Velshi: Qualified Immunity shields police from accountability

Next week, Representative Sheila Jackson Lee of Texas plans to reintroduce the George Floyd Justice in Policing bill. First passed by the House in 2020, and then again in 2021, the police reform bill has never reached the Senate floor for a vote. One of the major sticking points is “qualified immunity”, a doctrine that was written to protect law enforcement from liability in civil cases as long as they were acting in good faith. But qualified immunity in its current form shields almost any officer from accountability, if they can claim that the way they violated someone's constitutional rights has not been "clearly established" by law.