"There's a bill before the city council that would be a start, but not enough, requiring police officers to identify themselves before they interrogate you," Humphrey, a New York-based attorney for Lambda Legal, an organization that seeks equality of law for all American citizens, said Saturday.
"We need structural change and hopefully this movement can be a catalyst to change policies," Humphrey, who was taking part in the Saturday "Day of Anger" protest in New York City, which follows recent grand jury decisions not to indict two white police officers responsible for the deaths of African-Americans Eric Garner and Michael Brown, stressed.
"They could have simply written a summons or a ticket. It was totally unjustified to tackle him — they don't go after white collar criminals in that way," the attorney stressed.
Garner, who was a street peddler, selling untaxed cigarettes, died from suffocation in July, when New York police officer Daniel Pantaleo took him in a chokehold. About a month later, on August 9, officer Darren Wilson shot and killed 18-year-old Brown in Ferguson, Missouri.
"After the Rodney King incident, Congress passed legislation to allow the federal government to investigate similar cases of police brutality," Humphrey recalled adding that "brutality targeted against communities of color should be handled by the justice department".
Following the New York and St. Louis grand jury decisions not to charge officers Pantaleo and Wilson, US Attorney General Eric Holder said the US Justice Department was preparing new law enforcement guidelines, aimed at ending racial profiling in the United States.
US President Barack Obama has asked Congress to allocate $263 million to train and equip US police officers with body cameras in an effort to limit violent police conduct in the country.
