A police reform bill is headed to the U.S. Senate after passage Wednesday night by the House on a mostly partisan vote.
The Democrat bill named The George Floyd Justice in Policing Act would bring sweeping changes to law enforcement around the country, but one item causes big concern for the president of Florida's Police Benevolent Association.
"They want to take our Qualified Immunity away, and we're totally against that."
John Kazanjian, who also serves as the President of the Palm Beach and Martin County PBAs, says it would lead to a slew of lawsuits being filed against individual officers.
"So when they take that away, next thing you know I put a set of handcuffs on somebody, they get bruising on their wrists (and) we're getting sued."
He says, in essence, the legislation that's named after the black man who died while in police custody in Minneapolis last May, would wind up defunding the police. That's because, with individual officers potentially facing costly law suits, agencies would have to spend a portion of their funding on lawyers to defend them.
The bill would also ban racial profiling, chokeholds and no-knock warrants, things Kazanjian says are already banned in most cases here in Florida.
Kazanjian says the Democrats passing the bill in the House doesn't surprise him.
"I know how they are with law enforcement. They don't have our backs."
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