Rep. Frye has introduced HB 1017 concerning immunity and indemnity for a civilian who helps a law enforcement officer. Specifically, it provides that a civilian who acts to prevent serious bodily injury to or commission of a forcible felony against a law enforcement officer is immune from criminal or civil liability with regard to such actions. It further provides that the unit of government that employs the officer is required to foot the legal bills for the civilian arising out of such actions.
I can see some policy reasons for encouraging citizens to help law enforcement officers. But, the way I see this playing out is that a citizen sees a tense situation and then, without any training or a lot of good sense, opens fire on a suspect (or what the citizen believes to be a suspect.) They’ve acted in good faith but negligently and, as a result, maybe killed a guy. Now, maybe a town who employed the town marshal the citizen was trying to protect has to foot the legal bill to defend the wrongful death lawsuit. There’s this immunity law that helps the defense, but probably you don’t have some of the other advantages that government has in these cases: no notice of tort claim requirement; it’s a comparative fault rather than contributory negligence situation; there’s no law enforcement immunity.
I can respect the sentiment here, but let’s say I have some concerns.
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