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Indiana Sen. Todd Young cosponsors Republican police reform bill

The Justice Act would discourage chokeholds, implement a system to track police shootings, and would also create a way to track the use of no knock warrants.

INDIANAPOLIS — Indiana Senator Todd Young said much of the ideas in his party's police reform bill are "overdue."

Young, a Republican, cosponsored the Justice Act introduced by Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina, the party's only black senator.

The bill would discourage chokeholds, implement a system to track police shootings and create a way to track the use of no-knock warrants.

“Oh, much of it is overdue, but it just, evidently, took some of these gruesome images on YouTube and later on national television to catalyze action. And it’s unfortunate that sometimes that's what happens,” Sen. Young said.

The senator said that while he is "not entirely comfortable" with no-knock warrants the bill does not create harsher guidelines on usage, nor does it ban chokeholds completely, because he believed that language would bring more legislators together.

"I'm glad that we came together more broadly in this package, because I really think it's going to lead to some substantive improvements in our policing, and make people gain confidence in their police force," Young said.

Young said the bill came after he "heard that people wanted action" following the deaths of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor.

"I think it'll build confidence in our forces and also help us weed out the occasional bad apple that's responsible for bad apples like this," Young said.

Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R) announced that he's fast-tracking the bill to start debate on it next week.

Democrats in Congress have introduced the Justice in Policing Act that would limit legal protections for police and ban chokeholds among other things.

The Justice in Policing Act would amend federal misconduct statutes to make it easier for courts to find officers personally liable for the violation of civil rights, though the Associated Press reported Republicans called it a step too far.

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