Months after their self-imposed deadline, Massachusetts House and Senate leaders reached a deal on a police reform bill that creates a police certification program and restricts no-knock warrants.
The Senate clerk’s office received a report Monday evening from members of the conference committee, a group of lawmakers appointed to reconcile the differences between the House and Senate versions of the legislation.
The legislation was drafted at the height of Black Lives Matter protests responding to the deaths of Black people at the hands of police officers, including Breonna Taylor in Louisville and George Floyd in Minneapolis.
The bill does not limit qualified immunity for certified officers. Instead, the proposal would limit those protections for officers who are decertified by the Massachusetts Peace Officer Standards and Training commission. It creates a commission to study the doctrine and the impact of limiting those protections for police.
The bill does include a provision proposed by Rep. Liz Miranda, a member of the Black and Latino Legislative Caucus, to ban no-knock warrants in cases where a child or someone over the age of 65 is present.
“The compromise reached, which is intentional in bringing better transparency and accountability to policing in Massachusetts, represents one of the most comprehensive approaches to police reform and racial justice in the United States since the tragic murder of George Floyd,” House Speaker Robert DeLeo and Senate President Karen Spilka, both Democrats, said in a statement Monday night.
The final bill has to be voted on by the House and Senate before it goes to the governor’s desk.
Gov. Charlie Baker filed a bill to create a police verification program that was backed by the Black and Latino Legislative Caucus after months of discussions. Civil rights activists, however, argued the bill was too narrow and paid officers more for meeting standards that should already be required.
The Senate filed a much broader bill weeks later. The House filed legislation that was a more expansive bill than the governor’s but less far-reaching than the Senate proposal. After both chambers passed legislation, lawmakers had to negotiate whether to send a bill to the governor’s desk that limits qualified immunity, bans no-knock warrants when children are home and other provisions that police unions staunchly opposed.
In the end, the lawmakers on the conference committee sent the qualified immunity question to study and limits those protections for decertified officers. Other elements of the House and Senate bills survived: restrictions on no-knock warrants, a ban on facial recognition by most government agencies and officials and authorization for a POST commission to investigate officers accused of misconduct even if they haven’t been charged with a crime.
The final bill bans government officials and agencies from using, possessing or working with any third party on facial recognition technology. The bill carves out an exception for the Registry of Motor Vehicles, which already uses the technology. The proposal also requires the agency to publish data on how often law enforcement officers ask to access the technology.
DeLeo, Spilka and Baker, a Republican, all promised to deliver a police reform bill by the end of session on July 31. But the session was extended as Democratic legislative leaders cited COVID-19 and several major bills that set in conference committee.
One of the main hurdles to getting the police reform bill to the governor’s desk over the summer was the Senate’s efforts to limit qualified immunity protections for all public servants. The House also included a qualified immunity provision, but it would strip a police officer of those protections only if decertified.
“Our approach strikes a balance that will provide greater protections for the rights of all residents through a strong police officer certification process via a new, independent agency, and setting clear standards for training and use of force, while providing a wider range of tools for law enforcement to provide for the safety of the public,” DeLeo and Spilka said in the statement. “While there is still much work to be done, we are proud of the foundation laid by this bill as we continue to build toward racial justice and equity.”
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