HARTFORD, Conn — State representatives in the House have passed a much-debated police accountability bill Friday morning just after 9 a.m. The vote was 86-58. The bill will now head to the Senate.
Earlier this morning, a vote was taken on an amendment that would remove the portion of the bill that takes away qualified immunity for police officers. The vote resulted in a tie, 72-72 with seven lawmakers not voting, causing the amendment to fail.
The bill would put in place, implicit bias training, require body and dash cams, prohibit the use of military equipment, ban chokeholds, require officer bystander intervention, and mandate mental health assessments.
The Republican Minority Leader Themis Klarides and Democratic Representative Steve Stafstrom, who helped co-write the bill, both voiced their thoughts following the vote:
However, the sticking point for some had to do with ending qualified immunity. Qualified immunity essentially protects an officer operating within the scope of their duty. It blocks the ability for a member of the public to sue a police officer unless that officer violates clearly established constitutional rights. Ending immunity would change that. And not everyone agrees that it's the right move:
“They’re trying to do something for the right reasons with a bad bill, we’re not against change listen we’d like to make things better. This bill makes nothing better. It’s going to hurt the people it’s designed to help,” said Sgt John Krupinsky, Danbury Police Thursday regarding the bill.
"You can sue them now. You can sue the town. You can sue people involved in it. It is fallacy that they can't be sued if they do something but if they are acting within the scope of their job and their training, that's all we should ask of them," said State Rep. Themis Klarides, (R) House Republican Leader.
But there is also support for the bill and for the ending of qualified immunity:
"For the [officers] that are there, the ones who didn't get the training they needed--the man who stood on George Floyd neck was a training officer--I have to ask what training means in that context," said State Rep. Pat Wilson Pheanious (D), Ashford, Willington, Tolland. "I don't think it's such a burden for towns to hire regulate and manage their offices when they give them a gun. I'm not asking for something that seems unreasonable; it seems prudent, it seems appropriate, it seems like something that needs to be done."
"I'm very pleased that there is money for body and dash cameras. The racial anti-bias training in that bill is great," said State Rep. Christine Conley, (D) Groton, Ledyard.
RELATED: 'Back the Blue' rally held in Hartford as General Assembly take up police accountability bill
The issue brought hundreds of people to the capitol yesterday for a back the blue rally. Many of the police officers from all over the state speaking out against the bill but people in favor of it also showed up to the capitol to show their support.
"If the police officers follow the law, they won't have a problem," said Ivelisse Correra from Black Lives Matter.
“We support the police, we don’t deny that happened to George Floyd or anybody else, but we don’t want to bury every police off over in the country,” said David Lamanna who acted at the master of ceremony during the protest.
