Stevante Clark felt a glimmer of hope amid racial justice protests in 2020 after the police killing of George Floyd. His brother Stephon, 22, was killed by Sacramento police in 2018 after they fired 20 shots at the young Black man in the backyard of his grandparents' home. Police said they feared he had a gun; he was found to have been holding a cellphone. The death led to a more stringent use-of-force law in California. Yet, no comprehensive change emerged on a national level, Reuters reports. Clark thought Floyd’s killing and those of other Black people by police in 2020 would deliver the substantive criminal justice reform that he and others have sought for years. However, momentum has waned and legislative efforts have stalled, leaving advocates and families who have lost loved ones frustrated by what they see as a shift away from police accountability.
Clark said, "I don't think the Biden administration has been aggressive enough when it comes to this crisis -- and this is not just a Black fight -- this is for everybody. People have become desensitized by police murder.”
On Friday, President Biden said, "I will continue to urge Congress to send the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act, which ensures law enforcement accountability, to my desk." The Floyd proposal, introduced in 2021 to stop aggressive law enforcement tactics, misconduct and racial bias, has faced repeated roadblocks in Congress and has yet to move forward. Efforts to reach a bipartisan police reform deal failed in 2021,with Biden blaming Republicans. Among the issues lawmakers discussed were changes to "qualified immunity" laws that protect police officers from some excessive force lawsuits. While criminal justice reform efforts were prominent in 2020, policing is unlikely to be a top issue in the 2024 presidential election. “Other issues have come to the fore, especially with conflict in Israel and Palestine, with conflict in Ukraine, and the economy,” said Jorge Camacho of the Justice Collaboratory at Yale Law School. The lack of change might be one reason Biden has weaker support among Black voters, Camacho said, adding that Black communities want to see action on policing.