That's fine, if the officer is 100% in the right. What if the officer is 100% wrong? Therein lies the rub. The citizen is told "ignorance of the law is no excuse". The LEO is told "you got the law wrong but no worries, you have QI so ignorance of the law IS an acceptable excuse". That is NOT acceptable!Old saying “Reisistance equals ouch, jail, and more money “ From an old PD Sergeant
LOL, no. There are far too many documented cases where LEO mistakes or bad faith acts are either swept under the rug, or minimized to a point no citizen would be afforded under equal circumstances. Yes there are individual agencies who hold their LEOs to high standards and yes, there are improvements being made across the board. That doesn't mean there isn't room for more improvement and as stated above, ignorance of the law by LEO's should not be an acceptable condition.I don’t understand the whole “Qualified Immunity” argument. If an officer has a bad shoot, crashes into someone, uses excessive force, or many other examples, they are held accountable just like anyone else. And as far as the bicycle situation, if you break a traffic law on a bicycle you have to identify just as if you were driving a car.
I don't quite understand this situation. How did you lose your Qualified Immunity? Why didn't your department or DA's office represent you? If the plaintiff's case was so flimsy, how did it survive all the way to a civil trial? Please elaborate.QI didn't keep me from getting sued for $17M by a kid that was afraid to tell his parents what happened. So he made up a dandy story...that changed several times. I was cleared by the DA's office, my department internal affairs section and an FBI investigation.
It took 2 years of my life to resolve and damaged my reputation in the community and I had no recourse against him and his family (mom and dad were felons...mom was a two-time loser trying to sue LE or EMTs) because they were deadbeats and didn't have anything.
So I wound up in US District Court for 7 days defending myself against something that didn't happen. It took the jury less than 15 mins to come back in my favor because it was so obvious this little POS and his family were lying s**tbags.
The little bastard did learn a valuable civics lesson in the end, though. He was on the hook for nearly a half million dollar judgment against him by the court for court costs, attorney fees (mine) and other costs.
I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of you guys that have hardons for cops would do something like that. A good portion of society is comprised of really awful people...some of them masquerading as everyday Joes. I didn't learn that on YouTube...I learned it from living among people like that for 62 years.
You're new here so you haven't learned yet, but you need to cool your jets and control your emotions if you plan on being around for long. No one's gonna miss you if you catch a ban.Once again you're too ignorant to face facts that your precious LE community is justified in wrongful actions, and you can go **** yourself with your statement about me disrespecting the military. That statement will get you stomped out jackass.
Maybe you should tell your SIL she's getting fat while you're at it.I’m going to play devil’s advocate here. A ask a woman if she thinks her clothes are a bit too tight for her body type.
(old thread joke btw) Should I tell my sister in law she's getting fat?
Yes, which is a double-edged sword. It protects officers from wrongful litigation payouts. It also insulates them from rightful litigation payouts. Instead, the taxpayers indemnify the wronged, while the bad actor either goes on to violate people's rights in the same agency, or hops around from agency to agency doing the same. Wash, rinse, repeat. We don't need to eliminate QI, but we do need to implement significant reforms to QI. What that might look like is up for debate, but the status quo continues to erode public faith in the profession.Qualified immunity applies only in civil lawsuits, not criminal prosecutions.