Why Bad Cops Aren't Punished: The Case Against Qualified Immunity 

^This. We do something wrong, we pay out of our pockets. The police do something wrong, we also pay out of our pockets because it comes from taxes.

No. Make them pay out of their asses!

I mean, qualified Immunity doesn’t make sense for people not in an office. However people in office, such as the president, should have it since without it they could have their term locked up in systems of law. They could just hit them with suit after suit and the person in office would have to spend their entire term in the court.

@@OneLostTexan how soas long as they don't break the law they are safe

Chris Cahill, well they don’t even have to break the law, being taken to court doesn’t automatically mean they are guilty. It still wastes their time and they will never have even been guilty.

To some degree I might agree to something like this existing. However its routine abuse means that abolition is prob the only way forward. If officials reject review, improvement, professionalism, responsibility, accountability and the community. And cannot challenge a toxic culture that is harmful to the community.

It doesn't . No law was ever made for it . It was created by the courts in 1982 to help Reagan's war on drugs . Prison population went from 500k to 1 million in the 1980's .

Get some real work done. End the Grand Jury.

Yes, those two things would fix many of the problems.

Show me a liability insurance that a police officer can afford. Doctors and police are on totally different ends of the spectrum on this. Qualified immunity is needed in a job that rides the find line that law enforcement does

@@brianfox8117 Pay the officer a nontaxable stipend to reimburse fully for liability insurance premiums, but not any increases if there are claims against his policy. That, along with body cams, will incentivize him to behave.

@@outdoorsguy so there are a few things that won’t work for this and the reason the Supreme Court will not hear the issue out. These cases cost millions and millions of dollars, after one incident that officer would no longer be able to work causing huge hesitation on the job to actually perform their lawful duties. And not allowing law enforcement to make those split second decisions would result in injuries to officers or the public.

You got that right. Operating a legal fiction based off of barratry and fraud.

It is obvious something is going to change one way or another.

also make police a professional profession

@Lewis C. , That would be the ultimate goal.

Privatize the police

I agree with everything here. Listen to the caller in this video --> ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-7EclQ2GT-tM.html

And pray tell which department hired men of your quality to be "PO-lice-men"?

Jesus they tortured and tried to kill me

Yes.

so many people who represent people working for the government are going to be against such a ruling. Everyone who does business with govt workers will need to also not support their partners in overturning it.

I don't know about this comment. Talk to that Dallas cop who has been prosecuted for shooting that guy in his apartment. Doesn't appear qualified immunity worked for her!

@@richardhutchinson651 That is rare. Occasionally they have to hang one out to dry to make it look as if they're being open and fair.

@@richardhutchinson651 this comment reminds me of that presentation to some city council meeting in NY I think where the guy just grabbed snow from outside and said “If global warming is real then how come it’s snowing outside” Seriously.. this is a major blind spot in your current form of thinking. I hope you’ve grown enough mentally in order to see the irony in this.

QI=obstruction of justice, but can lead to police brutality

I would be interested to hear your theory on why qualified immunity should be abolished

Same with Nancy Pelosi and the Clinton’s. It’s sickening.

So the DA the asshole who supposed to charge the cops.

Except me, because I'm really snazzy.

Yup. Judgement calls should not distort the law.

I'd like to get you to expand in that comment if you wouldn't mind.

Exactly

But then cops would constantly be getting sued

Immunity is an imbalance of rights. The cost of the imbalance of rights will come to a head from time to time like it is right now. This goes for police, District Attorneys, anyone.

@@jdhakes1 who cares if there's an imbalance if it is rarely an issue. It's like BLM and the media complaining about cops killing black when that rarely happens, saying we need to get rid of police altogether and all this insanity. Meanwhile way more black people (probably mostly kids) die of accidental drowning and no one even mentions it. No one is out saying we need mandatory swim lessons for children or doing PSAs about watching your kids more closely around pools. There are about a billion issues more important and pressing than a small handful of corrupt cops out of the whole country.

John Hackly There is an imbalance of rights because there is an imbalance of responsibility. The police move toward conflict and volatile situations. Of course they will be more likely to encounter situations that are not only difficult to sort out, legally speaking, but changing rapidly from calm to violent. If citizens were required to do what police are, you better believe they would demand some qualified immunity.

