Senator Braun’s Weekly Update | June 7 – 12

For me, ensuring that similar tragedies don’t continue to occur included joining with Sen. Tim Scott, who has spent his entire life – including days in the U.S. Capitol – where he has faced police scrutiny while driving and walking, to enact meaningful changes to fix our criminal justice disparities. 

Furthermore, I was one of the first senators to support Sen, Scott’s Walter Scott Act – named in honor of a South Carolinian man who was shot during a daytime traffic stop – that would force states to provide reporting on officer-related shooting.  Should they fail to comply, states would see a 10 percent reduction in the funding they are eligible to receive from grants administrated from the Department of Justice.

Change is also coming to our communities, as the Indianapolis Police Department announced new policies that would update requirements for police to identify and warn people before using deadly force and clearly defined de-escalation requirements.  It would also prohibit officers from firing into or from a moving vehicle and from conducting choke holds, which I strongly support banning. 

Our brave law enforcement officials have a very difficult job, as they are entrusted to protect our streets, and these common-sense changes that are coming from individual police departments, not Washington, will hopefully work. Changes must come from the ground up, because the streets of New York City are different than Indianapolis, which are different than small towns like Jasper, Indiana. 

“I think though that instead of us sitting on our hands, we’re going to be doing something, and I’m glad we are,” Braun said in an interview with CBS News. “I think for the sake of law enforcement, there are protocols and procedures they need to look at in depth so these horrific incidents are just completely eliminated from the landscape, to the extent we can. And I think this is different this time.”

But it won’t be an easy path forward for Republicans, who are arguably more ideologically divided on possible police reforms than are Democrats, and whose party leader in the White House has shown few signs he wants serious change. 

“One of the I think general considerations would be, how do we get somewhere between 35 and 45 of our own conference on whatever we put out there? And there might be some of us that would like to be a little more aggressive because I think this is the right time, and for the sake of law enforcement, which I believe most of the corrections need to be done in the trenches by law enforcement itself, local and state levels,” Braun said.

Following weeks of historic protests, some Republican lawmakers are now joining Democrats in calling for serious policing reforms. And that change need to happen now, according to Indiana Senator Mike Braun.

“I think the reason this is the time is look at how many times in the recent past we’ve had similar situations,” Braun said Wednesday morning, speaking to 13News and other news outlets from his Capitol Hill office. “This is the time when it’s going to be different […] what we’re dealing with here needs to be addressed now.”

Sen. Mike Braun (R-IN) told Breitbart News during a press conference on Wednesday that the death of George Floyd has resulted in a “watershed moment” to reform law enforcement procedures.

The death of Floyd sparked two weeks of protests and pushed Democrats, such as Sens. Kamala Harris (D-CA) and Cory Booker (D-NJ), to sponsor their own police reform legislation.

Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC), along with Braun, are working to develop their own proposal, known as the JUSTICE Act, which would address police reporting, accountability, training, and relations.

The JUSTICE Act would include increased funding for body cameras, tie grant funding to law enforcement agencies to training on deescalation tactics, and require states to maintain a system for sharing records of law enforcement officers.

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