It’s going to get worse until Congress, legislatures, and courts impose penalties on the police departments instead of the tax payers.
Not just the cop that fucked up, but the entire department. They either knew damn well that they had a dangerous asshat in their ranks and refused to get rid of him before something like this happened, or they’re dangerous asshats themselves. The only fix is to make them highly motivated to police themselves.
My suggestion (though I’m open to any idea that works) is fines/penalties/settlements for shit like this comes out of their retirement funds. And not just the police union’s pension fund, but private IRAs as well. Put it all on the table. Don’t leave any loop holes for them to skirt around taking responsibility for making sure every officer is qualified to do the job and not be a menace to society.
Another tact is to insure the police. There was an NPR journal on that a long time ago and it worked wonders where a police department was basically the gang that couldn’t shoot straight, running up all kinds of crazy legal fees for the city. Insurance compliance drove 100% of the needed departmental changes in a way that kept behavior, budget, and the city council in check. In exchange, the insurance policy was there for any mishaps or gross mistakes that would require a payout of any kind.
Foisting change politically by top-down policy was woefully ineffective in comparison. While this doesn’t fix the underlying problems with qualified immunity and how the cops can still fuck up anyone’s day on a whim, this does help.
My suggestion (though I’m open to any idea that works) is fines/penalties/settlements for shit like this comes out of their retirement funds.
My favorite reform approach is for law enforcement officers being required to carry professional insurance. Police are often referring to themselves as professionals. Let them carry insurance like doctors do for malpractice or professional engineers do.
To ease the transition, I propose that the department cover the base insurance premiums for each officer. If an officer has a judgment against them that raises their insurance premiums, the officer is now responsible for paying for the overage out of their own pocket. If the officer continues to exhibit behavior that results in judgments against them, their premiums will continue to rise eventually to the point where the bad officer cannot afford the overage premiums and will then have to stop working as police because they are not carrying the required insurance. So bad officers will self select out.
There’s also another angle where the base premiums will likely be calculated based upon the entire department. If there is a badly behaved officer, this will raise the base rate of all officers too, so the department has a financial incentive to get rid of bad officers because they are too expensive.
As long as that last paragraph is true, I could support this. There has to be enough motivation for them to get rid of bad cops before they become a problem, not after.
Edit; But I also imagine that the insurance companies themselves would be pretty focused on making sure each cop was attending good training on how to be effective instead of what they’re currently getting which seems to be, “Everyone wants to kill you! Kill them first!”
There has to be enough motivation for them to get rid of bad cops before they become a problem, not after.
I’m understand where you’re going with this statement in spirit, but not in execution. An officer is only a problem after they have done harm to the public for which they serve. How then could a department get rid of a bad officer before this bad behavior presents itself?
How then could a department get rid of a bad officer before this bad behavior presents itself?
The public only becomes aware of the bad behavior when it goes too far and, for example, a cop unnecessarily kills somebody.
But that doesn’t just happen out of the blue. That cop’s coworkers and supervisors knew that he was reckless or emotionally unstable or whatever loooong before it got to that point. They need to step up before he kills somebody.
It’s going to get worse until Congress, legislatures, and courts impose penalties on the police departments instead of the tax payers.
Not just the cop that fucked up, but the entire department. They either knew damn well that they had a dangerous asshat in their ranks and refused to get rid of him before something like this happened, or they’re dangerous asshats themselves. The only fix is to make them highly motivated to police themselves.
My suggestion (though I’m open to any idea that works) is fines/penalties/settlements for shit like this comes out of their retirement funds. And not just the police union’s pension fund, but private IRAs as well. Put it all on the table. Don’t leave any loop holes for them to skirt around taking responsibility for making sure every officer is qualified to do the job and not be a menace to society.
Another tact is to insure the police. There was an NPR journal on that a long time ago and it worked wonders where a police department was basically the gang that couldn’t shoot straight, running up all kinds of crazy legal fees for the city. Insurance compliance drove 100% of the needed departmental changes in a way that kept behavior, budget, and the city council in check. In exchange, the insurance policy was there for any mishaps or gross mistakes that would require a payout of any kind.
Foisting change politically by top-down policy was woefully ineffective in comparison. While this doesn’t fix the underlying problems with qualified immunity and how the cops can still fuck up anyone’s day on a whim, this does help.
My favorite reform approach is for law enforcement officers being required to carry professional insurance. Police are often referring to themselves as professionals. Let them carry insurance like doctors do for malpractice or professional engineers do.
To ease the transition, I propose that the department cover the base insurance premiums for each officer. If an officer has a judgment against them that raises their insurance premiums, the officer is now responsible for paying for the overage out of their own pocket. If the officer continues to exhibit behavior that results in judgments against them, their premiums will continue to rise eventually to the point where the bad officer cannot afford the overage premiums and will then have to stop working as police because they are not carrying the required insurance. So bad officers will self select out.
There’s also another angle where the base premiums will likely be calculated based upon the entire department. If there is a badly behaved officer, this will raise the base rate of all officers too, so the department has a financial incentive to get rid of bad officers because they are too expensive.
As long as that last paragraph is true, I could support this. There has to be enough motivation for them to get rid of bad cops before they become a problem, not after.
Edit; But I also imagine that the insurance companies themselves would be pretty focused on making sure each cop was attending good training on how to be effective instead of what they’re currently getting which seems to be, “Everyone wants to kill you! Kill them first!”
So, yeah, this could work.
I’m understand where you’re going with this statement in spirit, but not in execution. An officer is only a problem after they have done harm to the public for which they serve. How then could a department get rid of a bad officer before this bad behavior presents itself?
The public only becomes aware of the bad behavior when it goes too far and, for example, a cop unnecessarily kills somebody.
But that doesn’t just happen out of the blue. That cop’s coworkers and supervisors knew that he was reckless or emotionally unstable or whatever loooong before it got to that point. They need to step up before he kills somebody.
They could start by getting rid of things like IQ maximums.
The medical industry solved this a century ago. Just do that same thing again.