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WEDNESDAYS • Sept. 16, 2020
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Richmond & Hampton Roads
LEGACYNEWSPAPER.COM • FREE
Virginia legislature once again votes down qualified immunity reform NED OLIVER
VM- For the third time in two weeks, lawmakers in the General Assembly voted down a measure aimed at rolling back qualified immunity for police officers. The bill, which died twice in the House only to twice be revived days later, hit what appears to be a more permanent dead end in the Senate, where lawmakers from both parties worried about the unintended consequences of allowing more lawsuits alleging police misconduct to go to trial. “It’s a big problem,” said Sen. Scott Surovell, D-Fairfax, who opposed the measure. “I want to do something about it.” But he and other lawmakers from both parties said that as drafted, the legislation would open police officers to petty lawsuits that go beyond the police brutality and excessive force complaints they said they wanted to address. The two Black senators who sit on the mostly White committee, along with the measure’s patron, Del. Jeff Bourne, D-Richmond, urged their colleagues to also consider the consequences of not advancing the legislation. “I’m not the least bit torn,” said Sen. Louise Lucas, D-Portsmouth.
“We have a movement behind us in terms of getting this qualified immunity bill passed. I’m not the least bit confident that if we put this bill off to another session … that there won’t be any number of Brown and Black people who will be killed by police officers by the time we come back.”
Sen. Jennifer McClellan, D-Richmond, recounted a police officer shoving a gun into her 77-year-old father’s back after a neighbor called the police on him while he was watering flowers outside her home. “For too long in Black and Brown communities, the tendency of police
officers has been to shoot first and ask questions later,” she said. “Or to pull a gun and ask questions later.” Law enforcement agencies and police groups have expressed near unanimous opposition to any change in the current law,
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