US lawmakers: Police reform talks are over

WASHINGTON DC (Agencies): A bipartisan group of lawmakers spearheading police reform negotiations say their talks are officially over amid deep divisions that they weren’t able to overcome.
Sens. Cory Booker (D-N.J.), who has been negotiating with Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.) and Rep. Karen Bass (D-Calif.) for months, said on Wednesday that those talks had ended without a deal to reform police tactics and put new accountability measures in place. “After months of exhausting every possible pathway to a bipartisan deal, it remains out of reach right now,” Booker said in a statement.
“Unfortunately, even with this law enforcement support and further compromises we offered, there was still too wide a gulf with our negotiating partners and we faced significant obstacles to securing a bipartisan deal,” he added.
Spokespeople for Bass and Scott didn’t immediately respond to requests for comments about the status of the talks. But Bass told NBC News on Wednesday that the talks were over and the group “did the best we could.”
The announcement that the talks are over comes after the group missed self-imposed deadline after self-imposed deadline to try to come up with an agreement.
The group had announced in late July that they had come up with a framework, but were unable to reach a final agreement.
The House has already twice passed a sweeping bill named after George Floyd, a Black man killed when a white police officer kneeled on his neck, that bans chokeholds, carotid holds and no-knock warrants at the federal level; overhauls qualified immunity; and creates a national police misconduct registry.