Senate Bill 256

To amend sections 109.73, 109.77, 109.79, 109.80, and 5503.05 and to enact sections 109.748 and 2933.84 of the Revised Code to require the Ohio Peace Officer Training Commission to develop a course to train peace officers in performing their duties without biased policing or status-based profiling and require that peace officer basic training programs include the new training program; to prohibit law enforcement officers and officials from engaging in biased policing or status-based profiling with respect to motorists, bicyclists, and pedestrians; to generally require law enforcement agencies to maintain a policy designed to eliminate biased policing and status-based profiling and to cease existing practices that permit, perpetuate, or encourage biased policing or status-based profiling; to require each law enforcement agency to develop and provide annually to its officers and to officers who engage in biased policing or status-based profiling an educational training program on how to perform law enforcement duties without engaging in biased policing or status-based profiling; to require a law enforcement agency to collect and report to the Attorney General specified information when an officer causes the stop, delay, or questioning of a motor vehicle or bicycle operator or pedestrian, or institutes a search, inventory, or inspection of a motor vehicle, bicycle, or pedestrian; to require the Attorney General to determine and report disparities in stopping and searching that cause a disproportionately adverse effect on particular minority groups; to require any law enforcement agency that the Attorney General determines engages in biased policing or status-based profiling to take immediate remedial action; to provide a civil cause of action for an individual who is a victim of biased policing or status-based profiling; and to permit the Attorney General to seek injunctive relief against a law enforcement agency served by an officer who commits biased policing or status-based profiling.