Nine months post George Floyd, there hasn’t been much police reform

While America has largely realised the imbalance of power between its police and people, there is yet to be large scale change in the country. While ideas like defunding the police have been thrown around, there has not been any movement on that front.

However, some cities have banned police choke holds, and others have made disciplinary records accessible to the public, while some others have beefed-up police training.

Soon after Floyd’s killing, America went to the polls which inevitably meant his death was politicised subsequently leading reforms to be shelved. "There was a brief moment of them attempting something and they've done nothing,” Kate Levine, a professor at the Cardozo School of Law, told AFP.

In 2020, close to a 1,000 people were killed by the police - 28% of those were African Americans, who are only 12% of America’s population. The officers who killed unarmed Breonna Taylor were acquitted, while there has been no movement in the case of Daniel Prude - who suffocated in police custody.

The police officer (now former) who killed Floyd is set to go on trial in Minneapolis on March 29. Derek Chauvin has been charged with second-degree murder and manslaughter but prosecutors are lobbying to make it a third-degree charge.