Activism
Civil Rights Leaders Demand Results in George Floyd Justice in Policing Act Negotiations
The Democrat-led House has passed the bill twice over the last 12 months, yet, as the deadline passed, the bill continues to be trapped in a holding pattern in the Senate.

Civil Rights leaders from across the nation are calling for Congress to pass the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act.
In a joint statement released late June 2021, leaders of several Civil Rights agencies demanded that Congress produce a final version of the bill that will pass the House and Senate by the end of June more than one year after George Floyd’s murder and just days following Derek Chauvin’s sentencing.
The Democrat-led House has passed the bill twice over the last 12 months, yet, as the deadline passed, the bill continues to be trapped in a holding pattern in the Senate.
“We collectively demand that Congress honor its commitment to produce a final bill that can pass the House and Senate before the end of June and ensure a strong George Floyd Justice in Policing Act is passed before the August recess,” they said.
“The nation desperately needs a transformation of policing policies and practices — from inner cities to suburban neighborhoods to rural counties. The only way to begin this process is with federal legislation that sets meaningful standards and removes legal impediments to holding officers accountable for unconstitutional policing practices. The George Floyd Justice in Policing Act was conceived and created with a focus on accountability and contains provisions overwhelmingly supported by the American people. This vital civil rights legislation is long overdue.”
Below is some chronology on the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act as it has played out in Congress over the last year.
On June 8, 2020, Congresswoman Karen Bass introduced H.R. 7120, the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act of 2020. The House approved the bill with unanimous support of Democrats and three Republicans by a 236-181 vote.
The bill included provisions to overhaul qualified immunity for law enforcement, prohibitions on racial profiling on the part of law enforcement and a ban on no-knock warrants in federal drug cases. It would ban chokeholds at the federal level—classifying them as a civil rights violation and would establish a national registry of police misconduct maintained by the Department of Justice.
On June 17, 2020, the bill failed to pass the Senate procedural vote needed to advance in the then Republican-controlled Senate.
South Carolina Senator Tim Scott (representing several Republican Senators) proposed alternative legislation that would diminish the use of chokeholds but wouldn’t ban them and called for increased federal reporting requirements for use of force and no-knock warrants.
Senate Democrats responded by rejecting the Senate’s alternative legislation citing its narrow scope and failure to address racial inequality.
On Feb. 24, 2021, Bass reintroduced the bill as H.R. 1280 the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act of 2021. For the second time, the bill passed the House on March 3, 2021, in a near party-line vote of 220-212.
Today, the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act has yet to gain traction in the Senate, although bipartisan discussions between Bass, Scott and Sen. Cory Booker continue.
According to Bass the House-Senate stalemate centers on the two most contentious parts of the bill: (1) qualified immunity (which essentially would allow a citizen to sue a police officer for brutality or worse) and (2) Section 242, which lowers the standard needed to prosecute police officer.
In a March 2021 interview with NPR, when asked if she’d be willing to compromise. these two salient parts of the bill, Bass responded with a no.
Activism
Officer Fired for Shooting and Killing Sean Monterrosa Has Termination Overturned
Michael Rains, attorney for the Vallejo Police Officers’ Association, said that “several credible sources” have told him that Detective Jarrett Tonn’s termination has been overturned in arbitration.

By Katy St. Clair
Bay City News
The officer who was fired for shooting and killing a man during George Floyd protests in Vallejo in 2020 could be getting his job back after prevailing in arbitration.
Michael Rains, attorney for the Vallejo Police Officers’ Association, said that “several credible sources” have told him that Detective Jarrett Tonn’s termination has been overturned in arbitration.
Tonn was dismissed from the Vallejo force after he shot Sean Monterrosa, 22, of San Francisco, outside of a Walgreens store on Redwood Street during the early morning hours of June 2, 2020.
The Vallejo Police Department has not commented on whether Tonn will return.
