US House passes sweeping policing bill

Washington, June 26 (IANS) The Democrat-led US House of Representatives passed a sweeping policing reform legislation largely along party lines, in the wake of a national outcry against police brutality and racism after the killing of a black man by a Minneapolis police officer.The bill was passed on Thursday in a vote of 236-181, with three Republicans crossing party lines to vote on the Democratic side, reports Xinhua news agency.It came a day after Senate Democrats blocked a competing Republican version on a key procedural vote and is not expected to be taken up in the Republican-controlled Senate. The bill would crack down on excessive police force and ban chokeholds, enforce national transparency standards and push accountability for officer misconduct with a national database to track offences, a Politico news report said.”To the protesters: we hear you, we see you, we are you,” the report quoted House Democratic Caucus Chairman Hakeem Jeffries as saying in a speech on the floor just before the vote.Before the vote on the steps of the Capitol, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said: “Exactly one month ago George Floyd spoke his final words, ‘I can’t breathe’, and changed the course of history. “When we pass this bill, the Senate will have a choice: to honour George Floyd’s life or to do nothing.”Protests against police brutality, some of which have been violent, have taken place in the US and abroad were triggered by the extra-judicial killing of the 36-year-old Floyd, an unarmed African-American man by a policeman in Minneapolis on May 25.–IANSksk/