Qualified immunity: the legal precedent that shields police officers form being held personally liable for excessive force, unless there's a previous court case ruling barring that particular type of excessive force.
In practice, this has protected police officers from facing consequences in an endless variety of crimes they commit – from shooting a ten-year-old child bystander to stealing $225,000 from a pair of businessmen under search warrant to needlessly destroying a family's home with tear gas grenades to, you guessed it, exactly the type of excessive force that killed George Floyd and Breonna Taylor.
Add your name to demand Congress end qualified immunity for law enforcement.
Dozens of murders disturbingly similar to Floyd's and Taylor's have been thrown out in court, the officers free to continue acting disgracefully, simply because qualified immunity established there was no precedent. And an endless string of killer cops may receive the same protections, for the exact same reason going forward.
This may be the law, but it is in now way justice.
If we are ever going to be able to hold cops accountable for their systemic excessive acts of violence against our Black communities, ending qualified immunity is one of the first steps.
Sign here to tell Congress to end qualified immunity – we must be able to hold killer cops accountable.