@@Individual_Lives_Matter they don't understand because it's easy to bitch from the safety of your room. Most libertarians are just that, people who have never encountered a real issue.

@@Individual_Lives_Matter no one should be exempt from the law, no politician nor authority. The rise of the police state should be concerning for everyone. I'm not one of the idiots who want to disband the police, but we certainly should limit their authority and immunities. Too many times bad cops are protected, why should they not have to face the consequences of their actions?

I agree with that 100%. You are the first person I've heard this from.Shame it won't happen without blood.

The politicians and the police are the bugs. A cop is a bad bug no matter what.

True,didn't notice it which is proof it was good!

I don't want police reforms. I want black people and anarchists to be held accountable for commiting crimes. The police aren't the ones burning down businesses and assaulting people in the streets.

@@user-fb8ee7ec8e police are assaulting people in the streets though dingbat. You are on that ultra partisan media for smooth brains.

@@nickrioz @Fretchen gets it. Dude you're so brainwashed. Police brutality is such a rare issue it's kind of ridiculous people take it seriously. You are just so naive you've been fooled by criminals who want to destroy law enforcement so they can get away with crime and terrorism. If the problem here is actually blacks getting killed why isn't anyone flipping out about the many more blacks who die of accidental drownings every year, calling for pool reform and demanding mandatory swimming lessons. It's because swimming lessons won't help criminals and anarchists escape justice.

Jesus ok guys. Don't get me wrong, I definitely am not trying to ignore the dumb burning, looting, and violence. That's why I said "But no, we have to listen to the mob in the street...". That was me acknowledging the stupidity of some of these rioters. But that's not the point of this video. The point here is to bring lasting police reform that might help us hold the bad cops accountable without hurting the safety or ability to do their job of the good cops.

Facts

I think that sentences is saying the opposite of what you meant

You can already sue their department or their city for damages. Look at the multi-million dollar payouts that happen every year in NYC.

>but we don't want frivolous lawsuits either That's why you USA should adopt English rule aka Loser pays.

Make it the same as doctors with malpractice insurance. We could have police malpractice insurance, that way the bad cops will be priced out of the market by insurance premiums. You could also have a year by year decrease in premiums for the good cops.

@@jamesford2942 but scammers still file fake lawsuits hoping to win big. So even good cops who never broke the rules can be hit.

Maybe we should just treat all people the same. No "special powers" for anyone. Insurance against police harassment sounds good but only if their bosses pay for it.

@Ken MacDonald You are an uneducated fool. But you sound like you're smart enough to understand it though. You're just misinformed and way off the mark(don't feel bad, most folks are). Teach yourself what a Grand Jury is. Then realize WTF is really going on. Bad cops are not punished. There's no way to punish them...CRIMINALLY...LIKE WHEN THEY BREAK THE LAW!!! LIKE WHAT THIS IS REALLY ALL ABOUT!!! BTW everything about that cop shooting that dog was BAD and WRONG. It was not an accident or excusable in any way. Should not have been where he was, or doing what he was doing. No investigation or evidence required(plenty of witnesses). Don't be a dumbfuck. Got fired? That's all? And you're fine with that? Somebody oughta shoot your ass so I can say "that guy needs fired". You can't fucking be serious. Know what happens when you shoot a police dog? MURDER 1. The dog is considered an officer of the law. Sound fair?

Ken MacDonald you are wrong. The politicians wrote a law, and then the Supreme Court erred by making up qualified immunity out of the law that was written. The justices, instead of relying on the text of the law as written, decided to find something within the law that just wasn’t there.

Great comment Marluxia!

@@MetalMasterdom You can't tell if a dog is friendly or not

@@juanmunoz7729 Maybe YOU can't. Most folks can. As a law abiding citizen...you aren't allowed to break into someone's fenced yard and shoot their dog. PERIOD! I'm not sure what makes you think a cop has the right to do it...UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES! I am sure I don't give a fuck what your excuse is. So you can save it.

That is absolutely incorrect.

@@wm.courtney9114 That may not be the intent, but it seems to be the real world effect.

