STEVANTE Clark felt a glimmer of hope when racial justice protests swept the globe in 2020 after the police killing of George Floyd.
His own brother, Stephon Clark, was killed in March 2018 by Sacramento police who fired 20 shots at the young black man in the backyard of his grandparents' home.
Police said they feared he had a gun. But he was found to have been holding only a cellphone.
The 22-year-old's death sparked protests and calls for reform.
It also led to a new and more stringent use-of-force law in California. Yet, no comprehensive change emerged on a national level.
So Clark thought Floyd's killing and those of other black Americans by police in 2020 would finally deliver the substantive criminal justice reform that he and others have sought for years.
But four years later, the journey toward comprehensive policing reform has been fraught with challenges.
Momentum has waned and legislative efforts have stalled, leaving communities, advocates, and families who have lost loved ones frustrated by what they see as a shift away from police accountability.
"You can't honour the life and legacy of George Floyd without passing comprehensive policy and legislative change to prevent George Floyds from happening," Clark said.
"I don't think the Biden administration has been aggressive enough when it comes to this crisis.
"This is not just a black fight, this is for everybody. People have become desensitised to police murder."
Despite the initial surge of calls for change, federal attempts at wide-ranging reform have been mostly unsuccessful.
The George Floyd Justice in Policing Act — which was introduced in 2021 to stop aggressive law enforcement tactics, misconduct and racial bias — has
faced repeated roadblocks in Congress and has yet to move forward.
Efforts to reach a bipartisan police reform deal failed in 2021, with Biden blaming Republicans for the failure.
Among the issues lawmakers discussed were changes to "qualified immunity" laws that protect police officers from some excessive force lawsuits.
Democratic Representative Sheila Jackson Lee reintroduced the bill on Thursday.
Experts say while criminal justice reform efforts in part fuelled the 2020 election cycle, policing is unlikely to be a top issue in the 2024 presidential election.
"Other issues have come to the fore, especially with conflict in Israel and Palestine, with conflict in Ukraine, and the economy," said Jorge Camacho, policy director of the Justice Collaboratory at Yale Law School.
Recent polling data by a non-profit polling firm, African American Research Collaborative, shows that black communities are focusing more on economic issues, like the cost-of-living crisis and jobs.
After Congress failed to pass the George Floyd legislation, Biden signed an executive order in May 2022 that in part created a new national police misconduct database, required federal law enforcement agencies to investigate the use of deadly force or deaths in custody and restricted federal agencies from using chokeholds and "no knock" entries.
Still, a day before the anniversary of Floyd's death, veteran civil rights advocate Reverend Al Sharpton called on Congress to pass the bill.
"The George Floyd Justice in Policing Act fulfils a promise we made four years ago to his and every family of a black man or woman killed by law enforcement."
He said it would fulfil what "we have spent decades marching, protesting, and advocating for".
One of the largest changes that the Biden administration has done in terms of police reform, said Rashawn Ray, senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, was to rescind a Trump-era policy that curtailed the use of consent decrees to address police violence.
Nina Patel, Senior Policy Council at the American Civil Liberties Union, said: "There have been accomplishments on policing accountability, but they have been far less influential than what we would have liked."
She added that policies in states like Louisiana, Arizona and Georgia were making it harder to film police, even though bystander footage often brings cases of brutality to light.
"Our position is that reform is not enough," said Cicley Gay, board chairwoman of Black reform was insufficient.
"We hear firsthand from many families about not only what they experienced, but the lack of progress and in making policy change."
The writer is from Reuters