NYPD officers are no longer protected from civil lawsuits after city council passes police reform legislation

[Mr.Know-It-All]

Good, bad, other?

NYPD officers are no longer protected from civil lawsuits after city council passes police reform legislation

The New York City Council passed a series of reforms for the New York Police Department on Thursday, including ending qualified immunity for officers, which protected them against civil lawsuits.

www.cnn.com

 

[drstrangelove]

Good, bad, other?

NYPD officers are no longer protected from civil lawsuits after city council passes police reform legislation

The New York City Council passed a series of reforms for the New York Police Department on Thursday, including ending qualified immunity for officers, which protected them against civil lawsuits.

www.cnn.com

There are many youtube videos showing first amendment auditors. They are people who visit public places with video cameras to test the reaction of public officials, namely to see if they honor the auditors' first amendment right to record anything they see in public. The police are often called and then attempt to make the auditors' life miserable, usually lying about having to provide id etc. Too often the auditors get arrested for doing nothing illegal, sometimes the auditors win settlements for the cops' misdeeds, but the officers themselves are very seldom held accountable, due to qualified immunity. While it may have been a good idea when first implemented, the cops have quickly learned to use it to their advantage and too many have become absolute terrors. Watching too many of these videos can get quite depressing.

The faster qualified immunity is eliminated or seriously improved everywhere, the better.

 

[rhuarc29]

There's no perfect answer. Removing qualified immunity will throw some hesitation and indecision into the mix. But also....qualified immunity has been blatantly abused for many decades. So there are pros and cons.

Personally, I'd rather throw the fiscal responsibility on the individual, and not on the taxpayers who had nothing to do with any crime, but it doesn't look like this policy addresses that.

 

[y2kmark]

They have body cams, if the truth is on their side there is no better shield...

 

[contact]

Did city council open themselves up to lawsuits too?

 

[drstrangelove]

Did city council open themselves up to lawsuits too?

Probably not but one doesn't hear too many stories about city councilors who have caused specific harm to another individual.

 

[contact]

Probably not but one doesn't hear too many stories about city councilors who have caused specific harm to another individual.

True but the decisions and policies they make can cause harm or financial loss my point is they should also put themselves at risk of lawsuits

 

[jcpro]

I'm not a big fan of police- we have them because we need them just like we need the sanitation department, but this is a stupid idea that will cost innocent lives. Not the lives of the grandees at the city hall, mind, but the people in the poorest and the disadvantaged hoods will pay the price.

 

[drstrangelove]

I'm not a big fan of police- we have them because we need them just like we need the sanitation department, but this is a stupid idea that will cost innocent lives. Not the lives of the grandees at the city hall, mind, but the people in the poorest and the disadvantaged hoods will pay the price.

Not sure I follow. How will taking away protection from personal law suits against police officers put people at risk? I would have thought the opposite. If cops can be sued for their actions, ie harm to people, they should be less likely to do that.

 

[jcpro]

Not sure I follow. How will taking away protection from personal law suits against police officers put people at risk? I would have thought the opposite. If cops can be sued for their actions, ie harm to people, they should be less likely to do that.

The use of force is almost always a judgement call and often controversial. Not to mention the charged time we live in. The possibility of an increased liability to the responding officers will certainly slow them down, possibly cause them to ignore calls from certain neighborhoods, cherry pick calls and for sure will make them hesitate in their own defense and in defense of the public. Avoiding the "unnecessary hassle" will have a definite impact as will the hardening of the police union position. All that in the time when the violent crimes are on the rise.

 

[drstrangelove]

The use of force is almost always a judgement call and often controversial. Not to mention the charged time we live in. The possibility of an increased liability to the responding officers will certainly slow them down, possibly cause them to ignore calls from certain neighborhoods, cherry pick calls and for sure will make them hesitate in their own defense and in defense of the public. Avoiding the "unnecessary hassle" will have a definite impact as will the hardening of the police union position. All that in the time when the violent crimes are on the rise.

Okay, so the danger is from criminals, not cops. Unfortunately you are right, so now the main issue will now be how to deal with dereliction of duty.

 

[mandrill]

From what I understand, "qualified immunity" has become a legal quagmire in US law. The doctrine necessitates that there be a pre existing judicial decision that THE EXACT SITUATION IN EVERY DETAIL was discussed and ruled on by the courts before a cop can be successfully convicted. If this is true - and I'm just getting info from Twitter-lawyers - then all the cop's defence has to do is come up with 1 small differential detail and the cops walks - although other cops afterwards might be put on notice that this fact situation too has been added to the list by the judges.

And this is open to abuse by the defence because virtually every situation is slightly different.

Canada does not have "qualified immunity". It has the "doctrine of excessive force" - that the cop has to subjectively believe that he is using only a reasonable amount of force to subdue the suspect and that amount of force has to be objectively reasonable as well. It's far less cumbersome and intelligible and it doesn't require a previous ruling on every little detail to put a cop on notice that he could get successfully charged. It's still very, very difficult to get a conviction against a cop in Canada, because people know that cops have to be able to do their job in tense, confusing and stressful circumstances. But at least it avoids obvious abuse by the defence.

 

[mandrill]

Also questioning whether a city counsel can revoke a criminal law defence. In the US, ordinary criminal law is something that the states have power to legislate on. No state congress in its right mind would delegate that power to a city counsel because you would get bizarre shit like the hamlet of Shitpile, AL making it a death penalty offence to walk a poodle in the main city park and weird crap like that.