5 ms·

It's not possible to have checks and balances with cops due to qualified immunity - there is no way to hold them accountable, and they certainly don't hold them

It's not possible to have checks and balances with cops due to qualified immunity - there is no way to hold them accountable, and they certainly don't hold themselves accountable.

HDThoreaun 4y ago
They can be fired, or at least put on unpaid leave.
- ABeeSea 4y ago
  And then get hired one county over. So not really any accountability.
throwawaymaths 4y ago
In theory this is what the second amendment is for. Police raid you house, pump em with bullets. In practice this only works as deterrence -- you always hear of cops confronting drug dealers etc calmly in public places, where they are away from their trove of weapons, whereas no-knock raids and home invasions are for the poors.
- mindslight 4y ago
  It's comforting to imagine applying some justice to these gangs of violent home invaders, but as the second degree murder of Breonna Taylor demonstrated, adding self defense to the equation just makes the bastards feel that their shooting sprees are even more justified. Like sure I can imagine some kind of home defense product that uses a camera and robotic gun to dispense justice in the event of a home invasion, but really we just need to get back to having the rule of law in this country (where the violent home invaders go to jail with the other bad people) rather than thinking that becoming more adversarial creates a meaningful check.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - mrguyorama 4y ago
    Always remember just how utterly silent the NRA is when a legal gun owner gets shot by a cop for having a completely legal gun that the current view of American law says they have every right to own.
    - mindslight 4y ago
      I'll occasionally get paper spam from the NRA. When it contains a business reply envelope, I send back a note asking when they're going to stand up for Breonna Taylor - one of the most important second amendment cases of our time. I know it's futile as they're just corrupt scammers, but their vacuous performative hypocrisy really fucking bothers me. "tHeYRE CoMInG tO tAkE yOUr gUnS!!1!"
- mLuby 4y ago
  > A well regulated Militia being necessary to the security of a free State The second amendment protects organized armed resistance against state-level tyranny, whether external or internal. Can't have a militia of one.
  - mrguyorama 4y ago
    (IMO) Unfortunately the current supreme court (as in, the precedent set like a hundred years ago that still stands) decided that english doesn't work that way. I especially dislike how people will point to the private writings of certain founding fathers to support their 2A opinions, even though what was ratified by the states was NOT those private writings, but rather the very very short amendment.
    - throwawaymaths 4y ago
      The supreme court's reading is actually the only plain English reading that makes sense without altering the words (see sibling comment) or comma placement
  - throwawaymaths 4y ago
    You're misreading: the existence of private, individual arms is what regulates (or if you wish, what necessitates regulation of) the militia (which includes police). There is no grammatical ambiguity.
beebmam 4y ago
There is. One of the best ways to do it is through your city, through Civilian Oversight Boards with the ability to suspend or fire officers that harm the public trust in the police force: https://www.nacole.org/community_oversight_paves_the_road_to_police_accountability https://www.nacole.org/community_oversight_paves_the_road_to... Individual officers benefit from this, too. It keeps the relationship between citizens and police much healthier.
- StrangeATractor 4y ago
  I haven't heard of this working very well in practice. We need to end QI and make the police earn their keep. In general, they've cozied up too close with any potential oversight for a reasonable person to have faith in them being held accountable for misdeeds. (I say this as someone who's been grateful for police presence before)
- cmmeur01 4y ago
  Lmao our city (Louisville, KY) got one of these a while ago and the police department just straight up refuses to cooperate. What are we gonna do arrest them?
- wahnfrieden 4y ago
  Doesn’t work. Try again
cronix 4y ago
It can make it more difficult, but I don't think you can say impossible or we'd never hear of people winning lawsuits for police misconduct. Here's a big one from a few days ago. https://www.cnn.com/2023/03/21/us/philadelphia-police-misconduct-settlement/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2023/03/21/us/philadelphia-police-miscon...
- whitemary 4y ago
  No police were disciplined as a result of this lawsuit. The city just payed the plaintiffs.
  - autoexec 4y ago
    You mean the taxpayers just paid the plaintiffs. No matter how badly police screw up only innocent people seem to pay for it and the burden seems to always fall on the people who can least afford it.
    - athenot 4y ago
      One way to curb this is to make these fines come out of the pension plan for these officers instead of the general budget (ie. taxpayers). This would better align incentives.
    - whitemary 4y ago
      Exactly
belorn 4y ago
The concept of qualified immunity being a road block in this context is a bit weird to me. In my country, the local government is responsible for maintaining and operating a functional police force. While citizen can't sue the individual cops or the local police organization, they can sue the government for the actions of the police force. This also happens fairly regularly, and generally citizens do get compensation when the police makes mistakes. When a mistake is large enough (and costly), there will generally be a new regulation to address that in the future, and in some cases a local politician will have lost enough trust by voters and be forced to leave. Is this impossible to do in the US?
- dwater 4y ago
  Yes, civil suits against government are common and cost cities and other local jurisdictions millions of dollars a year: https://www.findlaw.com/injury/torts-and-personal-injuries/wrongful-death-by-police.html https://www.findlaw.com/injury/torts-and-personal-injuries/w... It's generally not expensive enough to create enough economic pain to break through the 2 party (or 1 party in many locales) political system.
  - mrguyorama 4y ago
    It cannot be expensive enough because it only ever costs taxpayers. Nobody responsible pays or loses anything.
    - belorn 4y ago
      That is how it will always be when someone sue the government or a government branch. Since goverments are funded by tax money, government mistakes, mismanagement and violation of the law will be paid through the same budget as everything else. When people sue a public company, the people who in the end must hold the people responsible will be the share holders. When government are sued, it is the voters that must hold the people responsible. If a local government is found guilty in a court of law and forced to pay millions in damages, the money need to be either from raised taxes or reduced services. Both of those should be strong points for the opposition to gain votes and kick out the people who are responsible. Where I live, when the government is found guilty and forced to pay out it usually also result in the current local leader responsible for the situation being forced out. Mismanagement is not a effective way to gain votes, so if the leader don't step down volunteerly the party may just want to replace them anyway for someone without such baggage during next election. Maybe US politics and the system around political donations makes such results less common?
zajio1am 4y ago
> It's not possible to have checks and balances with cops due to qualified immunity. This is a red herring. Qualified immunity only protects individual cops from civil liability, not from criminal liability. And above all, proper check for police is neither civil nor criminal liability, but independent institution for investigation of criminal and professional misconduct (like police IA division, but independent and ideally under different level of government - e.g. state or federal for checking municipal police).
- LancerSykera 4y ago
  >Qualified immunity only protects individual cops from civil liability, not from criminal liability. Then why is literal theft protected by qualified immunity? https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.forbes.com/sites/nicksibilla/2019/09/17/federal-court-cops-accused-of-stealing-over-225000-have-legal-immunity/amp/ https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.forbes.com/sites/nicksibill...

