LEGAL BULLETINS

This page contains information about topics and court cases of interest to law enforcement.  Select a topic below and click!  All of these issues are critical to your work as a police officer and will help assure your success should you be sued. With this information, you will not only be able to do your job better, but most importantly, if you do become a defendant in a civil suit, this knowledge will help assure that you always receive qualified or official immunity for your acts.  This is the law that a reasonably well-trained police officer should know!   More about that later....

IMPORTANT NEWS FOR ACTIVE AND RETIRED OFFICERS!!!

On July 22, 2004, President Bush signed into law H.R. 218, also known as the Law Enforcement Officers Safety Act of 2003.  This new federal law allows active law enforcement officers to carry a concealed weapon throughout the United States.  It also allows certain retired police officers to carry a concealed weapon throughout the country.  

There is a very serious limitation in this law, however.  When reading the law, you will see that state laws which allow private property owners to post signs restricting the carrying of concealed weapons on their private property supersede this federal law.  Therefore, active officers in their own state may carry their firearm concealed anywhere in the state, including on private property, because the authority to carry concealed is granted by other laws.  Retirees, no matter what state they are in, and active officers traveling to other states may not carry their weapons concealed in a private place that has signs posted prohibiting firearms. 

Here is a link to the full text of the law.  Each police department will have to develop policies and procedures for their own officers and for the retirees from their agency.   More information will be posted here soon.  This bill passed after being introduced for a number of years and failing to win approval.  Until the details are worked out at the KCPD, here is the Legal Bulletin on H.R. 218.

KCPD LEGAL BULLETINS

As General Counsel for the Kansas City, Missouri Police Department, I create Legal Bulletins for Department members to alert officers when new cases are handed down or when legal issues arise of importance to law enforcement.  These bulletins date back many years and can be found in their entirety by clicking below:

http://www.kcpd.org/masterindex/masterindex.html

Then, scroll down to find the section entitled "Legal Bulletins."