@@wm.courtney9114if they know the law and are trained in the law then why do they need qualified immunity?

In this case it is definitely one problem causing another.

Well if a judicial system is "making law", then that's a problem in itself. Only the legislature can do that.

What to expect? Idiot politicians make the decisions.

Yes. This is a good case against judicial activism.

@@NomadJournalistNews The judicial system interprets the law, and did so perversely.

Diplomatic Immunity is there for a whole host of other reasons..

Now that really sounds like a threat of violence directed at the Judiciary. If you were to try that with a cop, well one less skid-mark to deal with.

or maybe, if you're asked by the society to daily enter situations where making mistakes is almost inevitable, you need immunity from all but the most obvious mistakes, or you won't find people to do that job?

Alex N great point. That's why I can't take a hard stance on this. Both sides are compelling.

Very late reply, but BLM is made up of Democrat partisans. They believe in their party like a religion. Same for Republican partisans.

Yes, good old fashioned pessimism. That's a big help.

SykoEsquire I would pay to see that happen 😂

in other countries you need several years of academic level education (mostly law) for the higher career path (that means starting detectives and above) so yeah... not a bad idea. Why do you think your police should not be better at their jobs? In germany, a country of 80 million fewer than 20 people were shot by police in 2019 (that being a bad year) and that includes suicides and accidents with service arms. Even if we assume higher gun proliferation and violence in the USA the US should not top out around 1000 by comparison

@@mangalores-x_x While normally in RU-vid comments, I look do drop tongue-in-cheek quips, it's hard for me to organize stuff that should be on a thesis paper or a stage debate, so forgive me is my context isn't fully fledged, incomplete, or oversimplified. That out of the way, absolutely cops should be better at their jobs. Everyone, no matter if it's employment related or not, should be looking to improve their situation. Though, I would argue there just are way to many variables to make a unified one-size-fits-all policing. And as an aside, as it stands at this moment, the onus should be more on society not being shitty people, to not have interaction with law enforcement in the first place, not so much how the cops have to address these situations. Though, egregious misconduct and outright incompetence should be punished, and in these cases qualified immunity doesn't even apply. But cops in their respective communities aren't interchangeable. A cop in places like Chicago or NY are going to have to be more rugged, as the populace tends to be a little more rugged. As opposed to a cop in the middle of bum fuck Idaho. They encounter way different things and likely have vastly different skillsets, yet they serve the same function. But they are not interchangeable. An Idaho cop, isn't equipped in any sense of the word to police places like Chicago or NY, and the Chicago and NY cops would be considered to be a bit over-the-top for Idaho policing purposes. They just aren't interchangeable. It's not like being a teacher or an EMT, where practices generally carry you wherever you can hang your hat. On that note, and speaking to qualified immunity type measures, doctors and paramedics probably "kill" more people (because they are not perfect) and are generally still allowed to practice, assuming nothing they did was grossly negligent or egregious, and courts throw out lawsuits all the time, because these medical professionals were doing what they were trained to do and operating in good faith. A doctor has arguably more education, well beyong most cops, yet they end up "killing" way more than cops, so why can't a cop get the benefit of the doubt when they were doing things by the book, or acting on split second decisions? Going back to the onus, society has failed police, not the other way around. Another aside, and this I'll admit is ad hominem but be perfectly honest. Would you feel comfortable with that beta male professor from the video to come save the day if shit hit the fan? Do you think he could perform everything a cop is expected to do flawlessly, and not just writing tickets? Hell, I'd like him to just go through judgement shooting scenarios, where he has to decide when and if it's ok to shoot on split second decision making. And of thise scenarios if he ends up "dead" from poor decisions. And if he makes a bad decision but meant well, if he is still ok with being hung out to dry, with 20/20 hindsight. He may be a good bookworm but I bet you paychecks that his practical application skills of his knowledge, under stress are all fucking useless. I also bet, due to his education level, policing is probably beneath him, so you will hear him leacture all day about something he can't even do himself. Sorry for the tangents and format (and typos), but that's the gist of it, sure things could be better, but neutering and gutting police ability to do thier job is far more detrimental to society at large, of course in my opinion. If a cop needs to second guess everything and look at situations with 20/20 hindsight, good luck getting them to respond to critical incidents. They just aren't going to take the risk at dying or having their lives ruined. But now I have come full circle again, I am not worried about cops as a law abiding citizen, figure out how to achieve more lawful conduct by citizens than trying to crufiy cops after they address the societal cancers.

