‘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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[–]Drewski 31 insightful - 4 fun31 insightful - 3 fun32 insightful - 4 fun -  (4 children)

He's unwilling to address the issues in the US police force, including qualified immunity, lack of accountability, us vs. them mentality, covering for bad officers, inadequate training and escalating instead of deescalating situations, militarized police forces, among many others. The whole thing reads like a martyr complex.

"We used to be able to testify in court and we were believed. Now, unless there is video from three different angles, no one cares what you have to say."

Give me a break, juries, judges, and other public servants side with cops 90% of the time and refuse to convict in the face of strong evidence of police misconduct. I know there are good officers on the force, I know a few of them myself and I feel for them because this is undoubtedly a difficult time to be serving on the force. Most of them also acknowledge that there are a lot of inherent problems within the police department, and would welcome changes that make them more honest, accountable, and actually serve the people instead of acting like a gang that covers for its bad apples.

I have much less sympathy for people like this who refuse to see the problems in their own institution and instead blame everyone else.

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

What is your solution for qualified immunity?

[–]FediNetizen 5 insightful - 2 fun5 insightful - 1 fun6 insightful - 2 fun -  (2 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.

[–]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