MONTGOMERY, Ala. — A bill that would significantly expand legal protections for law enforcement officers is expected to be changed this week to address concerns raised by law enforcement organizations and House Democrats, its sponsor said.
House Bill 202, by Rep. Rex Reynolds, R-Hazel Green, is part of Gov. Kay Ivey’s “Safe Alabama” bill package, and would impose higher legal standards for lawsuits against officers, facilitate early dismissal of lawsuits that don’t meet those new standards and automatically stay lawsuits in cases where officers assert immunity.
“This provides both civil and criminal liability protections for law enforcement officers, we’re just simply trying to create a more positive environment so we can recruit and retain law enforcement officers,” Reynolds told Alabama Daily News Monday. “In other words, show them we’ve got their back, as the governor called it, back the blue legal protections.”
The Alabama House Democratic Caucus voiced support for most of the bill package, save for HB202, which it condemned as a tool to “place a bad police officer, who is not upholding his or her oath to protect the serve, above the law.”
Reynolds told ADN that he has been working on a substitute to his bill after receiving feedback from law enforcement organizations. Still a work in progress, he intends on introducing the new bill Wednesday in the House Judiciary Committee.
“With the substitute, we added some language,” he said. “Obviously when I dropped it last Monday, I sent it to every organization I could think of, from the Attorney General’s Office to the (District Attorneys Association), the Fraternal Order of Police, and we got a lot of feedback on the bill. So we wanted to address their concerns.”
Among the likely changes, Reynolds said, would be to include public safety dispatchers under the new legal protections as outlined in the bill, and to clarify that courts must take into account the varied duties and constraints placed on law enforcement officers when making a determination on a case against them.
“We really wanted to reinforce the fact that any other protections under the law would still apply, and this would just supplement the (bill),” he said.
Reynolds also conferred with House Democrats with law enforcement and legal experience, who he said may introduce an amendment to his bill Wednesday in addition to his own substitute.
On the House Democratic Caucus’ outright opposition to the bill, Reynolds said he disagreed with their position, but “respected” their decision not to support the bill.
“I do disagree with the fact that it’s hard to indict a law enforcement officer, it seems like over the last five, six years, we in America have been freely indicting police officers, and we want to change that environment,” he said. “We want to support our law enforcement, but we also, if we have bad actors, we want them indicted and held civilly responsible.”
Everett Johnson, the president of the Alabama State Fraternal Order Of Police, has been a strong proponent of the bill, and mirrored Reynold’s comments concerning criminal prosecutions of members of law enforcement.
“When it comes to House Bill 202, this is a huge step forward in the protection of police officers who go out every day, risk their life, and protect our communities,” Johnson told ADN Monday. “We are experiencing an increase in prosecution of police officers that are out here doing their job, and we have district attorneys that have been aggressive in prosecuting law enforcement because of political pressure by anti-police organizations.”
While the number of law enforcement officers being criminally charged for murder or manslaughter resulting from on-duty incidents has slightly increased in recent years, the number remains relatively low, and the vast majority of officers criminally charged for murder or manslaughter – roughly two-thirds – are not convicted.
The bill would also significantly help with police recruitment and retention, Johnson argued, an issue that has been top of mind for state lawmakers as many of Alabama’s larger metro areas have struggled to hire a sufficient number of law enforcement officers.
“Once officers in departments have this safety and security, then people will be more apt to come be a part of law enforcement,” Johnson said. “There’s a calling for this job, to be a servant to the community, but without these protections, these guys are not going to risk their homes, their families, they’re not going to risk going to prison over doing the job that we’ve called them to do.”
The bill in the House Judiciary Committee at 1:30 p.m. Wednesday.