The new year brings the start of new legislative sessions. Across the country, states are taking up legislation to end qualified immunity. In Texas, Illinois, New York, Georgia and California, state and local police reform bills that would end qualified immunity seem like they could really take off as legislatures get into the weeds of policymaking.
At the same time that we see some state-level movement on ending qualified immunity, nationally it is a whole different story. The Trump Administration’s policing commission has released its recommendations. These recommendations include, among other unproven things, that the federal government should protect cops by writing qualified immunity into law. Here at the Campaign to End Qualified Immunity, we know that this legal-loophole not only damages the trust between communities and police, but that good cops are NEVER the ones that utilize the get-out-of-jail-free card that is qualified immunity.
CTEQI, with your help, will keep pushing hard on both the state and federal levels to end qualified immunity in 2021!