The city of San Bernardino, Calif., wants to shield individual police officers from liability for settlements and pending lawsuits over alleged incidents of brutality and excessive force as it attempts to emerge from bankruptcy protection, the Wall Street Journal reported today. A clause outlining protections for city employees, including its 250-person police department, was buried in San Bernardino’s latest plan to exit bankruptcy protection, which was filed last month. The bankruptcy court judge will consider this request, along with other aspects of the plan, in a hearing scheduled for April 27. The outcome of that hearing will help determine how much longer San Bernardino will remain mired in bankruptcy protection, which it entered in August 2012 after a collapse in housing prices led to a shortfall in tax revenues. Families who are suing the San Bernardino police department filed an objection with the bankruptcy court last week that said the current plan would unfairly “cloak the third-party actors responsible for the egregious conduct.” The city is facing 112 lawsuits that seek compensation for injuries and deaths allegedly caused by its police officers and employees, according to documents filed in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Riverside, Calif. Some police officers were also named in lawsuits that were filed under civil-rights law.
