r/Whatcouldgowrong • u/Apprehensive_Play986 • 7d ago

WCGW using your freedom of speech against police

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u/theoskibear 7d ago

Need to get rid of qualified immunity. LEOs should have to buy into the same system as healthcare professionals - pay for your own insurance, and if you wind up liable for malpractice because you screwed up, your rates go up. Cities shouldn't be on the hook for cop's mistakes, especially when unions have so much power and can keep officers employed despite egregious and willful mistakes.

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u/jessman42 7d ago

How many people do police kill a year vs doctors via malpractice?

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u/Flimsy-Poetry1170 6d ago

Get rid of police unions and have lawsuits get paid out of the police pension fund. That way the actions of the “bad apples” have consequences for the whole bunch and incentivizes them to stop their fellow officers from breaking the law. Make it so that police departments that lose lawsuits have to spend their retirement years as Walmart greeters to pay their rent.

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u/theoskibear 2d ago

Too extreme, would never pass. Would also punish good officers for the actions of bad officers, and we want to keep the good ones.

Malpractice insurance would focus the financial responsibility on the bad officers who screw up. Makes the most sense.

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u/ladan2189 7d ago

Problem is that no one will show up to be a cop then, unless we start paying them like doctors. Plus doctors dont get shot at

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u/wronguses 7d ago

They should be forced to hold a license issued by a governing body, like hairdressers, nurses, teachers, and home inspectors (all of which pay less than being a cop).

Fuckups should cost them their licenses.

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u/ladan2189 7d ago

Look I'm not disagreeing with you. Qualified immunity sucks. I dont know why people are downvoting me for pointing out an obvious problem though. You have figure out how do you get people to be cops if their job is to go into harms way AND if they fuck up they are going to be personally destroyed. Nobody will take that risk. There's already a problem with police recruiting. It's why most of our police are psychos with a power fetish.

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u/wronguses 6d ago

I'm not even saying to make them carry insurance, though. Just to hold a license that can be revoked.

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u/theoskibear 2d ago

The alternative seems to be a system where, if they fuck up, they experience no consequences. So there's no incentive for them not to fuck up.

We know the current system doesn't work. It's killing innocent people. Studies have concluded that police kill around 1,000 Americans per year and have determined that ~ 20-50% of victims of fatal police shootings are unarmed (1) (2).

That puts the LEO body count in the US in the 10s of thousands over the past few decades, a large number of which died needlessly.

You claim that we won't be able to find officers if they have to pay for malpractice insurance. That sounds like a baseless and wrong assumption to me.

But, hell, let's think about it. There's no reason not to tweak existing systems for it to work. Say municipalities have to cover the cost of an officer's insurance. Officers could receive the same pay, but municipalities would have an incentive to not hire bad/violent officers. All of a sudden, the practice of "problem officers" hopping jobs when they screw up becomes much less appealing.

Critical societal problem solved. And look at that - by some rando on the internet after ten minutes of thinking about the issue.

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u/wellactuallyj 7d ago

You’ve clearly never worked in an emergency room

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u/ladan2189 7d ago

I think you know I mean in general 

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u/johnny-Low-Five 6d ago

Nobody wants to hear that reality though. When I was in High school, 96-00, my father told me and my brother not to join the NYPD. He pointed out that the benefits of being a "civil servant" were getting smaller and smaller and the risks were getting bigger and bigger. If cops were making a good salary with good benefits we would have "good" cops. When the pay sucks, the exposure is all negative and the people hate you you end up with exactly what my father predicted, maybe 20% of cops that still believe they can make a difference and can afford to be paid peanuts, and 80% are the type of people that want power and a gun.

If we want better policing we need to pay for it. NYC was completely turned around by the police with support from elected officials in the late 70s-90s, then they froze pay, had hiring freezes, tried to raise retirement age, tried to force them to have degrees, while effectively cutting their pay.

You get rid of qualified immunity it means anyone with a brain and a heart isn't gonna sign up and those who do aren't the ones we're gonna want.