It's not possible to have checks and balances with cops due to qualified immunity - there is no way to hold them accountable, and they certainly don't hold themselves accountable.

HDThoreaun 4y ago

They can be fired, or at least put on unpaid leave.

ABeeSea 4y ago
And then get hired one county over. So not really any accountability.

throwawaymaths 4y ago

In theory this is what the second amendment is for. Police raid you house, pump em with bullets. In practice this only works as deterrence -- you always hear of cops confronting drug dealers etc calmly in public places, where they are away from their trove of weapons, whereas no-knock raids and home invasions are for the poors.

mindslight 4y ago
It's comforting to imagine applying some justice to these gangs of violent home invaders, but as the second degree murder of Breonna Taylor demonstrated, adding self defense to the equation just makes the bastards feel that their shooting sprees are even more justified. Like sure I can imagine some kind of home defense product that uses a camera and robotic gun to dispense justice in the event of a home invasion, but really we just need to get back to having the rule of law in this country (where the violent home invaders go to jail with the other bad people) rather than thinking that becoming more adversarial creates a meaningful check.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- mrguyorama 4y ago
  Always remember just how utterly silent the NRA is when a legal gun owner gets shot by a cop for having a completely legal gun that the current view of American law says they have every right to own.
  - mindslight 4y ago
    I'll occasionally get paper spam from the NRA. When it contains a business reply envelope, I send back a note asking when they're going to stand up for Breonna Taylor - one of the most important second amendment cases of our time. I know it's futile as they're just corrupt scammers, but their vacuous performative hypocrisy really fucking bothers me. "tHeYRE CoMInG tO tAkE yOUr gUnS!!1!"
mLuby 4y ago
> A well regulated Militia being necessary to the security of a free State The second amendment protects organized armed resistance against state-level tyranny, whether external or internal. Can't have a militia of one.
- mrguyorama 4y ago
  (IMO) Unfortunately the current supreme court (as in, the precedent set like a hundred years ago that still stands) decided that english doesn't work that way. I especially dislike how people will point to the private writings of certain founding fathers to support their 2A opinions, even though what was ratified by the states was NOT those private writings, but rather the very very short amendment.
  - throwawaymaths 4y ago
    The supreme court's reading is actually the only plain English reading that makes sense without altering the words (see sibling comment) or comma placement
- throwawaymaths 4y ago
  You're misreading: the existence of private, individual arms is what regulates (or if you wish, what necessitates regulation of) the militia (which includes police). There is no grammatical ambiguity.

