How a sweeping new proposal would limit police use of force in New York

NEW YORK — Police officers in New York state could only use physical force as a last resort, would have to meet a higher threshold for using deadly force and would face new criminal penalties for violating those guidelines under a sweeping legislative proposal unveiled Friday.

If adopted, the changes could drastically alter the nature of law enforcement in New York at a time when the issue of police accountability is at the center of a fraught national debate over persistent racism in America’s criminal justice system.

The legislation was proposed by Letitia James, the state’s attorney general, who said in a statement that her goal was to provide “clear and legitimate standards for when the use of force is acceptable and enacting real consequences for when an officer crosses that line.”

The proposal — announced nearly a year after a white Minneapolis police officer, Derek Chauvin, killed George Floyd, a Black man — came amid continuing calls for increasing the accountability applied to officers who are involved in such killings.

Although a jury convicted Chauvin of murder last month, the outcome underscored the rarity of such verdicts. Various states have responded to the widespread protests that followed Floyd’s death by revisiting laws that guide officers’ use of force, but those efforts have yet to broadly alter the legal landscape related to policing. Some experts questioned whether introducing ambiguous new guidelines could make it harder to secure convictions against officers who use force improperly.

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