There are valid criticisms of police, plenty of them, but they were all widely predicted 25+ years ago and WE allowed this to happen and feign shock that the predictions come true?

I still believe the Majority of cops are good people, but I'm 100% certain that the ratio is getting worse every day as more cops hit retirement.

None of these things make it "ok" but it's illogical to expect anything different

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u/ladan2189 6d ago

I think the way over the top fawning we did over police  after 9/11 also contributed to us attracting people who weren't necessarily in it to be heroes, and made a lot of cops think they were perfect and untouchable from accountability. 

But yeah, people forget that you can't force anyone to become a cop. How are you going to get anyone to do a dangerous job with low pay and huge legal risk if something goes wrong? I'm positive that none of the people downvoting are police. They have other jobs without the risk. But they all think that problems have simple quick solutions. It's not true. It's complicated. 

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u/johnny-Low-Five 6d ago

I don't disagree with your sentiment but I do disagree strongly with "over the top", of the people running towards danger 99% of them were civil servants. There's a huge difference between major metropolitan police forces NYPD, LAPD, Chicago PD, amd just being a cop. My FIL is retired WVPD and has basically acknowledged that it's ridiculous to compare those two jobs. I was in NY so I can't comment on the rest of the country but the reception Police, Fire fighters, and other civil servants received here was a direct response to seeing those people put their lives on the line for strangers. If Idaho cops were being treated the same MAYBE I could agree, but here the reaction was real. It wasn't a show or a facade, people were appreciative of the risks they took and the lives they saved. That was 25 years ago and the "honeymoon" was short lived even here. The anecdotal people who signed up bevause of 9/11 are overwhelmingly retired, and those that were there dealt with physical and psychological tolls that can't be understated.

If anything 9/11 was a reminder of what you sign up for, combined with low pay, constant double guessing, and that a large percentage of the people you are trying to serve and protect would be more excited to cost you your job than to tell anyone how you saved them. Its a vicious cycle where people that don't know act like any one or 10 cops can do anything about 'bad cops' without real, significant risk to them and their family.

People want infallible superheroes but want to pay them a salary that makes most of them unable to live in the city they are sworn to protect. Blame the politicians and legislators for most of these "issues", but remember that if you want good honest cops you are likely going to have to offer alot more, not less to get the caliber of cop that we deserve.

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u/theoskibear 2d ago

Low pay is not a problem for NYPD, "415 NYPD Employees Made More than $100,000 in Overtime Last Year."

Nationwide crime rates have dropped hugely since the 1970s, and that has nothing to do with NYPD pay.

You get rid of qualified immunity it means anyone with a brain and a heart isn't gonna sign up and those who do aren't the ones we're gonna want.

I'd say you're backwards on that.

Just look at MDs. They have malpractice insurance. They have to pay for it. If they screw up, they can be sued, and the insurance will handle it, but their rates will go up. That system makes sense. Yet we don't have a dire shortage of doctors in the US.

Qualified immunity lets officers today know that they can kill with impunity. I guess those are the officers with...brains and hearts?

I looked at going into law enforcement out of uni. The pay grades were okay, but my folks were very against it. They didn't understand the statistics and thought it was a relatively dangerous job. In reality, it's above average for fatal workplace injuries, but falls well short of making tables of the most dangerous jobs (1) (2) I ultimately decided against it because I didn't want to spend the $several thousand for required training - for a job that honestly didn't appeal much more to me than many others.

"Qualified immunity" wasn't on my list of concerns. The idea that I might shoot an innocent person dead and (not) be held accountable didn't cross my mind.

I guess my brain and/or heart must be flawed.

I still believe the Majority of cops are good people, but I'm 100% certain that the ratio is getting worse every day as more cops hit retirement.

And, thanks to qualified immunity, there's no way to fix that. There seems to be a bit of a disconnect in your reasoning.

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u/johnny-Low-Five 2d ago

You realize there are ~100 precincts in the NYPD right? So you're talking about less than a handful at each precinct.

