Congressional Democrats have introduced Legislation to Strip Police of Immunity Protection but Trump says the move is a non-starter.
Three days after George Floyd was killed in the custody of Minneapolis police, the Supreme Court’s justices met privately to consider a raft of long-pending appeals asking them to review a legal doctrine that makes it difficult for many victims of abusive policing to sue the perpetrators.
The timing was coincidence, and the court has taken no action on the petitions. But the multitude of cases—including one from Minneapolis—underscores the power of qualified immunity, a rule the Supreme Court recognized in 1967, and later strengthened, to protect officials from the threat of litigation for most law-enforcement actions.
White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany on Monday said the administration would consider various proposals but called any changes to police immunity a nonstarter for President Trump.
Past Immunity Fiascos
The Supreme Court is about to tackle some cases. Meanwhile look at some past fiascos.
- Washington 2018: In a 2018 case from Washington state, a federal appeals court tossed a suit against an officer who allegedly pointed his gun at the head of a cooperative suspect and threatened to kill him. The court said suspects in those circumstances have a right not to have a gun pointed at them, but that right “was not clearly established at the time the events took place.”
- Georgia 2019: An Atlanta-based court ruled last year that an officer couldn’t be sued after he allegedly twice shot at an unthreatening dog during an arrest, accidentally hitting the knee of a 10-year-old who was lying on the ground nearby. The court said the conduct wasn’t clearly unlawful at the time.
- Nebraska 2019: A federal court covering the Midwest said it wasn’t clearly unconstitutional for a Nebraska officer to place a female misdemeanor suspect in a bear hug and throw her to the ground. The woman, who was allegedly disruptive during a swimming pool confrontation, lost consciousness and suffered a broken collarbone.
Supposedly pointing a gun at a man and threatening to shoot him was not yet a crime.
Nor was shooting an unthreatening dog and hitting a person.
And it was not “clearly” not wrong to break the collarbone of a woman in a bear hug with excessive force.
Those are examples. There hundreds more. People don’t have money to press court cases they are destined to lose.
In other cases, the police department pays hush money to sweep the case out of sight.
Law and Order Trump
Trump continues his law-and-order stance, but he has that vote locked up anyway.
It’s another bad move for Trump and the matter isn’t even in his hands.
Why It’s Impossible to Get Rid of Bad Cops
Neither Republicans nor Democrats want to tackle a key source of the problem: Public Unions.
Public unions coupled with immunity laws are Why It’s Impossible to Get Rid of Bad Cops.
Minneapolis to Abolish the Police
Meanwhile a veto-proof Minneapolis city council threatens to abolish the police department.
I ask How Will That Work? but the city council cannot explain.
Mish
Blacks are right. White rule is racist. Whites wearing confederate flags whine about how minorities are now placed above them, but they really mean that they are being told they can no longer whip black men and rape black women at will and this makes them sad.
Trump supporters generally seem to be anti-union (because they are incredibly ignorant, but okay). They are pro-police. Well, cops are the most unionized profession in America. Yep. Cops are commie, union-licking dogs.
So, fuck the police. Fire every single one. restructure all of them. Change the rules. Hire back only good ones with no abuse record.
Police should be held to a higher standard than civilians. Any felony committed by a cop on or off duty should be punishable by death.
Fuck the police.
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Supreme Court created qualified immunity. Will they rule against themselves?
This topic reminds me of the one who made me first care about police or institutional brutality of the common man, and from a Christian perspective – a man I considered the most brilliant man writing anywhere on the Internet, and was blessed to be a friend and frequent guest on my old Future Quake radio show, just like Mish – the indomitable Will Grigg, host of the iconic Pro Libertate blog.
I loved every minute of reading his writings, even when his extreme positions of liberty and individualism and anti-statism were a bit too far for me – they always gave me significant uncomfortableness and food for thought, and in any case doubled my vocabulary, with the wickedest sense of humor since H. L. Mencken, Ambrose Bierce or Mark Twain. I never loved being reprimanded more, and he finally softened my heart.
