NYC council passes bill to limit ‘qualified immunity’ for police

Police reform advocates have targeted such policies, which make it more difficult to sue a police officer.

New York City’s council has passed legislation that would effectively end qualified immunity for police officers in cases of excessive force and unreasonable searches, making it easier for people to sue individual officers. So-called “qualified immunity” policies shield on-duty officers from being held personally accountable in civil rights lawsuits if their conduct does not violate “clearly established statutory or constitutional rights of which a reasonable person would have known”. The legal concept, which dates back to 1960s’ court rulings, often creates an insurmountable barrier for those seeking to hold officers accountable. The policies, which do not apply to lawsuits against local, state or federal government, have become one of the targets of police reform advocates across the country amid months of protests sparked by the death of George Floyd, an unarmed Black man, after an officer in Minneapolis, Minnesota knelt on his neck for nearly nine minutes in May of 2020.