This petition requests that Governor Kate Brown passes a "Civil action for deprivation of rights" law similar to how the state of Colorado did. We are demanding that she uses her platform in office to initiate dialogue to the United States House of Representatives.

Qualified Immunity is a judicially created doctrine that protects law enforcement officers from being held accountable for violating constitutional rights under federal law; as long as the act does not violate a “clearly established law.” This doctrine prohibits Americans from suing government officials or holding them liable for their actions. In order to hold officers that use ‘excessive force’ accountable, ‘qualified immunity’ must be abolished immediately.

According to “USA Today" & “Westlaws database,” nearly 57% of cases in the U.S. get thrown out due to this doctrine. This makes it almost impossible for the court to rule in the victim’s favor because the plaintiffs have no cases to reference in which the court has made a similar ruling. During many of these hearings, the court will even admit that the victim's rights were clearly violated but the criteria is intentionally built so that it is extremely hard to meet. This is unacceptable and should not be a deciding factor in any legal case.

We have now all seen the way that officer derek chauvin looked when he senselessly murdered George Floyd back on May 25, 2020. (Based off the grin that he had on his face, it seemed as if he knew that he would be protected under the ways that our laws are currently written.) It is up to us as citizens of Portland, Oregon, to ensure that we are continuing to force policy changes as well as hold certain individuals accountable for their inhumane actions.

Government officials when sworn in are expected to hold themselves to a higher standard than the average law-abiding citizen. We, the people, expect them to operate at a higher standard when both on and off- duty and these officials should not have any concern about abolishing qualified immunity if they do not infringe on some of our basic human rights.

Please take a moment to share this post & continue to spread the word so that we can collect signatures to abolish Qualified Immunity. Although Brown may not be the one to ultimately decide the outcome of abolishing this (as only the U.S. Supreme Court or Congress has the ability to do so), she does still have a seat at the table and can help us in this fight. 

We have been systemically oppressed for too long without justice and so now that we have gained more allies with the #BLMMOVEMENT we must continue to do what is right for our people.  Thanks in advance for your support.