(Bloomberg) -- President Joe Biden marked the second anniversary of George Floyd’s death by ordering a revamp of police use-of-force practices, with criticism of Republicans for blocking legislation that would have enacted broader changes.

During a ceremony at the White House on Wednesday, Biden said the measure would help “address profound fear and trauma exhaustion” that Black Americans have over racial bias in policing. 

“The message is clear: enough,” he said before signing the order. “I promised the Floyd family among others, George’s name is not just going to be a hashtag.” 

The measure directs federal law enforcement agencies to revise their policies on use-of-force to limit tactics like no-knock warrants, choke holds and carotid restraints. It offers grants as an incentive to state and local police departments to adopt similar policies.

Biden also ordered the creation of a national database of officers with misconduct and disciplinary complaints. The policy also directs the attorney general and Health and Human Services secretary to develop alternative models of responding to people in crisis. Biden signed the order two years after Floyd’s death at the hands of Minneapolis police sparked nationwide outrage and renewed calls to overhaul the use of force by law enforcement. 

Read More: Biden to Sign Policing Order Two Years After Floyd’s Death 

The order encapsulates the delicate balance Biden has tried to strike on law enforcement issues. Floyd’s killing, along with the deaths of many other people of color at the hands of police, inspired mass protests in 2020 that helped shift the national debate. At the same time, Republicans have accused Biden of being soft on crime ahead of the November midterms, while the president has rejected liberal Democrats’ calls to “defund the police.” 

In his remarks from the East Room of the White House, Biden said he resorted to an executive order because Republican senators had “opposed any meaningful reform.”  

“There are those who seek to drive a wedge between law enforcement and people they serve, those who peddle the fiction of public trust and public safety are in opposition to one another. We know that’s not true, but it occurs,” Biden said.

This month’s massacres at a Texas elementary school and a New York supermarket have also highlighted the challenge police face in responding to mass shootings and pushed Democrats to mount a long-shot effort to enact stricter gun laws. 

Like gun control, legislation to impose broad-based policing changes has faltered in Congress. House Democrats passed a law-enforcement overhaul bill named after Floyd in March 2021, but bipartisan negotiations in the Senate collapsed in September in large part due to Republican opposition to allowing families of victims of police violence to sue officers for damages. 

Biden lacks the power to enact those and other measures on his own. But the executive order, which White House officials worked on for months, includes several elements of the failed legislation. 

The president’s aides have worked through complaints from law enforcement, especially after a draft version that leaked in January and generated pushback from police groups. The White House received feedback from law enforcement agencies, families of police violence victims and civil rights groups while drafting the order, according to senior administration officials. 

Civil rights leader Al Sharpton, NAACP President Derrick Johnson and attorney Ben Crump were in attendance as were leaders from law enforcement groups, including the Fraternal Order of Police and International Association of Chiefs of Police.

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