I think the best solution I've heard is the one where instead of taxpayers paying out for the misdeeds of the police, police are required to carry something like malpractice insurance. When these awards are given, they come out of the insurance pool and that officer's cost of carrying the insurance goes up. Repeated offenders are priced out of the market and can't be police without the insurance. Taxpayers don't have to foot this bill anymore.
Exactly the wrong thing to do. Civil penalties will be never be sufficient to deter bad behavior like this. Letting cops (or rent-a-cops) carry "insurance" will even further shield them from the true costs of their action -- and deaden their inborn capacities for empathy and common sense even further, also.
Simply put, in egregious and utterly indefensible cases like these, law enforcement officials need to held criminally liable for their actions. That means: jail time; felony convictions (where appropriate); and temporary or (where appropriate) lifetime bans on the privilege of serving in a similar capacity, in either the public or private sphere.
And in this case of what happened to Arnold Black -- all of the above (including a lifetime ban) would seem to be entirely appropriate.
>That means: jail time; felony convictions (where appropriate); and temporary or (where appropriate) lifetime bans on the privilege of serving in a similar capacity, in either the public or private sphere.And in this case, all of the above (including a lifetime ban) would seem to be entirely appropriate.
Well said. They're citizens working for citizens. They should be shielded no more than a first time offender guilty of ANY violent crime.
Exactly. Imagine what would happen to you or me if we detained and locked someone in a room for five days.
On a similar note, many states have pretty hefty consequences if you leave a pet in a vehicle and it dies. Every once in a while a police officer will leave s service dog in a vehicle and it will die and the police want to exempt themselves from the same consequences...
I think we should do the opposite: ban municipalities taking out insurance for judgments arising out of intentional torts, because that creates a moral hazard that insulates voters from the consequences of their decisions.
Voters have a lot of say in their communities' police leadership. In East Cleveland, where this happened, the police chief is directly appointed by the mayor. In many places, sheriffs are directly elected. If voters were on the hook for paying for the negative externalities of the "tough on crime" policies they support, they might make better decisions.
Many of these horrors are individual failures. If you believe it's a minority of cops who do such bad things, making them buy insurance or bonding would wash the thugs out of the system. It would become uneconomical for them to continue. The same with prosecutors and other people in the CJ system: Open them to tort claims, but make them pay up front, by requiring bonding.
East Cleveland has a tenuous relationship with financial solvency and if GE ever shuts down the facility at Nela Park the municipality will probably be taken into receivership by the state.
I've seen similar thoughts, but where the backing product was the pension fund. In addition to the benefits you already listed, because the pension fund is communal, it encourages police officers to keep their brethren on the up and up, as the results of misconduct are now distributed amongst the entirety of the police force.
On the flip side, I worry that it would have the opposite effect of thickening the blue line, as officers are more and more incentivized towards cover up.
Exempting whistleblowers from the negative effects might be a great way to mitigate the ill effects, but we're not generally great at whistleblower protections.
I think the only way to affect change is to have it tied to pensions, so that there is an internal incentive for them to behave. As it exists, any 'fine' levied on police just gets shuffled over to taxpayers (and an insurance policy would be no different -- just another cost of keeping your children safe).
Have the police individually get policies. That way they have skin in the game to not be a complete fucktard.
This way you reward officers that don't have issues and penalize the ones that do. Suddenly transferring a bad officer to make him someone else's problem doesn't work as he wont be able to get "jerk insurance".
And where do you think the money for the insurance will come from?
The police is funded via public money, malpractice insurance is one of the major causes why US healthcare is so expensive.
Police officers are already paid very low wages compared to what they risk, they already fail to attract high quality individuals as federal law enforcement is usually where you end up if you are both willing to serve and qualified forcing individual officers to carry insurance that can cost them 1000's each year won't help that, and even if it would happen the police unions would just bake it into mandatory raises.
Police should be held accountable for their action by the courts not by the insurance companies.
I totally agree that police should be held accountable for their actions though. A pet peeve of mine is the display of their "gang colors" (black/blue/black) stickers on their cars - as if they should get special treatment.
I think it makes sense for there to be a police malpractice insurance that's priced at a per officer basis. However more decorated officers with more experience, training and less wrongdoing in their career should be insured at a significantly lower cost. This would provide a financial incentive for police stations to be more stringent in terms of recruitment.
