ATLANTA (AP) — Protesters plan to greet a returning Georgia General Assembly on Monday morning, seeking in part an end to police brutality and changes to the state’s criminal justice system.
The session comes on the heels of the death of Rayshard Brooks, 27, a black man who was shot and killed by a white officer following a confrontation with police outside a fast food restaurant in Atlanta on Friday. The city’s police chief resigned hours later and the officer who fired the fatal shot was terminated. The Georgia Bureau of Investigation is handling the case and will forward its findings to the Fulton County District Attorney.
Democrats say they’re ready to act, with the minority party in both the House and the Senate rolling out extensive proposals last week.
But Republican leaders and even some Democrats say there’s not enough time to make a whole slate of changes, with only 11 working days left beginning Monday in a session disrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic. While lawmakers may consider giving Georgia a law imposing stiffer sentences for hate crimes, other proposals such as abolishing the state’s citizen’s arrest law, ending no-knock warrants or allowing people to sue police officers for misconduct seem unlikely to reach Republican Gov. Brian Kemp’s desk this year.
Not that there won’t be a fight. House Minority Leader Bob Trammell, a Luthersville Democrat, said in an interview Friday that he believed lawmakers have “the opportunity and time to get it done. The question is do we have the political will for it.”