He went on to tell the panel he was “tired of pain, pain you feel when you watch something like that, when you watch your big brother — who you looked up to your whole life — die, die begging for his mom.”
Philonise Floyd explained the minor infraction that led to his brother’s altercation with police, ending with an officer’s knee on his neck for nearly 9 minutes before he died.
“He didn’t deserve to die over twenty dollars,” Philonise Floyd said. “I am asking you, ‘is that what a black man is worth? Twenty dollars? This is 2020. Enough is enough. The people marching in the streets are telling you enough is enough.”
Philonise Floyd, pausing to wipe his brow at one point, spoke to Congress a day after his brother’s funeral in Houston.
Before his testimony, Philonise Floyd wore a black mask, part of safety guidelines in the pandemic era, with an image of his brother on it. “It is on you to make sure his death wasn’t in vain,” he told the committee.
Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.), chairman of the committee, began by reading the names of Floyd and several other African Americans who died in similar circumstances while outlining new legislation Democrats unveiled Monday, shaped largely by the Congressional Black Caucus.
“We must act today to honor their memory,” Nadler said.
The Justice in Policing Act of 2020 would ban chokeholds, establish a national database to track police misconduct and prohibit certain no-knock warrants, among other initiatives. The bill, which has more than 200 Democratic co-sponsors, contains several provisions that would make it easier to hold officers accountable for misconduct in civil and criminal court.
Some Republicans have complained that the roughly 140-page proposal included no GOP input. And, as Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) demonstrated in his opening statement, Republicans plan to focus their remarks on the looting and violence that happened during some of the protests that followed George Floyd’s death.
Allowed three witnesses, Republicans called Angela Underwood Jacobs, whose brother, Patrick Underwood, was killed in Oakland in a shooting police said was related to a protest of Floyd’s death.
“Your brother’s killer will face justice,” Jordan said.
Democrats said this hearing will launch several weeks of consideration, first in committee and then a full House floor debate, perhaps with a vote by the end of the month.
“We are not rushing this to the floor. It’s going to have a full committee hearing, a full committee markup. Republicans are going to be fully engaged in that,” House Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer (D-Md.) said in a conference call Tuesday with reporters.
The Democratic-led hearing comes as, on the other side of the Capitol, Senate Republicans have tried to send signals that they are interested in coming up with proposals of their own. Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.), the only black Republican in the Senate, has been tasked with leading the effort, which included a meeting late Tuesday with White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows and Jared Kushner, a senior presidential adviser.
But it is unclear whether the divided Congress will come together on a bipartisan solution months before the election or end in an all-too-familiar gridlock, as has happened with other domestic policy issues such as gun purchase background checks and immigration for the past decade.
Wednesday’s hearing marks a significant test for House Republicans, who, so far, have not shown as much interest in a bipartisan deal as their Senate counterparts. House GOP lawmakers, following the lead of President Trump, have focused heavily on criticizing local Democratic officials who have pursued a “defund the police” movement to dramatically overhaul how their departments are run. Top congressional Democrats, including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), have distanced themselves from the activists’ cry, with several saying it’s not an issue for Congress.
Allowed to call three witnesses, Republicans included Daniel Bongino in their lineup. He is a conservative radio show host and a contributor to Fox News whose confrontational style sometimes wins him kudos from Trump.
A three-time loser in bids for Congress over the past decade, Bongino served for more than 10 years as a U.S. Secret Service agent.
Reps. Karen Bass (D-Calif.), chairwoman of the Congressional Black Caucus, and Nadler co-wrote the new proposal along with Sens. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) and Kamala D. Harris (D-Calif.).
The bill contains one proposal long sought by civil rights advocates. It would change “qualified immunity,” the legal doctrine that shields officers from lawsuits, by lowering the bar for plaintiffs to sue officers for alleged civil rights violations. Another section would change federal law so victims of excessive force or other violations need only show that officers “recklessly” deprived them of their rights. The current statute requires victims to show that officers’ actions were “willful.”
Its other provisions include formally making lynching a federal crime.