I actually wonder where most police officers end up working, we all have the picture of large police departments like LAPD, CPD or NYPD where one can have a long and distinguished career with medals and awards but I'm leaning on the fact that most police officers in the US are employed by small police and sheriff departments that don't exactly have the same resources as the NYPD.
Police, EMT's and Firefighters are underpaid globally, and in the US somewhat especially and the US police has somewhat a long history of potential abuse by the police (tho we do need to take it's size into account), I don't think that what is effectively a tax on police officers would result in any beneficial results.
This is not that much different than paying teachers based on standardized test scores which is a policy that to outsiders seems smart but once you dig even a little under the surface you realize how idiotic it is.
Malpractice insurance will do nothing but to drive even more people away from law enforcement, it will also actually hinder the investigative and disciplinary process regarding true abuse cases because insurance companies love nothing more than settle.
Malpractice insurance for cops will turn any abuse complaint be it true or false into a standardized pay out process just like virtually any other insurance claim out there, yes there will be some investigation by insurance adjusters but like in most cases it would be superficial and just for due diligence and not for the truth.
Malpractice insurance makes as much sense as privatizing the police force, the police must be kept public because that whom they serve, they do not protect the state, they do not protect the city, they serve the people and that's what make them different from the military and other law enforcement organizations.
My honest thoughts? It's a great idea which (like most great ideas regarding police reform) will never, ever happen because of opposition from police unions.
The two words are generally understood. The term might currently only be used by one industry. The term can be used by any industry. Malpractice isn't industry specific nor is insurance.
Most cities buy insurance to help them endure situations such as this. It turns out that East Cleveland did not obtain any liability insurance that might ordinarily cover them for this. I guess they figured they couldn't afford the insurance (because they're already having serious budget problems).
Would we ever exhaust the pool of qualified officers? I like the idea of the taxpayers not footing THIS bill. But would the individual officers be paying out? or the entire department? I'm assuming the officer would be liable for their own insurance.
The difference is a single police officer would have personal responsibility similar to the way any driver is careful not to cause damage to there's on the road. The city simply rolling out for settlements means officers never feel the heat for malpractice
<The difference is a single police officer would have personal responsibility>
You're speaking of private insurance, then. If you were an insurer, would you offer such a policy at a premium low enough for public agencies to justify buying? And even if so, I see a lawsuit risk there: "This agency must have known that Officer Dicey was a ticking time bomb -- they even took out an insurance policy on him!" How do you think your average American jury would react to that?
i think the idea is a police officer would have to carry their own malpractice insurance as a prerequisite to the job. they pay for it because it's mandated.
l Daniel Chong[0] was held five days in a very similar situation in California. He only got $4 mil. Younger guy, drank his own piss, broke his eye glasses and wrote 'sorry mom' on his arm when he thought he was going to die. Kidneys were close to shutting down when they let him out. Makes me sick and angry. Stories like this are why people hate cops. No excuse for this.
So, how come none of these officers and their superiors are facing criminal charges themselves? There have to be some limits of what you can get away with while wearing a badge.
How does a traffic stop turn into assault, kidnapping, and false imprisonment. Why has this become a norm? The police have a duty to protects us from these exact crimes. If they commit the crimes themselves and we just pay them on admin leave because they deserve due process too. How can we resolve this? Whats to prevent them from doing it. Jailing them isn't working. We are jailing them right? Will it ever stop?
We're essentially paying for them to commit crime that we end up paying for with settlements. It takes away from other things in the budget. The city pays settlements, now the city needs money for school programs, and the rest of the public services. Police are working overtime. They get stressed out. They beat some guy up and then the cycle starts over again.
The city in turn needs state money, the state needs federal money. They don't have it so they print more up. Somewhere in another part of the country is another state sucking dick for federal money. It's one of the many reasons our deficit is the way it is. At what point do we say enough is enough. We can't keep spending money on this shit. Where is the accountability? I apologize for being crass. But we're literally paying for all of it.
Maybe then the people will vote in a government that cleans up this mess then. In a democracy I think it's fair to hold the people liable when the government they elect does something wrong (however it should probably be based on a pattern of violations, not "one bad apple").
Easier said than done in a country that doesn't value the idea of having multiple parties (and therefore real competition between them). What do you do when one party is racist and the other protects criminal cops? Or worse, if both protect criminal cops, and other government criminals?
Oakland resident here. Oakland's IRV is terrible because we have no idea who will win the election and even as a relatively informed voter I have no idea who most of the 30-ish mayoral candidates are or what they stand for.
