Connecticut Lawmakers Delay Police Use of Force Law

The State House of Representatives is 100% behind the changes in the police "use of force" law but has unanimously voted to delay the law for eight months.

According to the Hartford Courant, the original bill called for new police training rules to go into effect by April 1. State officials determined training 9,000 police officers were unattainable by that date. That date has now been moved to January 1, 2022.

Another issue with the bill was the wording suggested by police chiefs and officers. The original bill stated that officers must have "exhausted all alternatives" before using force is called upon.

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The majority of Connecticut police officers agreed that split-second decisions must be made before firing their weapons, making it nearly impossible to exhaust all alternatives first. The wording in the bill was switched to;

“reasonably determined that there are no available reasonable alternatives to the use of deadly physical force [and] reasonably believes that the force employed creates no unreasonable risk of injury to a third party,”

Other wording that's been amended now states that deadly force could be used if the force "creates no unreasonable risk of injury to a third party". Realistically here is the bottom line. When a police officer walks out the door to go to work, his or her family doesn't know if they're going to return home.