George Floyd death anniversary: Reckoning in limbo

But in the midst of the deadly Coronavirus pandemic, economic uncertainty and a divisive US presidential election, 2020 ended without the kind of major police reforms that many hoped, and others feared, would come. Then, 2021 and 2022 also failed to yield much progress.

Now, three years since Floyd’s murder, proponents of federal actions — such as banning chokeholds and no-knock warrants, and changing the so-called qualified immunity protections for law enforcement — still await signs of change.

“When people casually, and I think too frequently, say that there is some sort of racial reckoning that we’re in the midst of, I see no evidence of that,” Democratic US Rep. Ayanna Pressley, of Massachusetts, said during a recent press conference convened by a Black Lives Matter collective.

To be clear, racial justice activists and their champions in elected office haven’t slowed down. But the beating death of Tyre Nichols at the hands of Memphis police officers in early January underscored just how long it’s taking to achieve meaningful change.

“I don’t play with words like ‘reckoning,’ ” Pressley said. “That needs to be something of epic proportion.”

Soon after Floyd’s murder, Minneapolis adopted a number of changes, including bans on chokeholds and neck restraints, and requirements that police try to stop fellow officers from using improper force. Minnesota lawmakers approved statewide police accountability packages in 2020 and in 2021, as well as tight restrictions on no-knock warrants just this month.

The city is still awaiting the results of a federal investigation into whether its police have engaged in a “pattern or practice” of unconstitutional or unlawful policing. A similar investigation by the state Department of Human Rights led to what it called a “court-enforceable settlement agreement” in March to revamp policing in the city.