Will was of mixed Mexican and other race heritage, was orphaned and then raised by a Mormon family, and later became a more mainstream Christian. However, he always was a voice crying in the wilderness. He became famous, of all things, as the star writer for the John Birch Society for their New American magazine, and they had big plans for him. However, he bravely wrote an article that encouraged a little bit of understanding of immigrants, which caused his prompt firing as being antithetical to the Society and their benefactors. Sadly, he then lost his health coverage simultaneously as his wife suffered a malady so severe that it forced him to stay at home to care for her and take care of the large number of children, and this brilliant man lived hand-to-mouth the rest of his days, as some of us tried to help where we could. To add to his burden, this strong-as-an-ox weightlifter and MMA-trained thespian fell victim to a simple infection and died at an early age, leaving a sick wife and many small children. As most pioneers in human rights or spiritual progress, his life was a lonely walk.
He wrote something that I brought up on my show that stuck with me more than anything that ever stuck with me. He said that if you are driving down the road, and you see a man in uniform beating a man on the ground on the side of the road, and your first instinct is, “Good thing that officer has that man under control,” then you are a statist; if your first instinct is, “What cause does that man have to be beating his fellow man?”, then you are an individualist.
I learned something with every post he did on the themes of the little guy being the victim of the State, which are all preserved on his Pro Libertate blog I recommend everyone read through, or his radio interviews with me preserved on my old Future Quake website; he showed me what being a real Christian and humanitarian was really about, and you could do it with pinache. I understand one of his many followers recently released a book of his unedited writings called, “No Quarter: The Ravings of William Norman Grigg,” which is available on Amazon.
I would have loved for him to have seen this day, and white, brown and black common people marching together, and demanding that the State begin a purge of the “tough guys” in their ranks, and that a threat to one is a threat to all.
Thank you for reminding us of Will Grigg. I respected his ideas.
In all cases, all of those who carry guns and act as agents of the state should be held not to the same standard as a private individual in the same situation, but to a much higher standard.
For instance, in many states, a private individual who shoots someone need only prove that they “feared for their life”. This simply isn’t enough for an agent of the state although courts have consistently held that it is. Thus, you get police officers being let off the hook for shooting kids with toy guns or people with cell phones.
The fact is, the ROE (Rules of Engagement) for police officers in the US are – in many, if not most, cases – more liberal than the ROE that members of the military in hostile areas are afforded. When I was deployed – even in what was considered a combat zone we had an ROE that was quite restrictive in many situations.
“I was afraid for my life” should not be an adequate defense for an agent of the state to shoot a private citizen – period. The only legitimate reason for them to employ deadly force should be an actual verified attack or assault.
Is that harsh? Maybe. But we expect as much from our military in many similar situations dealing with non-US Citizens. Why would we afford even less protections to our own citizens from what amounts to an armed internal force?
And the doctrine of “Qualified Immunity” is just bad precedent built on the bullshit theory that rights must be “established” and that an agent of the state must be aware, or reasonably aware, that they are violating an “established” right otherwise, they can’t be held personally liable because the “right in question” and therefore the legality of their actions are not “clearly established.” I call it the “just following orders” doctrine because that’s what it sounds like.
A human has rights by virtue of being human – not based on whether or not the state and/or its courts have “established” that right. This means that if you are an agent of the state, it is your responsibility to be aware of what everyone’s rights are at all times. It isn’t my responsibility as the person whose freedom you have arrested to begin “asserting” my rights so you will suddenly understand that it may be wrong for you to shove your fingers in my backside without a warrant based upon probable cause. It’s also your responsibility to always be thinking about what might be crossing the line – and not to take those actions without a very good cause that you feel at least half of a civil jury would see as legitimate.
Putting the onus on a private citizen to fight the state in these cases is adding insult to injury as police officers are the state. Therefore, agents of the state should be liable personally in civil court for actions they take in the name of the state regardless of whether or not the same state they work for recognizes those actions as a crime.
“Therefore, agents of the state should be liable personally in civil court for actions they take…”
No, they should not.
If you don’t commit a crime, no legitimate state has any business dragging you to court, arbitrarily “finding” you “guilty,” nor sticking a gun in your face forcing you to fork over loot.
Establishing “guilt,” is a job for criminal courts. Which needs to first obtain an indictment. Then prove guilt beyond any reasonable doubt. All to very strict standards. With the whole process overwhelmingly stacked in favor of any defendant, no matter how “mean” he may look on TeeVee. If there is any doubt at all, Jimmy Genocide should very much go free. That’s a feature, never a bug, in any society aspiring to even the remotest rudiment of beeing a free and/or civilized one.
