Nearly a year after President Joe Biden called for “real action” on police brutality as part of a pledge to fix U.S. racial inequality, he is coming up against the limits of presidential power.
The White House shelved a proposed police oversight commission this week to focus on a police reform bill that has narrow hopes in Congress. The move comes as anger grows over the killing of another Black man, Daunte Wright, who was stopped by police just miles from where George Floyd was killed last May.
Though Democrats, Republicans, police unions and civil rights activists agree that U.S. policing must change, there still appears to be no immediate path to broad national reform, activists say.
“It kind of feels as if we’re stuck,” said DeAnna Hoskins, a former Justice Department policy adviser and now president of JustLeadershipUSA, an advocacy group. “The good intentions are there, but we also know good intentions pave the road to hell.”