Lawmakers ‘must pass the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act now’, Biden says, amid shock over Sonya Massey death

Joe Biden has called on Congress to pass the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act, moments after shocking police video was released showing an Illinois officer fatally shooting Sonya Massey after she called police fearing a home intruder.

In his first public statement since dropping his bid for re-election, Biden said the shooting of Massey, a 36-year-old Black woman, by white Sangamon county sheriff’s deputy Sean Grayson, in her home in Springfield, after a dispute over a pot of boiling water, “reminds us that all too often Black Americans face fears for their safety in ways many of the rest of us do not”.

Biden, who is recovering from Covid at his home in Delaware, said Massey, “a beloved mother, friend, daughter and young Black woman … should be alive today”.

  • octopus_ink@lemmy.mlEnglish
    24·
    4 months ago

    Everytime I bring up her past it goes about like you see in this branch of discussion. We’re not supposed to mention it lest the (actual) US left get blamed for criticizing her past history if she loses.

    • tamal3@lemmy.world
      2·
      4 months ago

      Are you accurate when reporting about her history, or are you posting fiction? It makes a difference in how people respond to your comments.

      • octopus_ink@lemmy.mlEnglish
        32·
        4 months ago

        Depends on how you feel about The Atlantic, I guess.

        https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/08/kamala-cop-record/596758/

        Closing paragraphs of that article:

        I can forgive a politician a vote on a crime bill that looks ill-conceived two decades later, or a too-slow evolution toward marijuana legalization, or even a principled belief in the death penalty, something I adamantly oppose. I find it far harder to forgive fighting to keep a man in jail in the face of strong evidence of innocence, running a team of prosecutors that withholds potentially exculpatory evidence from defense attorneys, and utterly failing as the state’s top prosecutor to rein in glaringly corrupt district attorneys and law enforcement.

        At best, Harris displayed a pattern of striking ignorance about scandalous misconduct in hierarchies that she oversaw. And she is now asking the public to place her atop a bigger, more complicated, more powerful hierarchy, where abuses and unaccountable officials would do even more to subvert liberty and justice for all.

        Also:

        Are you accurate when reporting about her history, or are you posting fiction?

        Hey, no need to be a dick. There’s a huge area of being mistaken or just plain old disagreeing regarding conclusions that exists between “accurate” and “fiction”. Just because I may disagree with you doesn’t mean I’m going to say you have posted “fiction.”