Civil courts have much lower burdens of proof than this, and are hence not nearly as stacked in favor of defendants, ONLY BECAUSE they are not set up to assign “blame.” Nor “guilt.” Not to allow The State, nor any of it’s institutions including courts, to determine “wrong doing.”
Instead, all civil courts are tasked with, is adjudicating disputes over the interpretation of highly specific, voluntarily entered into contracts between parties. Unless Chauvin voluntarily entered into and signed a contract with Floyd, stating specifically that he would not strangle him to death, none of this has any business at all cluttering up civil courts nor enriching and empowering ambulance chasers and other shakedown mercenaries.
The only reason ambulanceChaserTopias like what we’re stuck in, insist on pretending “civil courts” are somehow appropriate venues for establishing “guilt”, is that a criminal process makes it, ON PURPOSE IN FREE COUNTRIES, difficult and hard work for the state to harass individuals. Take that “difficult and hard” away, and what you are left with is what we have today: Nothing but pure, arbitrary harassment of anyone, by any member of the state. As well as anyone close enough to either socialize or lobby them.
The entirety of the ambulance chaser shakedown rackets, which is, along with Fed welfare, what the entire US wealthy and ruling classes live off by now, is built on this destruction of any once-were protections at all, against arbitrary harassment and shakedown.
Strangling people to death, is a criminal offense. Which should be dealt with by criminal processes. If those no longer work; then revolution, insurrection, civil war, burning it all to the ground and/or murdering anyone alive are the appropriate next steps. Not, as in never ever ever under any circumstance, “civil courts.” Which are built to be devoid of any protections whatsoever, only, and specifically, because they were never to be tasked with establishing any sort of “guilt,” nor mete out any sort of “punishment” in the first place.
“.. “civil courts” are somehow appropriate venues for establishing “guilt”, is that a criminal process makes it, ON PURPOSE IN FREE COUNTRIES, difficult and hard work for the state to harass individuals.”
It makes it near impossible to prosecute harassment by the state also though, but tort overlaps civil and criminal law.
When you look for a threshold between the two, where do you place it ?
“When you look for a threshold between the two, where do you place it ?”
If it’s not a specific, voluntarily entered into, contract; whose interpretation is being disputed; but rather just someone who out of the blue accusing someone else of having done something “wrong;” then that “having done something wrong” needs to meet criminal process burdens to have any place in a just, civilized, non-totalitarian and non arbitrary society.
Any shortcut to “judging” that someone has done something wrong (and having done something wrong is a necessary prerequisite for being liable), does nothing at all, other than provide beneficiaries of arbitrary “justice” the means to run around the exact protections which criminal processes were written to afford people in the first place.
The fact that this makes it hard to use “courts” to interfere in, and “solve” every conceivable little drummed up “problem” someone may “feel” that they have, is exactly a feature. Dragging the state into matters, is a last resort and a Big Effing Deal in free societies. Unless something really is a big enough deal that the full cost and effort of a Grand Jury indictment process, then full jury trial, is justified; it is not big enough of a deal to get the state, via its courts, involved in the first place. And, again, that’s a feature. Not a bug.
Of course, strangling people to death, is exactly that sort of a Big Effing Deal. Which is why there is no reason in any possible civilized universe, to not simply run this through a full criminal process, and see what the outcome turns out to be. Then accept that outcome. Or if not, solve it at either the ballot box or by civil war/revolution/vigilante justice/whatever. Just keep courts out of it, lest they lose all credibility and standing.
But we are not necessarily talking about things so simple as “strangling someone to death”.
Let’s face it, statistically, no matter what BLM or anyone else claims, interactions with police that result in the death of a private citizen are miniscule when compared to the overall number of interactions – or interactions that contain a violation of rights that doesn’t necessarily result in death – or even serious injury.
And civil courts are not there to assess criminal liability or assign blame. That’s not their job. Their job is to assess the actions of one entity against another – whether that be corporations, people, or governments – and determine if liability exists and if so, what damages to assess against the entity with liability.
This is the way the founders intended the court system to work. You can see this in how the jurisdictions of the Supreme Court and lesser courts are laid out in the Constitution.
Remember – there was no such thing as a “Police Officer” when the Constitution was written. In fact, Marbury v. Madison was a civil case in which the sitting SECRETARY OF STATE was sued by another individual for violating the Constitution. And while the Supreme Court decided that Madison HAD violated the Constitution, it did NOT force him to issue Marbury’s commission. However, the case itself forever established the power of the Supreme Court to interpret the Constitution as a LAW and not just a set of principles or good ideas.
