House Democrats unveil sweeping national police reform plan

Just one week ago, LA was on track to increase the police department’s budget. But city leaders have taken note of nationwide calls to reassess police departments.

On Capitol Hill today, House Democrats unveiled a sweeping plan for police reform.

LA Congresswoman Karen Bass co-wrote the plan. She told NPR’s Morning Edition,“The profession that has the power to kill should be a profession that has national standards, is transparent, and is accountable to the public.”

But she stopped short of endorsing defunding police departments. Bass said, “We need to get at the root causes, I absolutely agree with that. I believe that we need massive resources in the area of human and social services. Defunding police departments, disbanding police departments, I don’t believe is the appropriate thing to do right now.”

But her plan does address retraining. It would ban chokeholds nationwide. (Chokeholds have been banned in LA for decades.)

It would also increase racial and implicit bias training, and create a federal registry of police misconduct.