Special from <BlackMansStreet.Today>

<TriceEdneyWire.com/BlackMansStreet.Today> In the four years since George Floyd’s killing sparked mass protests, U.S. cities have settled over 130 lawsuits related to police misconduct, paying out nearly $150 million to protesters, journalists, families, legal observers, and bystanders, according to a report published earlier this week.

The settlements, some of the largest ever for protest-related police actions, have forced numerous reforms on departments, including restrictions on using ‘less lethal’ weapons, reported the Guardian.

“After reviewing so many lawsuits, a consistent story emerges: cops had zero interest in honoring the First Amendment rights of protesters,” said Sue Udry, executive director of the free speech group Defending Rights & Dissent and author of the report: ‘The Cost of Police Violence and Mayhem.’

The family of George Floyd marked the fourth anniversary of his murder by renewing their call for Congress to pass legislation to reform policing in America that is named in his honor.

“Change is needed,” Philonise Floyd,  George Floyd’s brother, said at a news conference Thursday where Democratic lawmakers announced their latest effort to pass the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act.

The legislation passed in the then-Democratically controlled House in June 2020. But it stalled in the Senate.