(Reuters) – The National Basketball Association’s (NBA) Social Justice Coalition has called on the U.S. Senate to pass a police reform bill to honour the memory of George Floyd, an African-American killed by a Minneapolis police officer last year.
The Democratic-led House of Representatives this year passed the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act, which aims to put a stop to aggressive law enforcement tactics.
But in the Senate the measure faces steep odds of getting the bipartisan support it would need to pass the upper chamber.
Last year, the NBA and its players’ body formed the Social Justice Coalition to lead the league’s efforts to address racial and social inequality by campaigning for policy change.
“Systemic problems demand systemic solutions. And, because police actions are governed by a diverse array of state laws and local policies the Floyd Act takes unprecedented strides towards consistency — reforming at a federal level the practices that failed its namesake,” the Coalition said in a statement https://www.nba.com/news/national-basketball-social-justice-coalition-statement-on-policing-reform-legislation late on Monday.
Floyd died after a white Minneapolis officer knelt on his neck for more than eight minutes on May 25 last year, a killing that triggered worldwide protests for racial justice.
(Reporting by Shrivathsa Sridhar in Bengaluru, Editing by William Maclean)
