WASHINGTON _ In powerful, painful testimony, Philonise Floyd pleaded with Congress on Wednesday to implement sweeping restrictions on the use of force by police, such as the kind that led to the killing of his older brother, George Floyd.
"George wasn't hurting anyone that day. He didn't deserve to die over 20 dollars. I am asking you: Is that what a black man's life is worth? Twenty dollars? This is 2020. Enough is enough," Floyd said in opening remarks at a House Judiciary Committee hearing on a proposed police-reform bill. "The people marching in the streets are telling you enough is enough."
George Floyd died at the hands of a Minneapolis police officer less than two weeks ago, after a shopkeeper accused Floyd of passing a bad $20 bill. The video of Floyd pleading with the officer, who pressed a knee into Floyd's neck for nearly nine minutes until Floyd stopped moving, sparked widespread outrage and mass protests across the country.
On Monday, Democrats introduced a bill that would make it easier for people to sue a police department if their civil rights are violated and for police to be prosecuted for criminal behavior.
It would set up a national network to track police misconduct to prevent officers from being rehired in a different jurisdiction, set national training standards, make lynching a federal hate crime and ban chokeholds and neckholds among federal officers.
Philonise Floyd asked committee members to make sure that his brother was "more than another face on a T-shirt, more than another name on a list that will keep growing."
"George's calls for help were ignored," he said. "Please listen to the call I'm making to you now, to the calls of our family, and to the calls ringing out in the streets across the world."
