HARRISBURG, Pa. - State Senator Art Haywood, who represents parts of Philadelphia and Montgomery County wants independent investigations of police involved shootings and a special prosecutor appointed to officer-involved deaths.
“The main purpose is so that the investigation and prosecution is not done by local district attorneys who, on an everyday basis work with the police to do investigations, get the criminals off the street,” said Haywood.
Other proposals include demilitarizing law enforcement and requiring civilian review boards to make it a first degree misdemeanor to file a criminal report based solely on race or ethnicity and banning chokeholds.
Haywood says the time for reform is now.
“We need to bar the chokehold methods that end up killing people. We need to have police departments to get the records of other police officers so when a bad cop is fired, that cop isn’t picked up by another police department because they don’t know.”
This week, two bills; one that would create a database of complaints against officers and another that looks to mandate mental health evaluations on officers who use deadly force, passed through the House Judiciary Committee.