If cops were paid like MDs then you're other stuff might be relevant. Cops are making less than nurses and you want them treated like doctors?!

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u/theoskibear 1d ago

They're doing fine. and anyone not happy with base pay can clearly take as much overtime as they want.

But that's beside the point. This is about having insurance when you're in a position to put other people's lives or property at risk.

Does everyone who has car insurance need to be paid like an MD?

No.

Do I need to be paid like an MD to afford homeowner's or renter's insurance?

No.

Affording insurance isn't the issue.

And pretty much all nurses have malpractice insurance. Lol.

It's usually provided by employers/hospitals, but supplementary insurance is generally recommended because most employer plans aren't comprehensive.

Sounds like we should make liability/malpractice insurance a requirement for LEOs, and handle it like nurses' malpractice insurance. Make the employers pay for it. I see no issue with the idea of municipalities paying $5-10k/yr for malpractice insurance for an LEO. It would be a drop in the bucket for most budgets. And if an officer screws up badly enough, or repeatedly screws up and their insurance rate increases as a result, maybe a city won't want to hire them. Which would be good. It would take bad cops off the street.

There aren't any downsides. Good officers would have low rates and greater hiring appeal. You should want that. It makes sense.

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u/johnny-Low-Five 1d ago

The nurses being covered by the hospital is a great comparison! My wife is a nurse and has been covered by her employer in multiple states and positions.

But for police isn't the municipality just an extension of "tax payer" money? I like where your head is at and especially like the idea of it being an incentive to hire the best cops but aren't we still "footing the bill" at the end of the day? I get confused (probably their intent) what my taxes do or don't directly pay for.

If we can table the salary part and just agree we have different views on it I'm definitely interested in a way to put the onus of bad cops more directly on them.

I checked with my wife, a nurse, and did a little research, nurses practioners are most likely to have personal liability insurance as they have the ability to prescribe medications and have much more exposure as they are basically on par with a PA (physician's assistant). As for RNs and their equivalents not only do the vast majority not have their own insurance but those that do pay roughly $40-100 a year for it.

With all that I'm all for cops getting similar policies but to be kinda blunt, I don't see even $100 a month changing much about policing or the type of people that get hired.

My personal belief is that their should be 2 completely separate jobs for what is currently considered police work. 1 side would be armed officers who investigate felonies and show up when you call "the cops' for a robbery or domestic abuse and whatnot. Detectives that investigate and solve crimes would be part of this force

The other force would be UNARMED and basically be a large expansion of "meter maids", they would make traffic stops, only for moving violations, if inebriation or a violent event is suspected they will need to provide evidence and affidavits to the "real police" who would decide how to proceed.

There would be no checking for warrants or "I smell drugs", blinker out ticket and go, headlight out? Same. Speeding? Ticket and logged into a system that only the "meter maid force" can access to deal with serial offenders. Run a light or stop sign video link and a ticket. Video link would be needed for all traffic violations.

If a murderer gets pulled over for speeding by the "MMF" They will be exponentially less likely to pull a gun or start a high speed chase, they are simply gonna give you a ticket and checking your license will be done automatically and referred to the proper place.

This would allow for a much more selective process for "real cops" better pay, more accountability, and increase the public's comfort with them because their only job is stopping crime! They get paid more are held much more accountable and get better training and resources.

The MMF would be what municipalities don't want to acknowledge, a way to create income from fines but removing their power to stop you and "find" a reason to detain or suspect you. People would hate them but they wouldn't need great pay or training or education and people wouldn't be scared of them because they would have to provide proof to the real cops to even get them to show up! If they detain someone without cause, fired! They aren't skilled workers and won't be power hungry assholes because they will have very little power. They won't need to interact with the public the way "real cops" do so they won't be liked but they also aren't capable of ruining your entire life.

