New evidence suggests officers at fault, not suspect.

[RobertNashville]

Aaawww now ya done it. The next person to chime in will spout how it's the tax-payers paying for it.

I'm all for going after the officers personally in civil court as well. ;)

 

And yes, I do know that it's taxpayer $$$ when it comes from the city PD but it does, at least, put a dent in the city budget which, other than votes in an election is about all the bureaucrats understand!

[Dolomite_supafly]

Problem is the vast majority of times the department, county and/or city will defend the officers because if the officers are found to be at fault then the department, county and/or will also be found at fault. Most law suits like this list the officers, the county and every body in between on one suit. So if one is found guilty the rest are also found guilty. A better way to approach it is to file a lawsuit against each individually and not lump them in with the rest. The reason is if the department can distance themselves from the bad officer they will but when lumped together the department has no choice but to defend themselves and the officers are part of that defense. It also allows one or two defendants to be found not guilty and you still have the rest you may win from. Another reason is when a suit is won against an individual officer it is the officer that pays and not the rest of the department. The reason why most people list the city or county is they are hoping for the multi million dollar settlement which, from my experience, rarely happens. I would much rather hold the ones actually responsible too.

 

When I had someone try to sue me it listed me, about a 1/2 dozen yet to be named officers, my supervisor, my supervisor's supervisor,  every chief in the department, the sheriff, the county mayor and the county itself. In the end it was thrown out but it also cost the county $15K to prepare for the court case. Most times a lot of departments, counties or cities will try to settle for a no fault judgment for less than the cost to defend. I know we had one suit that was total BS but the claimant agreed to take $5K in order to drop the suit and the county was glad because it was cheaper than going to court.

 

As far as what happened here very few bad officers just wake up one day and are suddenly bad officers. It has normally taken years of slowly pushing the boundaries. And although we would love to hate the officers for what they did but it is not entirely their fault. Their actions are the result of their continued training, his peers, his supervisors as well as the administration. They have allowed other incidents to go unpunished which only empowers officers like this. It is a rare that an officer goes from being an outstanding officer to a crappy officer in one step, it happens gradually in front of their peers and supervisors.

Officers tend to take care of their own even when the bad officer brings a bad light to the good ones. I never understood this, the good officers should be very angry with the bad officer but it rarely happened from what I witnessed. I know any time I had an officer screw up enough to warrant being fired I tried everythig in my power to fire them but in most cases the administration allowed them to resign because it was easier. And in a lot of cases the resigning officer received a letter of recommendation upon exit as well as a glowing review because he didn't try to fight it.

Another thing that contributes to things like this is that officers are afraid of being labeled a rat if they tell on other officers. I have known several officers who did the right thing in by turning in bad officers only to be ridiculed and threatened until they finally resigned. In most cases the bad officer would be treated better than the good officer. And when the good officer resigned they would rarely get letters of recommendation. I have even sat in front of supervisors as they called all the surrounding jurisdictions to tell them the officer who just resigned is a rat. They would joke saying the rat has been blackballed and will never work LE again. Stark contrast to the way they treat bad cops.
 

[sigmtnman]

I'm all for going after the officers personally in civil court as well. ;)

And yes, I do know that it's taxpayer $$$ when it comes from the city PD but it does, at least, put a dent in the city budget which, other than votes in an election is about all the bureaucrats understand!

I agree that they should go after the PD, but thesad fact is that the bill will be passed to the taxxpayers...

Se la vie. :/

Absolutely go after th officers. Edited February 25, 2014 by sigmtnman

[E4 No More]

Please explain.  Where does a municipality get funds from? Governments will raise taxes regardless, but usually a shortfall in budgets is an impetus.

The point is that they don't need this excuse, or any other excuse, to raise taxes. Most jurisdictions are also covered by insurance, and some are self-insured. Premiums would go up, (but they don't need excuses to do that either), and self-insured already have the money set aside, (funds already gathered at tax-payer's expense). Judgments can also be directed at the officers personally, but the lawyers want to go after the deep pockets.

[sigmtnman]

As though a government needs an excuse to raise taxes. I don't condone much less want taxes, in no way does my statement give them an excuse. It just a fact. The money has to come from somewhere. I gues th PD could issue more citations to cover it, but that's just another form of tax...

[vontar]

2 minutes in, his own lawyer said he didn't believe him until the video came up.  Does make me wonder about him a little bit since almost all police cars have video rolling when the lights come on.  Kinda sounds like they might not have tried very hard to get the video at first.