lawsuit coming ... in .. 1 ... 2 ... 3
Immunity coming in ... 3
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PSA, not for Barnacle's consumption (you know why . . . ): borrowing from myself for a comment on the crapulence of qualified immunity.
Qualified immunity in layman's terms: unless a person with an IQ of 1 would understand that a specific action was described in detail and said to be completely wrong in a controlling decision, a cop cannot be sued for what they did.
Cop Who Allegedly Kneed a Subdued Suspect in the Eye ’20 to 30 Times’ Gets Qualified Immunity – Reason.com
(Kneeing a suspect in the eye 20-30 times; but there wasn't a case in the relevant jurisdiction saying that you can't knee someone in the eye 20-30 times. Sure, there was a case saying you cannot do a "knee drop" that fractures their face. (Gill v. Maciejewski). Sure, there was a decision saying you can't "hip toss" someone, then have two other cops beat them to death as they lay on the ground. (Krout v. Goemmer).
But there wasn't saying a decision saying you can't knee someone in the eye 20-30 times. So the cop cannot be sued. Unreasonable to expect him to know his behavior was unconstitutional.
All this stuff that sounds good on paper so that people will approve without even looking into it. It's a bad guy so who cares, next.
Oh yes, and using the dogs of people the police say are criminals for target practice:
Detroit Police Department Settles Another Dog Shooting Lawsuit After Video Contradicts Cop’s Account – Reason.com
Police conduct drug raid, blow away two dogs, lie about it. Only because it happened on camera could anything happen about it. Otherwise the cops would be protected by their lies (specifically, that the dogs attacked them).
In the video linked in the article. You can see one dog standing at the end of a hallway. Another comes out, looking like it wants to say hello. The cop blows it away. The cop wrote in his report that "he 'observed a black pit bull and a tan pit bull showing his teeth, charging, and attempting to bite crew.'"
Later, he wrote "a large black pitfall came charging at me down the hallway from the northwest bedroom. I fired two shots…neutralizing the threat. While still in the hallway, a second brown pit bull came charging down the hallway towards me."
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(The first link contains links to the two cases summarized).
It's not even the effects of racism over time.
You can't even sue these people unless they did the exact thing that a controlling decision - that is, one in the jurisdiction from an appellate court - says they cannot do. The cop in question could knee someone in the eye 20-30 times because a court didn't say you couldn't knee someone in the eye 20-30 times. Sure, the 8th Circuit said things from which any moron could deduce meant you couldn't just keep kneeing a guy in the eye, but I guess it's unfair of us to expect cops to work that out on their own.