US: Prosecutors charge police, push reforms amid Floyd protests

Prosecutors across country are defying traditionally cozy relationships with police departments, swiftly charging officers with murder, assault and or crimes following protests over death of George Floyd and dropping charges against demonstrators.

Even just a few years ago, when protests erupted over killings of or black men by police, officers were rarely arrested for suspected criminal acts during demonstrations. It's been

But tide may be turning, led by progressive prosecutors pressing for criminal justice reforms to better hold police accountable for wrongdoing.

“Prosecutors realize that y’re being watched,” said Mark Dupree Sr., district attorney for Kansas’ Wyandotte County, which includes Kansas City. “My hope is that this is a change and that we are turning a tide.”

On Wednesday, Fulton County prosecutors charged Atlanta officer Garrett Rolfe with murder for a shooting during a sobriety check gone awry near a Wendy's. or officer involved in Rayshard Brooks' death faces lower-level charges. shooting happened less than a week ago.

Most of time it takes months, if t years, to charge an officer in an on-duty death.

Meanwhile, in New York City, a police officer caught on video shoving a woman to ground is facing criminal charges, and prosecutors in Buffalo charged two officers with assault after a video showed m kcking down a 75-year-old protester. Atlanta police were charged with assault in a protest-related stop. In Philadelphia, a police officer faces aggravated assault stemming from video that shows him striking a student protester in head with a metal baton.

And in Chicago, investigators are looking at wher more than half a dozen officers broke law after security video captured m lounging around a side-street office with its windows smashed in, making popcorn and napping on a couch, as a shopping center was ransacked nearby.

“This is time to be aggressive,” Kim Foxx, first black woman to hold top prosecutor’s job in Chicago, said about pressing for overhauls of contracts with police that have helped abusive officers sidestep charges.

Her office is looking at wher officers who seemed so uninterested amid chaos committed a crime or were following orders, which could mean y aren’t subject to charges.

Prosecutors are also investigating wher some officers covered ir badges during protests, turned off ir body cameras or wielded ir batons on protesters without cause. To date, officers have been charged.

In Manhattan, Miami and Houston, charges have been dropped against hundreds of protesters arrested for mir offenses, such as curfew violations, unlawful assembly or trespassing.

Foxx and ors ushered into office on promises of overhauling criminal justice system are seizing moment, throwing weight behind proposals to scrap laws that conceal police records and barring prosecutors from accepting campaign cash and police union endorsements.

Too often in past, negotiators have resisted pushing hard for overhauls of police union contracts from fear of being cast as anti-police, Foxx said. That's w changed, she said, as city looks to hammer out a new contract.

“ politics of t wanting to appear to go against police union are over," Foxx said.

Transforming collective bargaining contracts that for decades enshrined protections for officers accused of misconduct “is biggest piece of criminal justice reform that can happen,” Foxx said.

top prosecutor in Boston is also butting heads with city's largest police union.

Officers accused Rachael Rollins, first woman of color to serve as district attorney in Massachusetts, of inciting violence against police after she

But Rollins said in an interview that “t all of blame can lay at feet of police.” Prosecutors have failed to hold officers accountable for wrongdoing, she said.

“District attorneys have been complicit and co-conspirators in this lack of oversight. And we deserve to be called out about it. That’s exactly why I ran for office," said Rollins, district attorney for Suffolk County.

In Kansas City, Dupree said he plans to expand an independent unit that will be dedicated to investigating accusations of excessive police force or misconduct and is setting up a hotline for people to report complaints about officers.

district attorney for San Francisco this month anunced a new policy to ensure prosecutors review all available evidence, like body camera foot, before filing charges against people accused of resisting arrest or assaulting officers. District Attorney Chesa Boudin said it's designed to ensure people aren’t wrongfully charged.

“For decades, we didn’t have benefit of social media, of cellphone camera recordings or body camera foot. w we do and it is incumbent upon us to t simply accept narrative in a written police report in se cases,” he said.

Some

But district attorneys are historically t keen to hand ir investigative powers over to ors. And politics have already scuttled at least one proposal to remove m from cases involving police.

In Minnesota, state’s county attorneys group recommended putting state attorney general in charge of prosecuting all cases of killings involving police, but leaders of Republican-controlled Senate rejected proposal because y distrust fiery progressive.

But Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, a Republican, is pushing lawmakers to give his office power to investigate and charge cases in which police kill people.

“Apparent or actual conflicts of interest in se horrific cases will only serve to furr erode public confidence in our law enforcement institutions,” Paxton