New Ohio bill would limit qualified immunity for police officers

Ohio - Canton House Representative Thomas West is pushing for a new house bill that would allow for police to be sued over some uses of force, which could include up to five percent coming directly out of the officer's pocket, up to a maximum of $25,000 of the settlement. West believes this will ensure more accountability.
"What this legislation does is it holds officers liable without any blanket protection of qualified immunity," West said.
"Qualified Immunity" is what protects an officer if they are acting "under the scope of their authority." It does not protect officers from being criminally charged or disciplined.
"If an officer is being reasonable in his actions, and following his training and guidance in the law then they can't be held personally civilly liable for being wrong," Ohio Fraternal Order of Police Vice President Jason Pappas said.
However, West feels victims should be able to seek justice by filing a lawsuit.
"...Lets officers know that they can think twice about you know their actions when they are at a scene so that they can be held liable," West said.
Pappas said thinking twice is not how officers are trained and could cause new problems.
"It'll cause officers to slow down," he said, "It'll cause them not to react. It'll have less of an effect in the community on crime because they won't be proactive and quite frankly, the cost of law enforcement will go up significantly...the wages that an officer has to earn in order to buy insurance premiums."
Both West and Pappas agree de-escalation training and more funding are substantial in the fight towards police reform.
"Officers don't get paid enough," West said, "I can say that all day long twice on Sunday. I definitely support more resources going to the police, but I also want to say let's make sure our system is designed to serve the communities at its best capacity."
Pappas also said me he's working with leaders to establish a database to track officer misconduct so police termination can be shared with all departments.
Representative West said the bill will be introduced in the coming weeks.