, and welcomed further input from lawmakers and the public.
“You don’t need a law to make change,” Collier said. “They can proactively make the change that they see and need and want.”
After Atatiana Jefferson was fatally shot by a white Fort Worth officer in her home in October, lawmakers renewed their calls for statewide policing reforms. Sen. Beverly Powell, a Democrat from Burleson, urged senators to develop recommendations on improving training and diversity within law enforcement statewide.
Powell’s request wasn’t added to the Senate Committee on Criminal Justice’s interim charges, despite support from the committee’s chair. Since then, Powell said it’s become even more urgent to ensure police departments’ ranks more closely match the diversity of the communities they serve, and look at policies like choke holds and no-knock warrants.
“We need to change laws that cause minorities to be disproportionately filling cells in our prisons and understand the kinds of things that will create parity and equity for minorities,” Powell said.
While some have already committed to bringing back specific bills, others said they’re first taking the time to listen to concerns.
Shane Birdwell, the chief of staff for Rep. Matt Krause, a Republican from Fort Worth who is a member of the House Criminal Justice Reform Caucus along with Collier and Coleman, said Krause is “taking the time to listen and learn.”
“Policy proposals will come after that process has been completed,” Birdwell wrote in an email Thursday.
Sen. Jane Nelson, a Republican from Flower Mound and chair of the Senate Finance Committee, said that she has written state budgets that funded body cameras, community police education, jail diversions and other reforms.
“I am deeply disturbed by the death of George Floyd, which never should have happened and underscores the need to continue striving towards a fair criminal justice system that treats every American equally under the law,” Nelson said in a statement Wednesday.
Sen. Kelly Hancock, a Republican from North Richland Hills, said in a statement Thursday that Floyd’s memory demands swift justice and that it will no doubt be a catalyst for systemic change nationwide.
“From sweeping grand jury reform to helping folks get back to work after time in prison, Texas has been a leader in many areas of criminal justice reform, but it’s clear there’s more to do, and as we all open our ears, our hearts, and really listen, I’m confident these important conversations will lead to a productive session,” Hancock said.
The will for change
Many of the calls for criminal justice reform aren’t new, but lawmakers said protests night after night decrying police’s treatment of black people show that they can no longer be ignored.
“This is a moment in our history that has to be more than just an outcry against the injustice,” Powell said. “This must be an outcry that brings forth policy change.”
Collier said calls she’s received from Republican and Democratic colleagues asking what they can do and how they can help have left her feeling hopeful that change will occur.
“They see the protests. It’s their constituents, too,” Collier said of fellow lawmakers. “It’s people all across Texas who are fed up and tired of the same old, same old. They want to see change. They want to see equity. They want to see fairness. They want to see justice.”
In the past, criminal justice reforms have faced fierce pushback from police unions, like the Combined Law Enforcement Associations of Texas, known as CLEAT.
“That won’t work anymore. They’re going to have to work with us,” Turner said, “and we encourage them to work with us so we can achieve some reforms that I believe the people of Texas are demanding.”
Unless a special session is called, the legislature won’t reconvene until January 2021 — and it will have plenty to tackle from dealing with the economic fallout caused by the pandemic to once-a-decade redistricting.
But Romero said he’s confident criminal justice reforms will be kept on the front burner if Democrats seize the Texas House from Republican control for the first time in nearly two decades.
“I firmly believe that the Texas House of Representatives is going to be led by a Democratic Speaker of the House next session. And if that happens, I think that without any question at all, these are going to be at the top of the priority list,” Romero said.
“And the people of Texas should demand it.”
This story was originally published June 5, 2020 at 2:45 PM.