I think Oakland shows elections work both ways. One way, we pick leaders who represent our deeply held views. The other, elections force us, the electorate, to face facts about what combination of policies produces a workable governing consensus, and maybe even changes our views to create a consensus. When it comes to Oakland mayor, we just randomly declare a preference in the dark and someone is declared winner with no real way to form a coalition.
California's new top two system on the other hand is great. In liberal or conservative areas we get offered two meaningful choices that reflect the ideological split in the area. That is, do we want to be radical progressives or just pro-business liberals? Alternately are we reactionary conservatives or more just chamber of commerce Republicans? This gives real choice to the general election electorate and helps forge meaningful consensus.
It's fitting in a way. They handed power to assholes and didn't check back.
Though if I read this correctly, some of it will not be paid by the city: "East Cleveland Police Chief Ralph Spotts did not appear at trial. [...] Of the other $12 million in punitive damages, $11 million was found against Spotts himself, DiCello said."
>One of the police officers named in the suit, Det. Randy Hicks, testified on behalf of Black after the city filed a lawsuit against him. The detective corroborated the allegations against himself and the department, according to Attorney Rob DiCello.
It is unusual for a police officer to incriminate himself.
> When asked to produce evidence from the traffic stop in the discovery phase of the trial, the city of East Cleveland told a judge overseeing Black's civil suit that they did not have dash cam video or police reports from the incident, DiCello said
If Hicks hadn't incriminated himself, it sounds like there was no evidence to support Blacks claims.
> Black also testified that the officers put him in the storage closet to hide the severity of his injuries.
Normally if the police injure a suspect, the police charge the injured suspect with assaulting an officer.
> Hicks testified at the civil trial that Police Chief Ralph Spotts confronted him several days after Black's arrest and forced him to resign. Hicks also testified that Spotts encouraged a culture of violence within the East Cleveland Police Department.
Hicks must have been offered some sort of amnesty.
> It is unusual for a police officer to incriminate himself.
I don't know how the system works, but from what I have learnt from TV & movies, I guess took the deal to confess, in exchange for a lighter sentence.
> If Hicks hadn't incriminated himself, it sounds like there was no evidence to support Blacks claims.
We already know Black was locked up, bruised, and who his arresting officers were. I seriously doubt if Hicks testified out of the goodness of his heart.
Uh, how common is it for police to hold people like that? Is there some racist undertone here not mentioned in the article? Or do they just bully people randomly? I know when traveling one should avoid seedier parts of town but now apparently one should avoid the police as well if and when I come visit the states...?
Not very common. But you're right you do not want to be in the seedier parts of town. It's usually random as they pick and choose, they're not stupid. I live in one of the seediest parts in a small major city in the north east. And the police will stop you for being a different color. Yep you guessed it...white. My friends have been stopped multiple times for those exact reasons. or because they have a shitty car, or seemed disoriented because they're not familiar with the one way traps.
Here in the nice parts of the bay area my friend who is black is pulled over once a month because he drives a Lexus SUV, and the police don't believe that it's his car. They ask him "is this your car?" He'll reply, "yes," to which they always ask "are you sure?" Every month.
I can relate. I'm biracial and I'm stopped often with a branded company polo and they're always amusingly surprised to learn I work in IT but live in the ghetto.
This level of abuse is rare. The victim is black. It's possible that this was an example of racial profiling, or that he'd had previous contact with the police. I don't know the whole situation.
The U.S. is a large country, and local police departments are managed by themselves, so there's a lot of local and regional variation, but within the bounds you'd expect from "humans that self-selected for a position of power and authority". It's hard to make a categorical statement beyond "Beware those with power over you."
Would you rather the city had to pay $22 million in damages, and take active steps to prevent their city police from engaging in kidnapping, assault, and false imprisonment?
Or, would you rather the city paid only $220k, and it became the new normal?
> On the other hand, there should be criminal charges against the cops.
In this country, the judicial system cannot police itself. Asking police to police police is an exercise in futility, and civilian oversight is nearly always subject to regulatory capture, as the oversight boards will eventually be composed of people who have a strong incentive to side with the police rather than "criminals".
$22 million is very reasonable. There is no excuse for the behavior at issue here. The amount provides a very strong incentive to the city of East Cleveland to never let anything like this happen again. It puts other police departments on notice that things like this can destroy them.
Unfortunately, this probably will be significantly reduced on appeal.
I haven't check here, but when you sue a state or a city, they usually have stringent rules on service (i.e., a form must be filed with 30 days of incident).
Thoughts?