An individual in the employ of the state is not just an agent of the state, they are also a citizen. And as a citizen, they should be vulnerable to civil suits to address issues of liability when doing their jobs just as any other private citizen is vulnerable in their day-to-day lives.
Having said that – none of this would be necessary if the state would do their job and actually punish every transgression and/or encroachment on the rights of their citizens to the fullest extent possible. However, that’s clearly not going to happen. Why? Because it hurts their ability to exert force – which is what government is.
People across the country – people of all races, creeds, colors, religions, sexes…etc – are abused by agents of the state every single day. If we keep making excuses and ignoring the problem there will come a time when the wheels come off and there will be no more opportunities to fix it.
At that point, it will be fixed through drastic and violent transformation – as you and I have both said more than once…
“they should be vulnerable to civil suits to address issues of liability when doing their jobs just as any other private citizen is vulnerable in their day-to-day lives.”
They should not. And neither should “any other private citizen.” The latter is exactly what enables entirely arbitrary rule by ambulance chaser in the first place.
If you have done nothing wrong, you are not magically “liable.” Not to anyone. Not for anything. And the only way open to limited, civilized and just government to determine that you have “done something wrong,” is to prove it beyond a reasonable doubt, while affording the accused the full suit of protections provided by the criminal process. If the state cannot do that, the accused have done nothing wrong as far as any enforcement apparatus of the state is concerned. And should hence be left alone. Period.
In a contract dispute, having a jury of other people make the determination, simply on “preponderance of evidence” without any predisposed bias one way or the other, makes sense. As there is no one party’s interpretation which is, a priori, better than another’s. Hence, what “most people” would consider a reasonable interpretation is, reasonably, held to be the correct interpretation.
But when it comes to dragging people into court, and arbitrarily “holding them liable,” none of that holds anymore. Then you are, instead, right back into the exact area which all criminal process protections against “unreasonable” anything was written to address. Only this time, conveniently for totalitarians, ambulance chasers and those with the privilege to send those out to shake down other Americans no doubt; bypassing all the criminal process protections that all civilized and just governments afford people.
Suddenly, those privileged to engage in these arbitrary shakedowns, don’t need to prove anything beyond a reasonable doubt anymore. Noone needs to be proven to have done anything at all wrong. No proper indictment has to be obtained in order to drag someone into kangaroo court. All they need, is to arbitrarily “file” some drivel, and off to court the totalitarian state hauls people on their behalf. For nothing more than the fun, convenience and profit of ambulance chasers and those hiring them.
As if all those pesky protections built into criminal processes, and which most people seem to at least vaguely and in the abstract realize are there for good reason, suddenly don’t mean anything anymore. Just because the newspeakers have now abused and repurposed civil courts, which were designed narrowly for contract adjudication and which are hence devoid of any protections against being arbitrarily harassed without cause, into what is effectively criminal processes in all but newspeakian name.
In any case where there is a transgression of one citizen, or group, on another or another group, there has to be an available independent arbitrator who can listen to both sides and determine if the transgression is legitimate and if so, what level of restitution the offender owes the offended.
This particular system dates back as far as can be remembered in Common Law and is pretty much the foundation of civil society.
In tribal societies, this process was carried out by the “chief” or whoever was in charge of the tribe. This eventually evolved to a “jury” of ones peers to try to avoid the appearance of favoritism by the political leader.
However, the original concept of “peers” was considered people who knew those involved and may well have even been present when the transgression occurred. Why? Because they were familiar with the parties and the stories and the back-stories. They were considered the best ones to render fair judgement.
All of this existed prior to anything called “criminal law”. This is what was used to deal with any violation of another’s rights for thousands of years. Was it perfect then? Nope. Nothing is. But it was better than the Law of Nature.
In fact, the civil court system has been used many times to force rapists, child molesters, and others to a court proceeding where they may not pay any criminal penalties, but they are otherwise held liable for their actions. This system is the only recourse many of these victims have when the criminal court system fails them for one reason or another.
What you seem to be advocating for is the elimination of this system in favor of nothing but criminal law simply because you believe that “ambulance-chasing” has ruined the civil court system.
If that’s truly the case – and I believe it is a problem – then fix that problem specifically. Don’t throw out the oldest form of conflict resolution known to humanity simply because we fucked up the execution.