Doctors have to have insurance. Maybe the police should carry individual insurance too. If they're uninsurable, they can't work.

nick their practice does but individuals have the same protections.

250,000 per year die from medical mistakes. With policing, maybe a whole dozen are killed due to mistakes? Is it right to sue a nurse who doesn't sanitize your IV and kills you with a central line infection? I'm just adding to the conversation, not agreeing or disagreeing.

The hospital the government function in the same capacity here, they assume the risk on behalf of the individual. To the individual actor, there is no functional difference in type and extent of protection. As for the idea that the police are "to violent", that is statistically absurd and beyond that there is a serious functional problem since there is already a nationwide shortage of police officers in the US. This is nothing more then ugly ethnopolitics. When Tony Timpa died under even worse circumstances last year, there wasn't even a peep from the same absurd people screaming bloody murder now.

Who would give them strike? Bad cop + police brotherhood= bad police as whole. Good cop+ files complaint against bad cop= getting kick out of group.

"We have to keep cops above the law or taxes will go up."

Also no knock warrant!

No, if you can't handle the heat, get out of the kitchen. Doctors hold the principle "Do no harm." Why should police not hold the same when dealing with life and death as well?

I guess cops will have to figure out how to do their jobs differently. End the war on drugs and cop's need to interact with the public will be reduced by at least 50%. That should help them out quite a bit.

... But if you watch the video the real Qualified Immunity part was only enacted in 1982, so how did they manage before that? No-knock warrants is also a rather recent thing, that they managed without aswell. To pull someone over when you suspect a DIU (Erratic driving or anything else) is not a crime. If you look at the issue internationally, in nations where cops need to go to school for 3-4 years cops are not allowed to break the law, since... They have literally studied the law to the extent that they would be para-legals here.

No other country in the world has qualified immunity. Just do the police work like the UK or Germany. Works perfectly there.

Qualified immunity is repugnant to the entire concept that is rule of law, for whomever is hiding behind it. If those who swore to up hold the rule of law (unelected government agents, cops, DAs) are not bound to follow it by the same means, and can act with impunity when disregarding those laws and often our rights; it is a crystal clear example of tyranny.

Too many prosecutors abuse their authority for political gain at the expense of innocent people. Abolishing prosecutorial immunity is an idea that has been long ignored and is long overdue.

Exactly the opposite would happen. More professional people would be attracted to a more professional organization. As it stands right now too many bad guys are attracted to having a badge and gun who know that they can act out their aggressive behavior without consequences.

By "proactive policing" are you implying you want police to harass citizens to stop crimes from happening, or did you mean something else? Also, do doctors cease operating on people for fear of malpractice lawsuits? Do soldiers stop fighting for fear of war crime charges? No, cops wouldn't stop doing their jobs if they were held more accountable, nor would there be a shortage of police, especially for a government job with as many benefits as it has with no qualifications.

Patrick Rubino, of course there would be absolute chaos and anarchy in the streets if the cops were held to account for the official actions they take ☺️

Laughably big government lies. No other country in the world has qualified immunity, it works much better for them.

555Trout police unions give them a shit ton of money

Their love of authority figures

I'm with you on that. I usually vote Republican but sometimes they do stuff like this and it drives me crazy. There's no good reason for them to not support eliminating this

@Santiago Bron utter nonsense.

@@trey8770 I could see that on the elected level but Barr's reasoning was just so transparently wrong?

Actually very few.

Immediate release of confusing body cam footage can prevent justice from being achieved.

Not true. There is more security provided by the private market than by municipal police. Also, need less laws and no more drug laws that criminalize users.

I know this is why we don't have any doctors....wait a minute.

@@poopoo6186 doctors pay tons of cash for liability insurance

@@falrus you mean to tell me that we have Doctors without qualified immunity?

This didn't exist historically and this didn't happen. Qualified immunity was built up over time.

Also incorrect.

Hopefully by someone who can communicate clearly in English.