5 ms·

That’s all fine but I think what we really need is to hold officers liable for not following the rules. With the advent of body cams this is just barely beginni

That’s all fine but I think what we really need is to hold officers liable for not following the rules. With the advent of body cams this is just barely beginning to happen in the USA, but they still have incredible leeway. Officers should be required to carry liability insurance and if they break the rules their insurance pays the victims and their insurance goes up. It will quickly become too expensive for bad cops to keep working, and switching departments won’t save them.

mindslight 4y ago
Let's skip the focus on individual civil liability and insurance, and go all the way. Cops acting outside of official orders should be held criminally liable for their actions. A cop who beats their spouse can't claim that it's just part of their job, and neither should a cop or group of cops who pepper spray a crowd for sadistic fun. Furthermore, we need to attack the root of the problem - this concept of sovereign immunity - and introduce civil liability for the damage caused by policing even when it's in line with reasonable policies. If a person gets arrested and later is acquitted or the charges dropped, they should be compensated for all the damages suffered as a result of the arrest and prosecution, regardless of the merits of the government's actions. Right now these externalities are funded by a perverse reverse lottery where we just expect the unlucky to bear them, which has caused them to grow without bound.
- TaylorAlexander 4y ago
  Fully agree and well said thank you.
cptcobalt 4y ago
Leading your reply with "that's all fine" effectively dismisses OPs point on their post to point at your argument instead—I don't sense this is your intent, but this is totally a situation where doing both would be completely valid. Officers being pepper sprayed may lead them to use less pepper spray, and also may lead to less incidents where officers should need to be held liable.
- TaylorAlexander 4y ago
  This is true only if cops can be expected to have empathy for the people they would be pepper spraying, and I honestly think that’s overly optimistic. I’m all for pepper spraying the cops, but I wouldn’t want to suggest that is a good solution to this problem. Part of the problem seems to be that cops believe their victims deserve to be punished. They must know the people they tackle and kneel on and beat up are experiencing pain but as we have seen that doesn’t dissuade quite a lot of them from behaving badly. This is why I think that expecting empathy is actually misguided and consequences are better.
ghusto 4y ago
This is a good idea. It's similar to how I need insurance as a contractor, because I can cause literally millions of euros of damage. Well police can cause more than just monetary damage. It's incredibly sad that this is necessary in the U.S.A. though, and perhaps it's only a symptom of the actual problem(s). The overwhelming majority of police are friendly and helpful in the places in Europe I've been (and I'm not white!). EDIT: Heh, just looked up Belo Horizonte. I should have said "Americas" then ;)

mindslight 4y ago

Let's skip the focus on individual civil liability and insurance, and go all the way. Cops acting outside of official orders should be held criminally liable for their actions. A cop who beats their spouse can't claim that it's just part of their job, and neither should a cop or group of cops who pepper spray a crowd for sadistic fun. Furthermore, we need to attack the root of the problem - this concept of sovereign immunity - and introduce civil liability for the damage caused by policing even when it's in line with reasonable policies. If a person gets arrested and later is acquitted or the charges dropped, they should be compensated for all the damages suffered as a result of the arrest and prosecution, regardless of the merits of the government's actions. Right now these externalities are funded by a perverse reverse lottery where we just expect the unlucky to bear them, which has caused them to grow without bound.

TaylorAlexander 4y ago
Fully agree and well said thank you.

cptcobalt 4y ago

Leading your reply with "that's all fine" effectively dismisses OPs point on their post to point at your argument instead—I don't sense this is your intent, but this is totally a situation where doing both would be completely valid. Officers being pepper sprayed may lead them to use less pepper spray, and also may lead to less incidents where officers should need to be held liable.

TaylorAlexander 4y ago
This is true only if cops can be expected to have empathy for the people they would be pepper spraying, and I honestly think that’s overly optimistic. I’m all for pepper spraying the cops, but I wouldn’t want to suggest that is a good solution to this problem. Part of the problem seems to be that cops believe their victims deserve to be punished. They must know the people they tackle and kneel on and beat up are experiencing pain but as we have seen that doesn’t dissuade quite a lot of them from behaving badly. This is why I think that expecting empathy is actually misguided and consequences are better.

ghusto 4y ago

This is a good idea. It's similar to how I need insurance as a contractor, because I can cause literally millions of euros of damage. Well police can cause more than just monetary damage. It's incredibly sad that this is necessary in the U.S.A. though, and perhaps it's only a symptom of the actual problem(s). The overwhelming majority of police are friendly and helpful in the places in Europe I've been (and I'm not white!). EDIT: Heh, just looked up Belo Horizonte. I should have said "Americas" then ;)