After years of court battles to get their proposal before voters, supporters of a constitutional amendment to end qualified immunity for police officers and other government workers in Ohio have kicked off their campaign to get the idea onto the ballot.
As she placed a jar of cremains on the lectern at a Friday afternoon press conference, Jenny Rowe announced, “This is Sean Rowe. Forever 38 years old.”
Rowe is the co-founder of the Coalition to End Qualified Immunity. She choked back tears as she explained how she lost her partner Sean when he was fatally shot in a 2021 police standoff.
“Qualified immunity allows tyranny to flourish and we see proof of this every day in the news,” Lowe said. “How can we make the world take serious our agenda to make America great again when citizens are being murdered daily without justice?”
Cynthia Brown of Youngstown is another co-founder of the group. She said volunteers are ready to start circulating petitions to get the roughly 443,000 valid signatures needed to put the issue before voters next year. They need signatures from 44 of Ohio’s 88 counties.
“We are going to do the top counties where we have more voters. So we are going to travel all throughout Ohio," Brown said, adding that she’s heard from many Ohioans who say they will help the group circulate petitions to put the measure before voters.
“We have coalition partners on the right, on the left and in between,” Brown said.
The group said police officers and government officials are often shielded from accountability when they violate citizens’ rights while on the job, and that this amendment would allow those who do so to face consequences.
Proposal will face fierce opposition
The president of the Ohio Fraternal Order of Police, Jay McDonald, said backers of the proposal to end qualified immunity like to portray it as a “get out of jail free” card for police officers. But he said that’s not the case.
“Police officers are held accountable internally. They can be fired. They can be suspended. They can be held accountable through criminal charges which we have seen in Franklin County and they can be held accountable in civil court,” McDonald said. “So I think eliminating qualified immunity is a solution in search of a problem.”
McDonald said his group will work to urge Ohioans not to sign the petitions or vote for it, if it makes it on the ballot. And he doesn’t think police will be the only group opposing it. He said others will also be affected.
“We are talking about the school bus driver. We are talking about public nurses. We are talking about public health people and city council people. Imagine being on city council and trying to make a decision about whether you want to put a stop sign at an intersection or not and being exposed to frivolous lawsuits no matter what choice you make,” McDonald said.
McDonald said ending qualified immunity will make communities less safe.
Only three states have limited the use of qualified immunity as a defense for officers accused of civil rights violations: Colorado, Connecticut and New Mexico, according to gun safety advocates Everytown.
