New York City Ends Qualified Immunity For Police Officers, Becoming 1st In Nation To Do So

First, the City Council voting on something doesn’t make it a law. Not even close.

Second, modifying Qualified Immunity will help weed out the really bad police officers. A training officer with multiple complaints for excessive use of force needs to be tossed off the force, not protected by the PBA. The head of the NYC PBA is a total loon named Patrick Lynch who wouldn’t throw a cop off the force if he personally witnessed him shooting a teen in a wheelchair in the back 6 times.

 

So bad that people who live there should move out. Businesses that operate there should also move. Cops who live there should move. Disaster. No more police protection. It's tough to have a mayor that puts ideology above good sense and management. I think he still has a year to go. Disaster.

 

Has it occurred to you that maybe one reason why things are different today is that QI applied since the 60's has resulted in a massive distrust/dislike of the police? Have people been watching police kill and maim innocent citizens for too long and not be punished? Is that a factor in mistrust of police? Did QI have unintended consequences as so many "good ideas" do?

 

Having complaints means nothing, criminals lodge false complaints all the time, if you're the streetwise Popeye Doyle style officer you will inevitably get complaints. Sounds like this Lynch fellow is a great guy, standing by his officers.

 

When did the police ever do that? It's not that people have a distrust of authority but a lack of empathy with those on the front line.

 

There’s a difference between the benefit of the doubt and consistently protecting officers who show poor judgement and malicious intent.

 

You must be living under a rock sir. I don't watch near the TV I used to, but for the last 30 years or so, mostly in the name of the drug war and racism, there are many long hours of footage of cops assaulting, tazing, and killing innocent people.

Maybe you just don't want to watch that footage?

 

And this is the former.

 

Really? What TV have you been watching? You must be living in Wonderland? How is Alice?

 

And maybe you don't understand how rare it is. Killing of unarmed blacks by police occurs about a dozen times each year. That is with over 10 million arrests. Vanishingly rare. The appropriate thing to do when it happens is to have a trial. That is what is happening. Be glad you don't live in North Korea.

 

Ok, prove it. You made the statement, back it up.

 

Up until last October, I've watched the Evening Propaganda Delivery News on the Big Three television networks for decades.

There are plenty of stories similar to that of Breonna Taylor in Kentucky. There are many thousands of stories of innocent persons assaulted or maimed or killed by police officers.

 

I do not distinguish between the killing by police of innocent citizens black or white. I am not trying to make a racial point here, but as a white man I've long known that in many parts of this country doing anything "while black" is an invitation to be stopped for questioning.

The son of a white friend of mine was brutally killed by the local police, and I have friends on that police force.

 

I'm not going to go crazy over questioning. Killing is terrible but, as I said, it is very rare.

 

Couldn’t disagree more.

 

QED! There is nothing malicious here, there is no mens rea

A few cases, most of them quite ambiguous in a nation of 300 million people and hundreds of thousands of police officers?

Likewise.