Tonn and two other officers were responding to alleged reports of looting at the store in an unmarked pickup truck. Body camera footage shows Tonn, who is seated in the backseat of the vehicle, stick an AR-15-style assault rifle in between the two officers and fire five times through the windshield at Monterrosa as the police vehicle approached the store.
Monterrosa died a short time later.
Vallejo police have alleged that Tonn fired at Monterrosa because he mistook a hammer in Monterrosa’s sweatshirt pocket for the butt of a gun.
The office of California Attorney General Rob Bonta in May 2021 opened an investigation into the shooting, but there have been no updates in that case and Bonta’s office will not comment on open cases.
Tonn was at first placed on administrative leave for the shooting death, but was fired in 2021 by then-Chief Shawny Williams, who determined that Monterrosa was on his knees with his hands raised when he was shot.
Rains, who has represented two other officers fired by Williams — and prevailed — said the reinstatement of Tonn was the right decision. Rains said Sunday that Tonn applied a reasonable and lawful use of force in the Monterrosa case, and that Williams was wrong to terminate him.
“This is just three for three now with Williams,” he said, referring to the now three officers that have gotten their jobs back. “It demonstrates what a colossal failure he was as a chief in every respect. I’m delighted for Tonn, it’s deserved.”
Rains did not represent Tonn in this case.
But others see Monterrosa’s shooting death as a dark stain on a department known for years of shootings by officers.
The law office of John Burris filed a civil rights suit against the city of Vallejo and its Police Department for Monterrosa’s death, citing alleged tampering with evidence and acting negligently by not reprimanding or re-training Tonn previously despite a “shocking history of shooting his gun at civilians.”
Burris’ office is no longer representing the case and the family is now represented by new counsel, John Coyle, with a jury trial scheduled for January 2025, according to court records.
Nevertheless, Burris commented Sunday on Tonn’s reinstatement, saying he was disappointed but not surprised at the move, because arbitrators in these cases are “biased” toward the police.
“Even though police may have committed in this case an outrageous act, it’s not surprising that that has happened, and it happens more times than not,” he said.
When asked if he was confident that Bonta would file charges against Tonn, Burris chuckled and said that he would wait and see.
“I would not hold my breath,” he said.
Tonn had previously shot three people over five years in Vallejo while on duty, none of which were found to have had firearms, a tenth of the 32 total shootings by the department in one decade, according to attorney Ben Nisenbaum.
Vallejo civil rights attorney Melissa Nold, who represents families of people killed by Vallejo police, said the decision to bring back Tonn had been in the works the minute he was terminated by Williams.
“Unfortunately, I am not surprised at this troubling turn of events because a whistleblower notified me last year via email that Tonn was working a deal to get his job back once they threatened and ran off Chief Williams,” Nold said.
Williams resigned abruptly last November. Williams was repeatedly criticized by the Vallejo Police Officers’ Association, the offices’ union, which had previously voted “no confidence” in him and blamed him for everything from attrition to high crime in the city. But advocates for the families of those killed by police said Williams had been making progress in cleaning up a department that had gained international attention for being violent. During Williams’ tenure, there were no police shootings after the Monterrosa death.
Nold places part of the blame on Tonn’s return on the city, which she said “made no effort” to support his termination. Nold said they are still expecting Bonta to file criminal charges against Tonn and there will be a push to get him decertified as an officer as well.
“He cannot ever go back out onto the streets of Vallejo,” she said. “The liability he would create by being here is astronomical, but sadly no one in the city attorney’s office is smart enough to understand and/or are too corrupt and rotten to care.”
In May, a Solano County judge found that the Vallejo City Attorney’s Office broke the law by deliberately destroying evidence in cases related to police shootings.
The city of Vallejo did not respond to a request for comment.
Members of the family of Monterrosa and their advocates are planning on showing up to the Vallejo City Council meeting on Sept. 12 to protest the return of Tonn, Nold said.
The family will also be holding a “Justice 4 Sean Monterrosa” press conference on Thursday at 11 a.m. at Vallejo City Hall, 555 Santa Clara St., Vallejo.
Activism
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Activism
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