§ 44-5-13.40. Property tax exemptions for surviving spouses of police and fire personnel killed in the line of duty. (a) Notwithstanding any other provision of chapter 5 of title 44, each municipality shall exempt from taxation the real property of the surviving spouse of any law enforcement officer or firefighter who was killed in the line of duty, who occupies the real property as his or her principal place of residence. This exemption shall cease if the surviving spouse remarries and shall not be claimed thereafter. This exemption applies to the surviving spouse's principal place of residence without any restriction on the spouse's moving to a different principal place of residence within the state.

(b) For the purposes of this section, killed in the line of duty shall mean a traumatic physical wound (or traumatized physical condition of the body) directly and proximately caused by external force (such as bullets, explosives, sharp instruments, blunt objects, or physical blows), chemicals, electricity, climatic conditions, infectious disease, radiation, viruses, or bacteria. When a law enforcement officer or firefighter engages in a situation involving nonroutine stressful or strenuous physical law enforcement, fire suppression or participates in a training exercise involving nonroutine stressful or strenuous physical activity and dies of a heart attack, stroke, or vascular rupture not later than twenty-four (24) hours after the officer or firefighter engaged in the activity, the death shall be considered killed in the line of duty.

(c) The provisions of this section shall not be applied retroactively but shall only be applied prospectively.

History of Section. (P.L. 2019, ch. 101, § 1; P.L. 2019, ch. 125, § 1.)