It’s not about effing up “execution.” It’s about institutional protections against entirely arbitrary rule and judgment. IOW, it’s about the very foundation of any even remotely civilized society. At least once said society is big enough to have the resources for courts and policing in the first place.
Criminal processes superseded arbitrary rule by Chiefs, elders and other privilegeds, specifically because the former is compatible with a free society, and the latter isn’t. It wasn’t just a change made up despite arbitrary judgement by the whim of someone privileged working perfectly well.
As long as villages are small enough, and hence their chiefs’ effective power over other villagers are limited (he’s spear ain’t any sharper than anyone elses, his “army” and “cops” are them, which limits his ability to overreach), even judgment by Chief is prevented from straying too far off into totalitarian loopyland.
Once societies, and specifically governing institutions, become larger, and hence the effective power of government’s enforcement apparatus over citizens become harder for the latter to overcome the old fashioned way; the only way to avoid arbitrary tyranny by whomever has privileged access to “courts” and “judges,” is to severely restrict what courts and judges can involve themselves in in the first place.
Which is why criminal proceedings are a pain in the butt. On purpose. It’s a feature. Once running around “deeming” and “finding”, and “holding” people “guilty” and “liable;” are no longer heavily restricted to only extremely grave, clear and obvious-to-all violations; any old crybaby dunce who knows an ambulance chaser, can then drag anyone he darned well pleases into kangaroo court for whatever arbitrary reason he reckons just about may net him a buck or some TeeVee fame… And then… Well here we are.
People aren’t “rapists,” “child molesters,” “hobgoblins,” “bogeymen,” “George Soros” what have you; in the eyes of ANY even possibly legitimate legal system, UNLESS they have been PROVEN to be so. BEYOND A REASONABLE DOUBT. By a court strictly observing all the protections against wrongful judgment and arbitrary harassment which only CRIMINAL COURTS labor under.
Without those protections; without the pain of first convening a grand jury, then getting them to indict; then go through a full tilt jury trial; then having the jury convict (after having been specifically instructed to throw the whole expensive charade out if there is ANY doubt on even one of their minds that the defendant is guilty exactly as charged); all you are left with is completely arbitrary harassment just because some clown figures it benefits him personally for the circus to throw some guy who MAY, or MAY NOT, have done something “wrong”, to the lions for public amusement.
Any legitimate court proceeding assigning blame, guilt and/or liability IS SUPPOSED to be extremely stacked in favor of acquitting defendants (at least as asymmetric as the difference in armament between the defendant and the state. Which has grown pretty outsized by now..). Letting a rapist, or a million, off scot free is, while perhaps not ideal, hardly all that either.
While OTOH: Convicting, or even harassing, someone, anyone, who is not guilty; is a clear, immediate and undeniable refutation of any possible legitimacy any society operating any such court has at all. Legitimate states, and legitimate courts, do not harass innocent people. Ever. Not for fun. Not for profit. Not because unlimited power to harass and police and haul off to Gitmo may in some instances make it easier to “punish” someone prejudged to be “guilty,” or a Bogeyman, or Hobgoblin, or what have you.
Dude you’re awesome!
On this point, you and I will have to agree to disagree – which is okay. In the end, I think it’s probably moot anyway…
But I do love discussing stuff with you. If you’re ever near Atlanta, let me know we can meet up and I will buy you a beer or two and we can talk in person about all the shit we’d like to see 🤣
I agree with you about police unions, but regarding immunity laws, I think the President is correct and you (and other critics) are wrong. Qualified immunity does not mean you are free from criminal prosecution. It means you cannot be sued personally in a civil suit for money damages without meeting a high bar.
In Land Use terms (a course I teach in law school), a local city zoner or planner could not afford to serve on a low salary if, every time he made a decision between an applicant who wanted to build something and the opposing neighbors, the losing side could sue him personally for money damages. Hence, qualified immunity: the losing side can sue the city if aggrieved, but not the individual decision-maker.
Although you can try to distinguish them, the same applies to cops, I think, even though their mistakes can kill someone. No one could afford to be a police officer, on a low salary, if any one aggrieved by one of their actions could sue them for damages. And we would not just be talking about deaths — any claim of excessive force, true or not, would cost the officer thousands of dollars to someone in my profession to defend him or herself.
