Salon: A year after the nationwide protests, some signs of progress - but police are still killing people
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Shifting views found among even the country's top law enforcement officials underscore the most visible impact of the protests. Inimai Chettiar, federal director for the bipartisan Justice Action Network, told Salon the last year has seen "a shift in public opinion" in which "more people are seeing the need for police reform."
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"It's unfortunate that they did not meet the president's deadline, but I think that they're still negotiating in earnest," said Chettiar, adding that she believes the "stars are aligning on qualified immunity."
"It seems promising," she said. "I think that we're closer than we've ever been to reaching a bipartisan deal."
Ending qualified immunity — an opaque term for the near-total protection police officers often have against civil suits over uses of force — would be the "farthest reaching provision of the federal legislation," Hoag said, and would "go a long way toward not just holding law enforcement officials accountable but also changing the culture of policing."
If there are "civil, financial repercussions for an officer engaging in unconstitutional use of force, when someone is held accountable for their actions," she said, "that is a message that you can't keep engaging in these actions because there will be consequences. Right now, there aren't."
But no possible legislation to emerge from Congress will be "something earth-shattering that is going to solve all of our policing problems," said Chettiar.
"I think that it is going to be a first step," she said. "But I think it's really important that both sides come together to show that there is bipartisan support for policing legislation. Up until last year, the Republicans had not embraced policing reform, so it's a pretty big deal for them to come to the table and be doing something even moderate."