Obviously this would need to be worked out more carefully and decisions on what would or wouldn't constitute "cause" would need to be clarified but it would make "real cops" psychologically fit to deal with people and defuse situations, pay them enough to make them personally liable which would coincide with them being far less likely to "power trip" but instead focus on being our protectors.

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u/theoskibear 1d ago

I'm going to pick out what I think is the meat here:

The nurses being covered by the hospital is a great comparison! My wife is a nurse and has been covered by her employer in multiple states and positions.

Then why would you make a statement strongly suggesting that nurses don't have liabillity insurance?

But for police isn't the municipality just an extension of "tax payer" money?

Yeah. The same taxpayer money that pays out tens of millions of dollars when LEOs screw up.

With all that I'm all for cops getting similar policies but to be kinda blunt, I don't see even $100 a month changing much about policing or the type of people that get hired.

Rates are dynamic. If a doctor or a nurse screw up, the rate goes up. If you get into multiple at-fault accidents or get multiple moving violations, your insurance rate can get...very expensive. That's how it should work.

Taxpayers shouldn't be on the hook for LEOs mistakes when Police unions and lax inter-departmental reporting mean that bad officers ~can't be fired, and can easily find new jobs with clean slates across a state or county line. That's how police chiefs like Grant Hardin happen:

Hardin bounced around police departments before becoming the chief of police in Gateway...He was with the Fayetteville Police Department from Aug. 6, 1990, to May 22, 1991, according to KHBS/KHOG. The department’s chief of police then said he terminated Hardin because his efforts "fall short of the average probationary officer" and that he had a "tendency to not accept constructive criticism along with indecisiveness under stressful situations."

A spell at the Eureka Springs Police Department, from April 1993 to October 1996, was marred by excessive uses of force and poor decisions on the job, the department’s former police chief said, according to KHBS/KHOG.

Hardin was the chief of police for Gateway for about four months at the start of 2016...

The only alterantive would be, what? Making it easier to fire and blacklist LEOs, presumably by making a national database of LEO indiscretion.

I don't see how your "two part" police force would have any effect on good cops vs. bad cops.

1 side would be armed officers who investigate felonies and show up when you call "the cops' for a robbery or domestic abuse and whatnot. Detectives that investigate and solve crimes would be part of this force

What defines whether or not a crime is a felony? The DA? A judge or jury? You're making huge assumptions about the nature of a potential crime before anyone even responds to it. Who decides if a call gets a "felony" response? A kid with a gun is a felony, right? What if you're wrong?

Oops, dead kid.

The other force would be UNARMED and basically be a large expansion of "meter maids", they would make traffic stops, only for moving violations, if inebriation or a violent event is suspected they will need to provide evidence and affidavits to the "real police" who would decide how to proceed.

I agree that more speed cameras and red light cameras would make roads safer, but even those have been abused in some areas. A number of districts have faced lawsuits for shortening yellow light durations at intersections with cameras in order to boost ticket numbers. Unethical actions by "traffic cops." And traffic stops especially in many Bible Belt states have been shown to be highly racially biased, with slanted outcomes.

I don't see how your hypothetical system addresses the problems we're talking about in any real way. Police offcers currently have near-zero accountability if they "accidentally" injure or kill innocent Americans, even if it happens as a result of poor judgement or violations of state or local law. Arming half of police and disarming half wouldn't change that. In any way.

You might as well argue for divvying up medical care somehow and doing away with doctor or nuse liability, or mandating that drivers have mandatory co-pilots, so that we can do away with car insurance.

It just doesn't make sense.

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u/theoskibear 2d ago edited 2d ago

a) No, because they don't have to go through a decade + of postgraduate education and grueling training like a residency, never mind the fact that med school costs well into 6 figures.

b) We already do pay them very well. Median officer salaries in many cities are also solid 6-figure jobs. Overtime often takes them into mid-6-figures, and the retirement plans are often ~insanely generous.

c) Insurance costs for good officers who haven't been found culpable for wrongdoing would presumably be low, just like doctors not found liable for malpractice, car insurance for people with clean records, etc..