Sweeping George Floyd police reform bill stalls as talks collapse

Bipartisan negotiations in the US Congress over a police reform bill that was prompted by the killing of George Floyd have collapsed.

“We did the best we could,” the Democratic congresswoman Karen Bass told reporters on Wednesday.

The House passed the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act in March, and Bass and the Democratic senator Cory Booker have since been working with the Republican senator Tim Scott to try to reach a bipartisan agreement on a bill that could pass the Senate.

But the talks dragged on for months with negotiators remaining at odds over a few crucial issues in the bill, and the lawmakers now appear to have thrown in the towel.

Most notably, the bipartisan negotiating team could not reach an agreement on the Democratic proposal to reform qualified immunity, which shields police officers from civil liability for misconduct.

“We made it clear from the beginning of our negotiations that a bill must ensure true accountability, transparency and the policing standards necessary to bring an end to horrific incidents of violence Americans are routinely seeing – like the murder of George Floyd,” Booker said in a statement on Wednesday.