Fucking Cops: Volume II

[Minimalist]

That is a reasonable idea.

[The Grand Nudger]

Getting that money from a cop would be like squeezing a stone for water.  They aren't exactly raking in the dough. That might be part of the problem. Policing is done, essentially, by the lowest bidder. You don't go to Denny's for 5 star cuisine, so expecting 5 star law and order out of the same demographic isn't entirely reasonable.

[Minimalist]

Irrelevant.  Right now they have carte blanche to do whatever they want and think that saying "I was afraid" is sufficient reason to shoot an unarmed person.

Anything - and having a judgement filed against you is not a minor inconvenience - would be an improvement.  Right now, they get away with murder and only the taxpayers are on the hook.

[The Grand Nudger]

We'd basically be cutting 20% of any settlement out right off the top.  May as well award the plaintiff 80% of whatever.  Does nothing for them, and I doubt it stops the cops.  It's the administration that has the money to settle the claims, and that's a great incentive for them to hire a better quality officer that wouldn't brutalize the people they serve in the first place.  That there are people in the world willing to brutalize randos is going to be a fact of life regardless of what we do, but our police forces are hiring them rather than protecting us from them.  Setting a number like that allows the administration to outsource their liability, to the tune of 1/5th.    

That, to my mind, shifts the economics in favor of brutality and subsequent settlement over better HR.  It makes it even easier to drop the ball in the screening process and pick it back up later, should the predictable occur...banking on all of the times that it doesn't.   A significant discount on the price of criminal negligence, as it were.

As far as the cops are concerned, throw the book at em, take them for every penny of the settlement they have (fuck some 20%..that's not what would happen to me if I had a settlement levied against me) - absolutely. If they can field 1% the dept covers the other 99%. I just think it's important to accept that our failure, in this, is institutional and not individual. No sense in subsidizing any given police depts fuckups even more than we already do.

(gotta put yourselves into the mind of a real dirtbag fellas, where you and I might see a punitive fine they might see a blue light special - this 20% business would be the darling of corrupt police depts everywhere)

[The Grand Nudger]

-don't even get me started on the "I was afraid" defense.  A non-negligible amount of our fears are irrational almost by default, and so all we've done with that is allow a person to say, in essence;  

"I shot that kid because I'm motivated to lethality by my irrational ticks, and so I shouldn't be held accountable".  

Well why the fuck did we give you a gun and a badge in the first place then? I don't know about everyone else..maybe I'm a naturally fearful person...but I've been full on shaking in my boots terrified more than once in my life, and at least a few times with a gun in my hand.....and I managed not to shoot the nearest black kid because of it.

[Chad32]

The "I was afraid" stuff is bullshit. They'd rather imply that they're pussy little bitches than say they made a mistake and did something bad. Either way they should be removed from the force. You shouldn't be allowed to carry a gun if you're going to fire on anything that looks the least bit shifty.

[Minimalist]

It's the administration that has the money to settle the claims, and that's a great incentive for them to hire a better quality officer that wouldn't brutalize the people they serve in the first place.

In Phoenix - this was just on the news the other day - they lowered the standards and still washed out 2/3 of the class.  Somewhere in the original thread was a discussion of police qualifications.  In Los Angeles the requirement is a high school diploma OR a GED.  Even I was shocked.

[Chad32]

Somewhere there's a cop walking around with only a GED. Not that we didn't already know there was a problem with the country's education system, but you'd think getting an A in social studies, government, history, and civics classes would be helpful in maintaining law and order. At least as a public servant, and not a state sanctioned mafia.

[The Grand Nudger]

In review.....somewhere, there is a frightened GED holder making a princely 32k dollars a year..entrusted to wade into our city streets with a sidearm on his hip and an M-4 in his trunk with the full assurance of his superiors and society that he will never be held accountable for what misery he may inflict.  

Why does -anything- in this thread surprise us?

[Minimalist]

I haven't been surprised in a long time.