The Montgomery County Council unanimously voted Wednesday to approve changes to the county police department’s use-of-force policy.

If signed into law, the bill would update the department’s current use-of-force policy with amendments including limits on the use of deadly force, a ban on no-knock warrants—except when involving crimes of violence, and a ban on chokeholds and other restraints.

Councilmember Nancy Navarro hailed the bill as a “groundbreaking.”

“When there is state-sanctioned violence and discrimination, people feel it and that’s why we’ve awoken right now,” Councilman Will Jawando, one of the lead sponsors of the bill, told the council Wednesday.

The legislation comes amid protests around the country and calls for police reform after George Floyd, a Black man in Minneapolis, was killed by an officer using excessive force in early June, and the death of Breonna Taylor in March, who was shot and killed by police in Louisville, following a no-knock warrant. Locally, Hernan and Lilian Palma of Silver Spring sent a notice of claim letter in June alleging that county police needlessly entered their home at 4:30 a.m. on Sept. 13 with a no-knock warrant, held them at gunpoint, and handcuffed them and their teenage daughter.

The first amendment the council voted on would ban no-knock warrants (entering a home without knocking or announcing police presence), except for “exigent circumstances in connection with crimes of violence.”

“Drug possession or distribution would not be allowed under this bill,” Jawando said. “The vast majority of cases for no-knock warrants in the county are for drug possession.”

In 2017 and 2018, out of the 110 no-knock warrants served each year, almost 40 percent of them were for drug possession and distribution.

Montgomery County Police executed a search warrant on the Palmas’s house because they suspected drugs and illegal firearms were being sold there, according to police records the family’s attorneys obtained through a public information request. Police did arrest the suspect of their warrant during the incident—a college-aged man living in a separate space of the Palmas’s home with his mother—and confiscated drugs, ammunition, and money.

Roy Austin, an attorney for the Palmas, said the measures from the council are a good first step but are “irrelevant” to whether or not the family decides to pursue a lawsuit.

“This does nothing to address the personal harm the Palmas faced,” Austin said. “What I would like to know is the training and practices of the department, and the data to show that these policies are working in the way people on the council expect them to be working.”

The council also approved a long list of other amendments to the bill.

The second amendment would ban chokeholds and carotid restraints in all circumstances. Carotid restraints restrict blood flow to the brain by compressing sides of the neck where the carotid arteries are located. Another amendment would ban police from shooting at or from a moving vehicle except in circumstances when deadly force is warranted. The fourth measure would narrowly define striking a restrained individual as hitting forcibly and deliberately with a weapon, an object, or a body part such as a hand, elbow, knee, or foot.

There have been instances of county police officers using excessive force to subdue individuals who were already restrained. Last July, a video surfaced of a county officer striking a restrained man’s head with his knee.

Jawando proposed defining a restrained individual as someone who is under control, not actively resisting arrest, and no longer posing a threat. Councilmembers approved that measure.

A fifth change would prohibit police use of deadly force against a fleeing person in most circumstances. The measures does not include using force as a last resort to prevent deadly harm or bodily injury to an officer or other people.

The sixth measure requires police to protect vulnerable populations “without regards to race, and persons with mental or behavioral disabilities or impairments.” That amendment would require the police chief to write a policy that determines when and what an appropriate use of force looks like on pregnant women, youth under the age of 21, the elderly, people with perceptual or cognitive impairment, and people suffering from medical conditions or mental concerns.

Other measures implement a policy of less-lethal force, remove electronic controlled weapons, such as tasers, from the use of deadly force definition, and exempt the new policy from negotiations between the police union and county.

County Executive Marc Elrich, who voiced support for police reform measures in late June, is likely to sign the bill