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”.

    • Verdant Banana@lemmy.world
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      6 months ago

      so that makes it okay for the Democrats to sit on it because that is way better than actively participating?

      think we went through this with Germany already not just Nazis but the quiet people in power who never spoke up

    • octopus_ink@lemmy.ml
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      6 months ago

      Funny, I don’t remember bringing up Republicans at all. I already expect nothing good from them.

      The Republican candidate is a real policing iconoclast

      Guess I should excuse any sort of inaction from Dems then. Good point!

        • octopus_ink@lemmy.ml
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          6 months ago

          You are talking about voting. I’m already voting for them. Aren’t I at least allowed to criticize them while also voting for them, or is that a bridge too far?

                • octopus_ink@lemmy.ml
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                  6 months ago

                  It is when it’s not paired with calls for oversight regarding how that training is used and specific results of said training.

                  I’m starting to sympathize with the 2A folks who are like “why more gun laws when we don’t enforce the ones we have” but in a different way.

                  What training (using only this singular current example) would you say should be required for an officer of the law to know he shouldn’t shoot a woman in the face with her hands up from 10 + feet away when he was under no threat? Do you need training to know that’s wrong? Training beyond what every single person given state power to kill should receive at an absolute minimum?

                  All that heartache and pain, and the final net result was Biden calling for more police funding.

                  And before you get into your don’t blame dems thing again, I routinely post the meme below for how unreasonable people are about blaming Democrats. I get it.

                  But you’ll forgive me for being a bit cynical when I hear not a damn peep from anyone in the administration about police reform all the way from “Biden says fund the police” to “Hey it’s 3 months before the election, cops killed someone again (which has happened many, many times since then), so NOW we’ve got these platitudes trickling out again.”

                  I get it, here’s the evergreen infographic I post over and over that makes your exact point. But damn I’d like some indication of “give a shit” other than when there’s an election close by.