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The craziest part is the police defending this action as a “cut and dry” case. Meanwhile the lawsuit this woman just filed will hurt taxpayers and not the corru
by SilverElfin 5mo ago
The craziest part is the police defending this action as a “cut and dry” case. Meanwhile the lawsuit this woman just filed will hurt taxpayers and not the corrupt city officials and police that caused this. We need to ban all forms of immunity - none for cops, politicians, or judges. They need to be personally liable for their actions.
- rightbyte 5mo agoExactly which types of politicians, judges etc would be targeted by liability do you think? The unrighteous politicians? The judges in favour of those in power?
- SilverElfin 5mo agoI mean that when someone files a lawsuit to defend their civil/constitutional rights and wins, the penalty must be paid by the offenders and not taxpayers. For example the police who made the arrest and their supervisors.
- Bilal_io 5mo agoI hear you, but there has to be some balance between full immunity and no immunity at all. The one thing that comes to mind is rich and powerful people, because they have unlimited resources to sue and ruin the lives of cops, judges and politicians, which would lead to these officials avoiding to hold rich and powerful individuals accountable even when they have committed crimes.
- ben_w 5mo agoI'm not a lawyer, but what you're describing sounds to me like an example of strategic lawsuits against public participation, just where the targeted "public" isn't a member of the general public but a public servant: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategic_lawsuit_against_public_participation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategic_lawsuit_against_publ...
- thot_experiment 5mo agoYou're so close! Instead of patching the issue maybe let's solve the root problem of spiky power distribution among humans. We don't need to make sure cops have immunity to prosecute powerful people. We need to not have powerful people. (though realistically speaking yes there's probably some level of procedural immunity that probably makes sense, similarly with business bankruptcies not ruining the people who start the business)
- Ar-Curunir 5mo agoI agree with you, but most people aren’t ready to engage with basic anarchist arguments
- thot_experiment 5mo agoI don't know if anarchy helps in this situation, I actually think you need robust social systems with buy in from citizens to prevent the natural accumulation of power. The fundamental problem is that there's a diminishing cost to acquiring power as you acquire power, this relationship should be inverted. The more powerful you are the harder it should be to get more powerful. This is basic engineering, you don't want runaway feedback loops, the underlying system is unstable so we need a control system.
- p1esk 5mo agoWe need to not have powerful people What does this even mean?
- queenkjuul 5mo agoMake currently powerful people less powerful and currently powerless people more powerful. C'mon, HN users forgot how to think? Forgot to ask Claude?
- p1esk 5mo agoTo do that you first need to become more powerful than those powerful people, right?
- mcdonje 5mo ago"would"? There is currently a disparity in how rich and poor people are policed. I get the point that there should be some limited immunity so they can do their jobs. Debatable, but worth the debate. The argument about the repercussions of eliminating immunity is logical. It just seems like one of those things where there are multiple factors contributing to undesirable outcomes, and that makes it necessary to talk to experts.
- jghn 5mo agoThese lawsuits need to be charged against the police pension funds, not the city coffers
- Bilal_io 5mo agoI agree with you
- thot_experiment 5mo agoIt's absolutely not the slightest bit crazy if you've paid attention to how cops behave at any point in the last history of the country. 100% agree about personal responsibility. You must understand that when the cops says that oversight means they can't do their job, that means they view their job as bullying, harassing and killing citizens, so yea, we should put a stop to that. 1312
- ggoo 5mo ago> It's absolutely not the slightest bit crazy Imo, speaking like this normalizes their behavior - it was crazy then and it's crazy now.
- p_j_w 5mo agoGP isn’t entirely wrong, our governing apparatus has made this something to be expected.
- Rekindle8090 5mo ago[dead]
- Bender 5mo agoI will not put the blame on the bobbies, that's too convenient. Someone had to order them to do this. That's who needs to be permanently ousted from all levels of government and their voting rights rescinded.
- abofh 5mo agoNobody has to order people to do anything if it's in their self interest. Yes corruption flows downhill, but until they flip, just following orders isn't a defense.
- Bender 5mo agoJust following orders of course does not excuse anyone but I would rather not play whack-a-mole. That is how they expect us to play "The Game" by throwing one of their tools under the bus. I prefer to work my way up the chain of command first and find the head(s) of the snake. Sure, punish the cops but don't let their corrupt chain of command play The Game otherwise we all just lost and the problem just repeats with new tools.
- thinkingtoilet 5mo agoJust more actions from free speech loving Republicans. Exactly like that guy in Tennessee who got $800k.
- nozzlegear 5mo agoIn my experience (I sued my town for violating my first amendment rights), the city will have insurance that will cover any damages or settlement they have to pay. Their premiums will likely go up, but the impact to taxpayers is probably minimal.
- sirsinsalot 5mo agoPerhaps in the first order, but when premiums go up and go up across all policies due to the acceptability of litigation... Everyone pays eventually. Its a bit like saying driving dangerously is OK because you have insurance. Until everyone drives dangerously and insurance is sky high for all. That said, they should be sued.
- casey2 5mo agoEven making them pay their own lawsuit insurance premiums would be enough to stop 90% of abuse. No change will happen until cities stop using police revenue for discretionary spending.
- z3c0 5mo agoNazi Germany wasn't chaos, just a lot of people following "cut-and-dry" protocol.
- crnkofe 5mo agoThis entire debacle weirds me out. Surely the police is aware of the water issues. They drink from the same tap as the locals do. What would a sane person call arresting people that publicly call out that your water supply is obviously contaminated?
- georgeecollins 5mo agoThat would not necessarily be the case in my town. We have police who don't live in the county and fireman who don't live in the state. (Los Angeles)