The George Floyd Justice in Policing Act

I’ve come across a lot of discussion regarding the Justice in Policing Act, and it looks like there is a lot of different information going around. Any bill can get confusing quickly, so I did some deep dive research, and thought it might be helpful to share the highlights and what all it actually covers.

I’ll start out with the obvious: I’m not a lawyer, and I’m not an expert, but yes I’ve read the bill and pulled research from many different types of sources. I don’t pretend to know how every single detail would affect every individual. I welcome your stories and perspectives and would love to hear them.

Also, as to my own bias: I love police officers. I love their families. I am thankful for all that they sacrifice, and I want them to be safe. I can sympathize with how frightening it is to have your husband or wife or parent put themselves in danger every day to serve and protect your community. I also can sympathize with those families who tend to be the victims of police corruption, and who also fear the danger their husbands and wives and parents and kids face when they go out in public. I hate the divide that exists, and I think the best way to keep everyone safe is to build the trust between our officers and the public. I think that the Justice in Policing Act would make great strides in that direction. Alright, lets gooooo!

Qualified Immunity

There has been some concern that this bill will be eliminating qualified immunity for officers. Qualified immunity protects officers (and all government employees) from being personally sued for their actions in the line of duty, unless they violate a “clearly established” statutory or constitutional right. This affects police officers and other first responders obviously, because they have to make split second decisions that may result in life or death for themselves or for members of the community. Many decisions are made on training and instinct. A key factor here is that incompetence is not an exception to qualified immunity. An officer can claim that they were acting under what they felt was the right thing to do at the time, and even if it was a poor decision, their actions can be covered. Another problem with the current wording is that it technically is only considered violating someone’s rights if a court has previously ruled on a scenario. There is a lot of grey area in there, as you can imagine.

Qualified immunity only covers civil cases, not criminal ones. Also it’s important to note that civilians are held responsible for their split second decisions; there is no qualified immunity for doctors, lawyers, or construction workers. They are held completely liable if they cause harm in their respective professions, even if they didn’t mean to. There has been a lot of talk about how if qualified immunity were to go away, “No one would ever want to be a police officer,” so I think that’s important to mention that even though people are held responsible for their mistakes, people still want to be doctors, lawyers, and construction workers.

So here’s the scoop on the bill: It does not end qualified immunity. The bill simply adds an amendment that says it’s not a valid defense to say “I didn’t know any better” or “I thought it was fine.” Officers are still covered, as long as they are following the rules. Specifically it says that you can’t use the following as a defense:

“The defendant was acting in good faith, or that the defendant believed, reasonably or otherwise, that his or her conduct was lawful at the time when the conduct was committed”

or

“the rights, privileges, or immunities secured by the Constitution and laws were not clearly established at the time of their deprivation by the defendant, or that at such time, the state of the law was otherwise such that the defendant could not reasonably have been expected to know whether his or her conduct was lawful.”.

It effectively takes out the argument that they didn’t mean to, or that this scenario hasn’t been specifically addressed before, so I can’t be held responsible.

Federal registry of police misconduct

Another part of the bill would require a federal registry for any reports or charges of misconduct to be reported.

Let me tell you why I think this is a good idea. Some of you may be familiar of the story of Charles Edmund Cullen, the serial killer nurse who they suspect might have ended up killing 400 patients in his life, making him the most prolific serial killer of all time. He wasn’t arrested until 2003, so this happened fairly recently. Do you know how that was able to happen? He was sneaky, and as soon as complaints were filed against him, or he was fired because of suspicious behavior, he simply moved to the next town and was hired by a new facility. There was no reporting system that cataloged if a nurse had complaints filed against them or if they were involved in suspicious behavior. Therefore, all he had to do was stay ahead of the system and not get officially “caught” and he was free to keep killing people.

You may think “Wow, that’s a dramatic example, Mindy” but…it’s exactly the same type of thing that can happen with police officers today. There is no database that houses this information from state to state; every state handles it differently. So you could be written up for misconduct so many times that you get fired in one state, then move on to another state and happily serve in that force and they would have no idea. This is a classic example of why if you’re a good cop, who hates bad cops more than anyone, you should be embracing this wholeheartedly. It will make it so that bad cops have consequences and can’t repeatedly be re-hired with no consequences.

