Photo by Chris DiGiamo.

In the wake of the protests in Baltimore and an ongoing national conversation about police brutality, D.C. Councilmember Mary Cheh has introduced a bill meant to “increase fairness and transparency in the District’s justice system.”

According to a release, the “Police and Criminal Discovery Reform Amendment Act of 2015” aims to:

• More precisely define the misdemeanor of “assault on a police officer” (APO)
• Reform how MPD officers conduct eyewitness identification procedures
• Increase the information available to the Office of Police Complaints (OPC)
• Expand the rules of discovery in criminal prosecutions

Cheh argues that misdemeanor assault on a police officer is too broadly defined, as doing things like stiffening your arms to avoid being handcuffed or holding a door closed when an officer is trying to come through can result in charges.

“We must always provide safeguards to protect our officers, but the law should not be so broad so that nearly any encounter with an officer could be considered an assault,” Cheh said in a press release.

The bill also would reform how police lineups, which are notoriously unreliable, are conducted and expand the kinds of data given to the Office of Police Complaints, which reviews allegations of police brutality.

Cheh said that the bill was in the works prior to the events in Baltimore, but noted that they “highlight the need for these criminal justice reforms.”