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Commissioner of Agriculture Nikki Fried is implementing policing reforms for law enforcement working within the Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services.

The new policies include prohibiting choke holds, emphasizing deescalation tactics and requiring officers to report instances of excessive force.

“Like so many of us, we saw the murders of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor and so many other Black Americans across our country. And of course the Governor was silent on all of these issues and we saw nothing from his administration,” said Fried. “And so we sat back and tried to figure out what is something that we can do inside of the Department of Agriculture. How do we step up and how do we be leaders?”

Fried also added gender identity as a protected class for OPS employees and created new social media guidelines for department employees, banning racist and discriminatory content.