But what if someone gets a complaint filed against them just because someone is bitter? You know what happens? Nothing. I work in customer service, and occasionally someone will leave a bad review. One customer got so mad one time that he filed an official complaint against me. Did I get fired? Nope. I talked it over with my boss, and he totally had my back, because he knows that I’m a great employee and sometimes people just want to take it out on you or have ridiculous expectations. Sometimes I make a mistake and say something less than ideal, or don’t listen as carefully as I should, so I reach out to that customer to remedy the situation. That’s what happens if you have one complaint. If I was getting one complaint a week? Then I’m sure that conversation would go much differently. I don’t have anything to fear from one complaint, because I do my job well.

The biggest concern that I’ve seen over this registry is that an “ex-felon” or “activist” will get a hold of the database and use it to harass an officer. I would argue that this database will not increase that type of behavior at all. An ex-felon knows the name of the officer that arrests him, he’s not going to pull it from some database. Activists can’t access an officers home address or phone number or family’s names from this database; officers will still be protected by the Privacy Act of 1974.

Defund the Police

Will this bill pull funds from police departments? No. There is nothing in this bill about pulling funding and redistributing it, a notion commonly referred to as “defunding the police.” It actually calls for much more training, further equipping officers for those split second decisions. It includes requirements to use funding for body and dashboard cameras, and it does restrict the use of some military grade equipment by police.

Military Grade Equipment

This was an interesting tangent that I went on, because I was curious exactly what this would entail. I have long been wary of the images I see on TV, with officers lined up in riot gear for peaceful protests, wondering if it actually ends up welcoming violence more than projecting a feeling of peace and protection. However, I also wanted to know if it would remove much needed protection for our officers when they are put in dangerous situations. I felt like this deserved a little deeper digging. I’ll try and keep my research as cliff-notes friendly as possible.

It all started with something called the 1033 program, which allowed the military to share supplies with civilian law enforcement agencies. A lot of the supplies that are shared are: ammunition, cold weather clothing, sand bags, medical supplies, sleeping bags, flashlights and electrical wiring. They also offer tactical armored vehicles, weapons, watercraft, and aircraft. It’s commonly used to help smaller (less funded) police departments obtain clothing, weapons, and transportation. Seems innocent enough.

However, corruption set in, and things got out of hand in some places. The issue was brought into the public eye during the Ferguson riots. The images of police militarization made a lot of people (including myself) wonder: why are they dressed like they are at war against American citizens? Is this really necessary? President Obama requested a review of the program, and what exactly was being sent where. There were arguments from both sides on whether it was necessary for police protection, or militarization against citizens on our home soil. Both had valid points, in my opinion and as with most things, it’s not cut and dry.

So long story short, this issue has been cooking for awhile now. So what does the bill actually say? It’s a little complicated; there are parts of it that mention removing a semicolon from the original law and that’s where my eyes glaze over a bit. However, it appears to be implementing reform on how the equipment is sent out; basically just adding in some accountability so we know where everything is going. A lot of red tape as far as requesting supplies, and making sure they are being used properly. Then there is (finally!) a list of items that will not be available for transfer:

 Limitations On Transfers.— (1) The Secretary may not transfer to Federal, Tribal, State, or local law enforcement agencies the following under this section:

“(A) Firearms, ammunition, bayonets, grenade launchers, grenades (including stun and flash-bang), and explosives.

“(B) Vehicles, except for passenger automobiles (as such term is defined in section 32901(a)(18) of title 49, United States Code) and bucket trucks.

“(C) Drones.

“(D) Controlled aircraft that—

“(i) are combat configured or combat coded; or

“(ii) have no established commercial flight application.

“(E) Silencers.

“(F) Long-range acoustic devices.

“(G) Items in the Federal Supply Class of banned items.

This is where I can’t pretend to know every instance where a drone or long range acoustic device might be used by local law enforcement, but I will say I’m relieved that none of the protective gear that they wear is included in this list. I’m not sure where the conversation that ballistic vests are being banned has come from, and I couldn’t find much information to confirm or deny that, other than that I couldn’t find it in the bill above. So…I could very easily be missing it, but it seems to me that people are using fear mongering tactics to frighten friends of mine whose family members are officers, and to be frank, that makes me really angry.

what else does it cover?

You can find a nice concise list here, but it aims to limit the use of unnecessary force in things like choke holds and no-knock warrants, changes the language around when use of force is appropriate (basically only when someone’s life is in danger), encourages use of body worn cameras and dashboard cameras (required at federal level, incentives at state level), and requires more reporting take place so they can establish whether there are patterns of abuse happening.

where is the bill now?

This bill has passed the House (03/03/2021) and was received by the Senate (03/09/2021) but has not gone any further than that, due to lack of Republican support. The bill was actually blocked in the Senate from getting a vote in 2020, and has been reintroduced in 2021. If you’d like to follow it’s progress, you can do so here.