Of course, since Minneapolis and other places in far left la-la land plan to do away with police and rely on basic human goodness, there won’t be police officers to be sued anyway.
When a police officer kills someone is the city or police pension fund sued?
The city’s insurance policies.
The underlying problem is civil suit abuses in the first place. Run amuck ambulance chaser aggrandizement, by way of abusing civil codes. Codes which are there in the first place, only to adjudicate disputes between parties to specific, and voluntarily entered into contracts. Not to determine whether someone did something “bad” nor “wrong.” Just to clear up disagreements over contract interpretation.
All else, belong to the criminal code, with all the burdens of proof and protections against wrongful prosecution that entails. Including zoning nonsense. Unless what you build on your property is straight up criminal, go ahead and build it. No legitimate state of any sort, has any business meddling.
Ditto police abuses. Like killing people by strangling them. Which, strangely enough, seem to be a criminal act most places…
In general, if the goal is to actually solve a problem, solving it as efficiently and straight forwardedly, and with as few side effects, as possible, is the only correct, hence justifiable, way. Merely pretending to try “solving” stuff, but instead focusing on how best to dream up childish and silly rituals aimed at nothing other than aggrandizing, empowering and enriching useless deadweights, will never accomplish anything of value. Whether those rituals be zoning “laws” or rule by busybody, self promoting ambulance chaser.
Pretty simplistic analysis. We don’t have to get rid of qualified immunity completely, we just need to reform it, as well as improve transparency regarding prior police misconduct complaints (which can be done without demolishing police unions, which is a tough ask). There are so many other reforms as well that would make a difference, including body cameras, independent boards of inquiry, etc. But let’s talk immunity – –
The US Supreme Court has fashioned a modern day immunity defense out of thin air, with a bar set so high it is not only nearly impossible to meet, it kills lawsuits before the law can become “clearly established,” the standard against which civil rights violations are measured. The legislature, not The Supremes, should be prescribing the appropriate standards. Also, the legislature could hold government employers vicariously liable for the illegal acts of their law enforcement employees, which currently is not the case. Instead, governmental entities are only liable for unconstitutional policies. Vicarious liability would improve oversight, and it would spread the burden of compensating citizens who are set up, beaten up, or killed by rogue/overzealous/criminal police officers, rather than laying that financial burden on the officer.
Almost every urban police officer is a member of a union which will pay for his or her legal defense. These unions almost always purchase police liability insurance for the benefit of its members (using union dues), which also will typically pay for a legal defense and for any damages up to the policy’s limits. What the policies generally won’t cover are punitive damages – nor should they given the kind of egregious conduct necessary to sustain a punitive damage award, and its purpose, which is to punish wanton wrongdoing.
DBG8489 makes a number of other, excellent points in his comment. The pendulum has simply swung too far in favor of those who man the thin blue line. It is time for a common sense correction that better balances the rights and lives of ordinary citizens against the admittedly tough job assigned to cops.
This isn’t exactly like land use. I can’t recall the last time I heard of someone on a land use board getting sued for a sec. 1983 violation (although I don’t doubt it happens). An unconstitutional taking of property, sure. But not for killing or maiming someone. The law can be reformed in a way to continue to protect land use board volunteers from nuisance or abusive suits, but also protect the public against abusive cops.
How about contractors? License, bonding, insurance.
Every police officer must be licensed, bonded and insured.
Done.
Great, maybe they’ll act like decent human beings in a routine traffic stop, which in and of itself is wasteful. Get off your high horse, they’ve been corrupt and over funded for decades now, attentive low life power hungry corrupt type folks. YouTube has thousands of examples of officers abusing their power. The corruption goes beyond and is even worse, which isn’t as obvious at the surface level.
They will neither abolish nor improve the police force unless they dissolve the police union first. It looks like Camden, New Jersey did exactly that: Fired everyone to finally end the corrupt union, then rehired.
Most people could care less what label their police force carries, so long as it’s there and, if you’re Black, that someone is screening out the infrequent psychopath seeking a job bullying.
Police brutality is an issue for all races and has been for thousands of years. My dad gave me the same warning about police 50 years ago that people are appalled black fathers have to give their kids today.
I have the notion that if someone wants to become a police office, that in itself is a disqualifier!
If you think black cops aren’t quick to use force against black suspects, you must be from NIMBYville.
The bigger problem is immunity for prosecutors and exempting Congress from the laws they pass.