Sen. Lindsey Graham announced that the Senate Judiciary Committee will hold a hearing on George Floyd’s death and policing practices in the United States.
The South Carolina Republican said Tuesday that the hearing aims to allow senators to “take a deep dive” into policing and Floyd’s death. The hearing is scheduled for June 16.
“It’s a long-overdue wake-up call to the country that there are too many of these cases where African American men die in police custody under fairly brutal circumstances,” Graham told ABC News. “It’s clear to me that policing among men in the African American community is a topic that needs to be discussed and acted upon, and I expect this committee to do its part.”
“I’d like to get to the root cause of it. Mr. Floyd’s case is outrageous on its face, but I think it speaks to a broader issue,” he added. “We just need to get to the bottom of what happened and what we can do to fix it.”
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Graham, who floated the idea of holding hearings on police brutality last week, noted that he hopes the hearing will outline some federal policies that can be put into place to reform policing. He called community policing an “anecdote” but noted that he hopes to find some actionable changes.
“I don’t know how to make that a reality, but we’ll have a hearing along those lines,” he said.
Floyd, an unarmed black man, died after being arrested by a white Minneapolis police officer who knelt on his neck for several minutes. Four officers have been fired since Floyd’s death, and the officer who knelt on his neck has been charged with third-degree murder. Protests against police brutality and racial injustice have precipitated some riots featuring looting, arson, and vandalism throughout the nation.
