The body-camera footage of Sonya Massey’s murder — recently released by the Illinois State Police — revealed an unarmed woman posing no physical threat being shot by a sheriff’s deputy simply for removing a pot of water from her stove. Since then, newspapers and social media feeds have been filled with stories about what happened, what should have happened differently, and what can be done to prevent the next needless tragedy.

Sonya Massey’s family has called for change, and many others with expertise and influence have done the same. The Sangamon County Sheriff’s Office has fired the officer who shot Massey, after he had already been discharged from the U.S. Army and worked at six different police departments in just four years. While he has been indicted on murder charges for his actions, the national outrage is palpable because we have been here before — too many times.

In recent years, some jurisdictions have adopted incremental policing reforms; but progress has stalled at the federal level due to lack of political will to make the kinds of changes needed to meaningfully improve the safety of Black people, who suffer the most from violent police. It is long past time for federal policymakers to put aside their ideological differences and heed the resounding calls to action from a country in mourning.

Police violence is deeply rooted and racially biased

Violence has been a feature of American policing throughout this country’s history, shattering families and communities along with their trust in law enforcement. Just last year, police were responsible for killing 1,352 people, the highest total for any year in the past decade. Moreover, it is estimated that on an annual basis, police use or threaten to use force on one million people, causing 75,000 nonfatal injuries. These dangers are especially prevalent for people of color and those with mental health disabilities, who are at even greater risk of an encounter with police escalating to violence. In fact, the rate of being killed by police is nearly three times as high for Black people than for white people, and individuals with mental illnesses are 16 times more likely than other civilians to be killed by police.

Police training, culture, and practice have long reinforced a “threat” mindset, with officers socialized to perceive danger and risks to their own safety, even where none exist. This defensive and adversarial mentality that underpins police interactions with the public has had devastating consequences, especially for Black people, who experience disproportionately higher rates of police violence.

To compound this challenge, Black communities are policed differently than white communities. Research demonstrates that in affluent White communities, “[T]he police act as responsive service providers. They are quick, thorough, and helpful when citizens call, and they work collaboratively with residents and business owners to solve local problems.” Yet in predominantly Black neighborhoods, “[T]he police focus on intervening in violence. They do so through tactics like investigatory stops, which many see as aggressive, intimidating, and overly broad. In addition, the high volume of 911 calls … means that patrol officers are stretched thin, and citizens have to wait longer for a response to their emergencies.”

However, in many places, the police are still tasked with addressing a host of social problems, serving as social workers, nurses, and mental health experts, all without the training or expertise to respond appropriately. Their chief tool is enforcement, which leads to tragic outcomes like Sonya Massey’s all too often. Meanwhile, the underlying issues that drive people to call 911 in the first place often go unaddressed.

The murder of George Floyd in May 2020 catalyzed a national protest and policy movement for racial justice in policing. And yet, after four years of public outcry, far too little federal action has been taken to right the fundamental wrong of police violence against people of color.

Federal actions to ensure meaningful police accountability

Without meaningful structural and cultural changes to create accountability in policing, the country will continue to witness shocking, tragic, and unnecessary killings at the hands of police.

The Biden administration took a meaningful step in 2022 by issuing its police reform executive order, which called for more comprehensive data collection related to use-of-force incidents and revised use-of-force standards for federal law enforcement, among other things. However, the administration must go further and ensure the most impactful provisions extend to the state and local law agencies that have the most contact with the public. The administration should fully leverage its grant-making authority, through grant conditions and reporting requirements, to incentivize adoption of such policies by state and local law enforcement agencies. Additionally, it should implement stricter use-of-force standards for federal law enforcement and increase the use of pattern-or-practice investigations to help identify entrenched norms of racism, violence, and misconduct at the state and local level.

Congress should finally pass meaningful police accountability legislation such as the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act. This bill would, among other things, require state and local reporting on police use-of-force incidents, restrict the use of aggressive tactics such as choke holds and no-knock warrants, require training on de-escalation, eliminate qualified immunity as a liability defense for law enforcement, and create a national misconduct registry so hiring departments have access to information about officers who have been discharged for misconduct elsewhere.

While these kinds of measures are critical to hold both individual officers and departments accountable for violence and racial injustice, real public safety will only be achieved if the entire system of government is designed and resourced to prevent police violence from happening in the first place.

Federal actions to create lasting safety solutions

There are also innovative programs showing success across the country that rely on trained civilian professionals to manage social challenges that do not require law enforcement, thereby reducing the likelihood that someone in a mental health crisis or interpersonal conflict would be hurt or killed by police. Jurisdictions are expanding their local public safety workforces to include a greater range of professionals responsible for meeting the needs of the public in emergency situations.

“Community responder” programs establish teams of specially trained civilian professionals who can be dispatched to low-risk calls for service that require de-escalation, conflict resolution, or connections to community-based care. These programs, which have been demonstrated as safe and effective in improving public safety outcomes for the people they serve, have largely been funded at the state and local level. Jurisdictions have also leveraged federal resources available through Medicaid and the American Rescue Plan Act, but these sources are insufficient over the long term.