Ald. Coggs wants city of Milwaukee to support, lobby for federal George Floyd Justice in Policing Act

MILWAUKEE (CBS 58) -- The calls for police reform continue after Derek Chauvin was found guilty for the murder of George Floyd.

Alderwoman Milele Coggs says she’s hoping Milwaukee can help push for change on the federal level.

“A part of my spirit wants to be happy because we've been so disappointed in so many other major cases, and a little bit of relief because had the verdict come out differently, who knows what we would be watching in the news and watching in our streets today,” said Coggs, “But a part of me was also just reminded of how much more has to be done so that we don't have to deal with the situation like the George Floyd situation ever again.”

She says she’s recently introduced a resolution for the city of Milwaukee to go on record in support of, and to lobby for, the passage of the federal George Floyd Justice in Policing Act.

“Which is a level of reform as it comes to police department funding for alternative policing measures, it deals with qualified immunity and a variety of other things that locally many of us have been fighting for,” said Coggs.

“I think it's important that that verdict happened and that frankly the world saw that officers are not above the law,” said Attorney Kimberly Motley.

She says she thinks it was important that other officers testified in the Derek Chauvin case.

“I think that should be the rule, not the exception because bad policing, again, it's bad for police and bad for society,” said Motley.

“When George Floyd died, our organization put out a statement, like a lot of law enforcement across the country, to express our condemnation for what everybody saw in that lengthy video,” said Jim Palmer, the executive director of the Wisconsin Professional Police Association.

He says following the death of George Floyd, the dialogue surrounding policing elevated to the forefront.

“Now, in the last year, we've seen a lot of it almost devolve into kind of a partisan type dynamic where you either have to completely support law enforcement or you completely support the efforts of social justice. I think most people generally recognize the two aren't mutual exclusive. Somebody can support social justice efforts and still support our officers with the dangerous and important jobs they do to keep our community safe. Those efforts and that dialogue, that kind of dialogue, really has to continue.”