USA Today: For Black mayors, police reforms are a personal mission to make sure 'another Black man doesn't die the way George Floyd did'

MARCO DELLA CAVA & KAMEEL STANLEY, USA TODAY

Excerpt:

For Dallas Mayor Eric Johnson, elected last summer, the protests present an opportunity to “bring about a new series of reforms and cause us to look closer at what we’ve been doing well and what we can do better.”

He says his priorities are to improve diversity training to better mitigate against systemic racism, increase funding to projects that reduce urban blight, improve education and improve infrastructure in African American neighborhoods, all of which if neglected spur crime.

Dallas’ current police budget is about a third of the city’s $1.4 billion general fund. While city officials have said they are open to reallocating some money away from law enforcement, resident surveys reflect a desire for more officers.

“I love seeing all the protests, and I hope they translate into people voting for policy shifts,” Johnson says. “But fundamentally, it’s local police working alongside local community members that will be at the forefront of a lot of these changes.”

In Stockton, California, 29-year-old Mayor Michael Tubbs says his city has already made great strides. Last year, city officials announced an 80% decline in police shootings over the past two years.

Tubbs says his messaging over the past weeks to residents and activists has been to highlight the city's progress on police reform while also asking for tax increases to cover additional mental health and other social programs. 

"As a young Black man, I've always known police brutality is a problem, from the killings of Oscar Grant to Trayvon Martin to Michael Brown to George Floyd," he says. "It's a vestige of white supremacy and structural racism. It's nice to see new people join the fight as we push to create a society we all deserve."

In Houston, Mayor Sylvester Turner said he supports widespread police reforms He issued a sweeping order Wednesday to his city's police department aimed at reducing deadly force by officers and banning choke and strangle holds, unless they have no other alternative to protect themselves or the public. Placing an officer's knee on a suspect's neck is expressly forbidden under the order, Turner said.

Turner, who represented a predominantly African American district in the Texas House for 27 years before being elected mayor in 2015, said the directive instructs Houston police officers to use what he called "de-escalation techniques" before resorting to force, when possible. The order also requires police officers who witness one of their colleagues "using force beyond that which is reasonable" to intercede and report the action to a supervisor.

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