‘You won’t need to abolish us – we won’t be around for it’: Why many police officers like me are quitting the force

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[–]KennyLogins 5 insightful - 2 fun5 insightful - 1 fun6 insightful - 2 fun -  (4 children)

What is your solution for qualified immunity?

[–]FediNetizen 5 insightful - 2 fun5 insightful - 1 fun6 insightful - 2 fun -  (3 children)

I'm not him, but I can tell you that qualified immunity is just a series of Supreme Court rulings based on their reading of existing legislation, and that what qualified immunity actually does is prevents the officers or their departments for being sued unless it can be shown that they knowingly violated "clearly established law" (a lot of great info on the whole situation here).

Fixing the civil issues is a step in the right direction, but there are other promising reform proposals, such as making officers carry malpractice insurance similar to how doctors do, and so the ones that repeatedly screw up end up with unmanageable premiums and get priced out of the profession.

[–]DrStrangelove 6 insightful - 3 fun6 insightful - 2 fun7 insightful - 3 fun -  (0 children)

I've supported the idea of malpractice insurance for police since at least Occupy in 2011. Made a sign and everything! It's a market based approach that should garner support from the fiscally responsible right, the ACAB left, and the insurance industry lobby, but any time I bring it up peoples eyes just glaze over. I guess insurance is just that boring.

[–]KennyLogins 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

I guess what I'm wondering is whether or not people thing immunity needs to be removed completely. We basically have 3 potential levels:

  1. Complete Immunity (obviously a poor choice)
  2. Partial Immunity (meets certain qualifiers)
  3. No Immunity.

I just don't see how 1 or 3 can work. I think the solution is to keep working on the qualifications under option 2. I'm no attorney, so I'm limited to what I can even start to suggest. But when I read other average people like myself who write about the topic, they seem to think option 3 can work. To me, option 1 is ridiculous and option 3 is easily gamed. Think about organization like Scientology who overwhelmed courts, option 3 lends to this very thing.

I'm out of my comfort zone here and don't have a solution myself. I just don't see how it can be option 3.

[–]FediNetizen 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Qualified immunity isn't the only thing protecting cops, and removing qualified immunity wouldn't put us in #3, it'd be a version of #2.

Specifically, qualified immunity is for when a police officer did violate someone's rights, but didn't do so under "clearly established law". While that might sound reasonable on the surface, in practice, it creates cases like this, or cases like this