
New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced that he will sign recently passed bills on police reform into law.
"We show the nation what it should do. We lead by example," he said. "Talking is not enough. Being angry is not enough. Being emotional is not enough."
Some background: Earlier this week, New York legislators passed a package of bills providing for comprehensive police reform.
One of the bills — which passed in the state assembly and senate bodies — mandates that a police officer who injures or kills somebody through the use of "a chokehold or similar restraint" can be charged with a class C felony, punishable by up to 15 years in prison.
The bill is named for Eric Garner, an African American man who died as a result of a police chokehold during a 2014 arrest. The chokehold tactic was already prohibited by the NYPD at the time of the incident.
Another bill will designate the attorney general as an independent prosecutor for matters relating to the deaths of unarmed civilians caused by law enforcement.
Another action will allow disciplinary records for individual police officers, firefighters or corrections officers to be released without their written consent. It is the reversal of a 1976 statute known as Section 50-a of the New York State Civil Rights Law, which was originally enacted to exempt police officers from being cross-examined during criminal prosecutions, according to the bill.
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