Defunding and Qualified Immunity Together

How to defund and how to defeat qualified immunity. Everyone should at least understand a little about qualified immunity. It protects police officers, and more, from being held accountable for bad acts. Defunding has as it’s goal the demolishing of police departments. Defunding and qualified immunity are not fly by subjects. But regardless of getting all hysterical over matters right now it is a good time to slow down and try to understand the nuances of what is being spoken about.

Defunding no matter how you slice the pie will require citizens to hire private police. There is just no universe in which if cops loose their jobs they will not get another one. And what better than on a private police force. Well that would mean the same cops just without the restrictions of government. If I were writing up the insurance on a building I would raise the premium because of no police around. And then I would waive some of that increase if you hired real trained police as your private police.

Qualified immunity is not a legislative law. It is wholly made up of the non-representative judicial branch of our government. No lawyers did not create this atrocity, justices did all on their own.

In large part qualified immunity is a bar to bringing a lawsuit against a law enforcement officer if he was working at the time of the action that gives rise to liability. Notice I did not say the government entity for which the law enforcement officer (hereinafter LEO) worked at the time. They are still liable.

And here is a good one. If the LEO does not get qualified immunity the union and entity and insurance pay for any liability that causes an award or compromise for damages. (about a 1% exception to that rule)

Now if we defund, one place to cut back is insurance. It is almost a “who cares?” deal with insufficient funding. So the next victim will probably not get as much because there is just not enough insurance. Insurance is huge here. If you are writing insurance for police department Y and Y does not have enough officers and so is negligent in staffing and training and equipment. Are you going to increase coverage and decrease premiums? Or are you going to decrease coverage and increase the premiums.

Now I want to move my industrial business to your city. Now I am simply not going to do it. I am going to have an event and sports team play in your city and bring in tons of revenue. Now I am simply not going to do it. I am a gun shop. I will start ordering for inventory because I am going to have a run on guns. I am a criminal that sells guns. I will need more for people who cannot legally buy one.

OK you have a great home with a 100K mortgage on a 200K home. You do the math. Is John the buyer going to buy yours with no cops and schools that are not protected? Not to mention, you guessed it, your homeowners, or rental insurance is going to triple in cost. Look on the bright side maybe you get a reduction in property taxes – when was the last time that happened – never!

Back to qualified immunity and our recent case. Hey that officer was using an often used technique. And believed it to be warranted and legal. He would be right. It does not matter if it results in a death or skinned knee. Under qualified immunity he will not have to face civil liability. ABSURD! You cry. Don’t yell at me, I hate the rule of law in this instance. There are cases that are precedence that cover just such a scenario and rule against the victim. Be sure to note here we are not speaking of criminal liability but in that case they are going to get over proving intent rather than extreme idiocy. But that just pertains to degree on innocence. No one knows all the facts yet. If we are judge and jury off a video we have a screw loose.

So we can see that defunding may just drive this qualified immunity to higher levels not lower ones. What is reasonable for a poorly trained (no funding), with bad equipment, with no back up and a radio that only works part time is a far lower standard than that of today. If someone is doing the best they can under horrible conditions well the conditions are more to blame than the LEO. If you have 3 gangbangers coming at you in an alley and one has a knife and you are black and they are black and no backup for 5 minutes, what are you going to do? I do not know what I would do. But I do know that I would not want to die and that the qualified immunity would cover me even if I shot all three. That is one horrible likely outcome with defunding.

If you do not like LEOs or lawyers now just wait for it. They are going to ravage the entity and the councils and legislatures who go along with defunding.

Sanctuary cities will be interesting to watch. Now you drastically defund the Los Angeles police department of local and state funds. The department must look elsewhere. How about the feds. All the department need do is crack down on illegal immigrants and marijuana stuff. And ICE, FBI, DEA, SS, ATFB are all your best friends now. Who else is going to watch their back? And do not think for a second that the feds will not increase and mobilize. Sanctuary will not mean anything anymore because the feds will be making the arrests no need for notice by local LEOs.

So it is a crazy world out there. What is cool here is that a “solution” offered up by certain sectors will have the exact opposite effect on their issues. If it were not so sad it would be funny. Ah shoot it still is funny.

But there are some smart ones out there. They are proposing legislation to roll back the qualified immunity stuff so it is easier to hold cops accountable. But with defunding all will be for not. I can still hardly wait to write my check to Antifa for my police protection. Hey can they be held accountable?