beebmam 4y ago

There is. One of the best ways to do it is through your city, through Civilian Oversight Boards with the ability to suspend or fire officers that harm the public trust in the police force: https://www.nacole.org/community_oversight_paves_the_road_to_police_accountability https://www.nacole.org/community_oversight_paves_the_road_to... Individual officers benefit from this, too. It keeps the relationship between citizens and police much healthier.

StrangeATractor 4y ago
I haven't heard of this working very well in practice. We need to end QI and make the police earn their keep. In general, they've cozied up too close with any potential oversight for a reasonable person to have faith in them being held accountable for misdeeds. (I say this as someone who's been grateful for police presence before)
cmmeur01 4y ago
Lmao our city (Louisville, KY) got one of these a while ago and the police department just straight up refuses to cooperate. What are we gonna do arrest them?
wahnfrieden 4y ago
Doesn’t work. Try again

cronix 4y ago

It can make it more difficult, but I don't think you can say impossible or we'd never hear of people winning lawsuits for police misconduct. Here's a big one from a few days ago. https://www.cnn.com/2023/03/21/us/philadelphia-police-misconduct-settlement/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2023/03/21/us/philadelphia-police-miscon...

whitemary 4y ago
No police were disciplined as a result of this lawsuit. The city just payed the plaintiffs.
- autoexec 4y ago
  You mean the taxpayers just paid the plaintiffs. No matter how badly police screw up only innocent people seem to pay for it and the burden seems to always fall on the people who can least afford it.
  - athenot 4y ago
    One way to curb this is to make these fines come out of the pension plan for these officers instead of the general budget (ie. taxpayers). This would better align incentives.
  - whitemary 4y ago
    Exactly

belorn 4y ago

The concept of qualified immunity being a road block in this context is a bit weird to me. In my country, the local government is responsible for maintaining and operating a functional police force. While citizen can't sue the individual cops or the local police organization, they can sue the government for the actions of the police force. This also happens fairly regularly, and generally citizens do get compensation when the police makes mistakes. When a mistake is large enough (and costly), there will generally be a new regulation to address that in the future, and in some cases a local politician will have lost enough trust by voters and be forced to leave. Is this impossible to do in the US?

dwater 4y ago
Yes, civil suits against government are common and cost cities and other local jurisdictions millions of dollars a year: https://www.findlaw.com/injury/torts-and-personal-injuries/wrongful-death-by-police.html https://www.findlaw.com/injury/torts-and-personal-injuries/w... It's generally not expensive enough to create enough economic pain to break through the 2 party (or 1 party in many locales) political system.
- mrguyorama 4y ago
  It cannot be expensive enough because it only ever costs taxpayers. Nobody responsible pays or loses anything.
  - belorn 4y ago
    That is how it will always be when someone sue the government or a government branch. Since goverments are funded by tax money, government mistakes, mismanagement and violation of the law will be paid through the same budget as everything else. When people sue a public company, the people who in the end must hold the people responsible will be the share holders. When government are sued, it is the voters that must hold the people responsible. If a local government is found guilty in a court of law and forced to pay millions in damages, the money need to be either from raised taxes or reduced services. Both of those should be strong points for the opposition to gain votes and kick out the people who are responsible. Where I live, when the government is found guilty and forced to pay out it usually also result in the current local leader responsible for the situation being forced out. Mismanagement is not a effective way to gain votes, so if the leader don't step down volunteerly the party may just want to replace them anyway for someone without such baggage during next election. Maybe US politics and the system around political donations makes such results less common?

zajio1am 4y ago

> It's not possible to have checks and balances with cops due to qualified immunity. This is a red herring. Qualified immunity only protects individual cops from civil liability, not from criminal liability. And above all, proper check for police is neither civil nor criminal liability, but independent institution for investigation of criminal and professional misconduct (like police IA division, but independent and ideally under different level of government - e.g. state or federal for checking municipal police).

LancerSykera 4y ago
>Qualified immunity only protects individual cops from civil liability, not from criminal liability. Then why is literal theft protected by qualified immunity? https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.forbes.com/sites/nicksibilla/2019/09/17/federal-court-cops-accused-of-stealing-over-225000-have-legal-immunity/amp/ https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.forbes.com/sites/nicksibill...