La. Lawmakers File Legislation To Reduce Violence Between Police And The Public

Congressmen Cedric Richmond and Garret Graves have teamed up to introduce legislation that would give police training to de-escalate situations and help provide law enforcement access to nonlethal weapons. Graves says this comes after last week’s fatal police shooting of Alton Sterling. He says this bill’s goal is to use new technology to bridge gaps between life and death.

Graves says there are many new technologies out in the private sector and being developed to help officers stop suspects that are noncompliant without killing them. He says this bill includes police training on how to use the equipment and de-escalation techniques.

“And provides a grant program whereby 75% of the costs of buying these new nonlethal weapons would be covered by the federal grant program.”

Graves says this is a five year bill which provides 130 million dollars in grants in the first year. He says the legislation won’t solve all of our problems but it’s something we can do in the meantime to help reduce the number of deaths and violence we’ve recently seen.

“The bill is not designed to be a universal or comprehensive solution. We’re going to continue working with the community on new ideas to try to figure how to address other aspects of this.”