Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot has quietly lobbied against efforts to end qualified immunity for police officers – a practice that shields officers accused of excessive force and other civil rights violations from personal liability – despite legislative and grassroots support to end it. Documents reviewed by South Side Weekly detailed how Lightfoot and her staff were lobbying against efforts to ban the practice starting last summer. Some Illinois lawmakers have pushed to end the practice amid a national reckoning over race and policing. The reports said her staff has lobbied the office of Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., to convince him qualified immunity was not a barrier to holding officers accountable. She reportedly engaged the city Corporation Counsel to draft an analysis of police lawsuits from 2009 through 2019 in an effort to support the case for keeping qualified immunity.

Source: Fox News May 07, 2021 02:15 UTC