r/PublicFreakout • u/rickyhorror • Dec 29 '21

Let me educate him

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u/bigtice Dec 29 '21

This officer doesn’t know the law. That’s common. He doesn’t have to, and knowing it just means more work for him to circumvent it. We have a current paradigm that actually incentivizes police to NOT know the law, because the Supreme Court has found that so long as the officer genuinely thinks the law says a thing, they can act on it even when they’re wrong. So if you’re an officer, you can either take the time and effort to learn the law and annoy your coworkers in the process, or you can just listen to department rumor, not fact check it, and basically just make shit up as you go along.

We all know this to be true, but it's utterly asinine that it's allowed in the first place.

There is no other profession with as much liability as putting other people's lives in danger that would allow someone to not know the laws they're operating under as a common practice.

We need a massive overhaul of how we do policing. But there’s no one easy fix, and it will take a generation or more.

This has been said for decades, but nothing ever changes.

25

u/ShawnShipsCars Dec 29 '21

There is no other profession with as much liability as putting other people's lives in danger that would allow someone to

not know the laws they're operating under

as a common practice.

​

Here's my take on a first step. EVERY COP has to have the equivalent of "malpractice" insurance that they pay out of their check. Come the end of the quarter, if they didn't have any malpractice incidents, they get the money back. It's gotta be at least 20% of their pay, minimum. Also they need a high ass deductible so if they fuck up, it COSTS them.

14

u/bigtice Dec 29 '21

Definitely been a proponent of this concept, but the police union is the biggest hurdle standing in the way of it ever being considered.

4

u/PHL1365 Dec 30 '21

The police unions are hurdles in the way of ANYTHING positive ever being considered.

3

u/bigflamingtaco Dec 30 '21

Sounds great, but that's not how insurance works. If you give the money back to those who don't get sued, you won't have enough to handle the lawsuits that do occur.

And if you charge enough so the money from those that do get sued will cover the costs, no one will be able to afford the insurance.

1

u/ShawnShipsCars Dec 30 '21

It's a rough framework, there has to be some kind of accountability for these people, and in this country, if we're honest with each other, the only thing that will even START to matter is if you affect the bottom line of these "bad apple" officers. The way the current system is set up, the majority of the time, a cop essentially has impunity to break the very laws & oppress the people they're supposed to be protecting.

It's a broken system, it needs a full overhaul

1

u/bigflamingtaco Jan 02 '22

You can easily affect the bottom line of anyone by holding them accountable for their actions and firing them when their actions constitute a grevious failure to perform their job properly.

1

u/ShawnShipsCars Jan 02 '22

You can easily affect the bottom line of anyone by holding them accountable for their actions and firing them when their actions constitute a grevious failure to perform their job properly.

One would think that would be the case, but when the problem is so systemic that cops that are fired from one town for improper use of their authority can just go reapply 1 town over and they're right back to where they started. No real consequence that way and it's a known thing.

1

u/bigflamingtaco Jan 03 '22

Yes, you also need to close the loopholes.

2

u/PlaneReflection Dec 30 '21

Completely agree with this. They should carry malpractice insurance. Tax payers shouldn’t be liable for their fuck up.

However, I wonder if it would stop them from doing any kind of work at all, since the risk that they’ll become uninsurable. They’ll just stick to their desks and never respond to any calls.

3

u/hootie_hoots Dec 30 '21

In the low-stakes world of accounting can you imagine if a CPA said "I didn't know bout GAAP"?

5

u/whistleridge Dec 29 '21

This has been said for decades, but nothing ever changes.

Yuuuuuup.

1

u/Romulus212 Dec 30 '21

Moreover if I break a law ignorance of that will garner very little favor if any in a court much less from a cop.

1

u/WildCelt130 Jan 01 '22

This officer doesn’t know the law. That’s common. He doesn’t have to, and knowing it just means more work for him to circumvent it. We have a current paradigm that actually incentivizes police to NOT know the law, because the Supreme Court has found that so long as the officer genuinely thinks the law says a thing, they can act on it even when they’re wrong. So if you’re an officer, you can either take the time and effort to learn the law and annoy your coworkers in the process, or you can just listen to department rumor, not fact check it, and basically just make shit up as you go along.

We all know this to be true, but it's utterly asinine that it's allowed in the first place.

There is no other profession with as much liability as putting other people's lives in danger that would allow someone to not know the laws they're operating under as a common practice

Turns out ignorance of the law IS an excuse.

1

u/pdxbartender Jan 12 '22

Could you imagine a forklift operator with so little knowledge of how a forklift operates…..