VOA常速英语:乔治·弗洛伊德之死给美国带来的改变

It has been months since demonstrations across the US, prompted by the death of George Floyd, a black man who died while in police custody. In a country with a decentralized law enforcement, some changes at the local-level have taken place, says Scott Roberts with Color of Change. “We've seen activists electing more reform-oriented prosecutors all around the country.” But support for the Black Lives Matter movement has cooled since June. A recent Pew Research Center survey finds 55 percent of American adults express some support for the movement, compared to 67 percent in June during the height of the protests, but the support among Asians and black Americans has remained largely unchanged. Some 87 percent of African Americans say they support the movement. “Priority for me and for Color of Change is reducing the size and scope of policing.” Roberts says police are being asked to do things that are not their role, such as answering mental health calls. “We're talking about any trained professionals people who are used to dealing with that.”

But people who are mentally unstable can quickly turn violent, says Betsy Smith of the National Police Association. "If we sent in the uniform mental health workers first, you know they would probably get hurt." Smith says training mental health workers to deal with potentially violent situations would take funding. "I have been in the middle of budget cuts, just when things go bad in your own community, and you know what goes first is all the community policing programs, and you know what goes second all the ancillary training." In a Police Executive Research Forum survey of US Police Departments, close to half are expecting a decrease in department budgets, says the think tank's Chuck Wechsler. "Big places like New York would lose a billion dollars." The Los Angeles police lost 150 million of its budget, even with the push to defund the police, a Gallup poll finds 81 percent of black Americans in June and July wants the same or more police presence where they live. "You can't take funding away from your police department, and then expect to have a low crime."

"To me the answer is, you know, not defunding per se, but investing that can be what we talk about is the need to radically blow up training, and think about it differently." "Criminality is not race based. Black people are about 13 percent of the American population, and 52 percent of our homicides are committed by young black men." "For years we’ve seen high rates of violence and crime in certain communities. We've said more policing, more policing, more policing. I think instead we need to continue to say more, more resources should go into those communities, but a different type of resources." Roberts says ending violence starts with solving social issues by providing resources to communities in need. "Some of the things that we need to invest in are kind of those basic things, that help communities be more become more stable. Education, housing, health care, we need to provide for people's survival." The changes these protests can cause at the state-level will depend on what lawmakers decide to do, when they are back in session next year. Elizabeth Lee VOA news Los Angeles