Five years ago today, George Floyd was murdered in broad daylight on a Minneapolis street by police officer Derek Chauvin, who suffocated Floyd by pressing his knee on the man’s neck for eight minutes. Onlookers watched, recording the agonizing ordeal on their phones and pleading with officers to ease their hold on Floyd, who was pinned face down on the asphalt, in clear distress as he repeatedly told officers that he could not breathe. Chauvin did not move–even as Floyd went silent, closed his eyes, and went limp–and only lifted his foot off his back after a paramedic who was called to the scene told him to. Chauvin has since been found guilty in Floyd’s murder.
The killing launched a nationwide wave of protests against police violence, the last iteration of the Black Lives Matter Movement, which had started years prior in response to other police killings. One of those victims was Eric Garner, a Staten Island man who was choked to death in 2014 by police officer Daniel Pantaleo, after being accused of selling loose cigarettes. Garner, like Floyd, died telling the officers standing over him that he could not breathe.
New York City overall has not embraced meaningful changes despite having been the site of a flashpoint in the fight for police reform. The controversial “stop-and-frisk” policy instituted under Mayor Bloomberg was deemed unconstitutional by a federal judge in 2013, but a federal monitor’s study recently found that “most NYPD commands did not achieve minimum levels of constitutional compliance in frisks and searches” in 2024. Questions have also been raised about the Community Response Teams formed under the incumbent Mayor Adams, as an Inspector General report from last year found that they have been operating without clear policies or training, and have been associated with a marked rise in vehicle pursuits. Misconduct appears to be an ongoing issue generally, as lawsuits against the NYPD cost New Yorkers a staggering $205 million in 2024, according to an analysis from The Legal Aid Society.
Other cities have taken different approaches and found success. In contrast to New York’s ever-inflating police budget, cities like Seattle, Milwaukee, and Austin have all taken momentum from the 2020 protest movement and successfully diverted funds from the police for other pressing matters, particularly housing and shoring up social programs. Following the example set by Eugene, Oregon, Seattle also created a non-police crisis response unit in 2023, which has responded to over 4,000 calls to date, dealing with emergencies like overdoses and suicides. One of the candidates for mayor in New York City, Democratic Socialist Zohran Mamdani, has embraced this kind of reform, pitching a new Department of Community Safety, aiming to reduce crime and increase safety with non-police measures
While progress is made locally in these and other cities, broader changes through national political channels remain elusive. Despite a vigorous public debate and national protest movement in the wake of George Floyd’s murder, no national police reform bill was ever seriously considered by Congress or proposed by the White House. What little gains have been made at that level are being erased as well: Cori Bush, a former nurse who became engaged in politics by way of BLM protests in 2014, was primaried and lost her House seat in 2024 after pro-Israel lobby groups spent millions supporting Bush’s opponent due to her stance on Gaza.
Expectedly, the White House is steering away from police reform as well. Trump signed an executive order at the end of last month that would boost officer pay and provide them with surplus military equipment, as well as “legal resources and indemnification to law enforcement officers who unjustly incur expenses and liabilities for actions taken during the performance of their official duties to enforce the law.”
Given this state of things, it’s fair to ask: what incentive or pressure is there on the NYPD to do something about misconduct when the feds are willing to foot the bill?
