After weeks of protests against police brutality, the governor of the US state of New York, Andrew Cuomo, signed a first legislative package with reforms on Friday. Among other things, it provides for maximum prison terms of up to 15 years for police officers who injure or kill people with a stranglehold.
In addition, the files on misconduct and disciplinary proceedings by police officers should be more easily accessible in the future. In the United States, around 1,000 people die in police operations each year. According to an analysis by Bowling Green State University in Ohio, between 2005 and 2018 only 97 police officers were arrested for murder or manslaughter and only 35 were convicted. For years there have been discussions about police violence in the USA because it hits black people disproportionately.
In numerous cities in the USA, including the state and metropolis of New York, hundreds of thousands of people had demonstrated largely peacefully in the past few days for an end to racism and for justice for the African-American George Floyd, who was killed in a brutal police operation in Minneapolis.
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