[pjc50]

On the other hand, if I assaulted or murdered someone at work I wouldn't expect them to cover for me.

Really the issue is one of process. Was shoving the guy to the ground and leaving him there a normal procedure for dealing with the alleged offense? If so, it's the department's fault and the superiors are negligent. If not, they failed to follow process and caused a death, so they should be individually liable for assault charges.

[mamurphy]

Any person of conscience wants 0 (or at least less, moving towards 0) police brutality. I also think most people would avoid taking a job where they could be judged and imprisoned for a close-call mistake (that the jury believes was) made months or years earlier in a tense, dangerous situation, with no support to defend themselves. Many incidents aren't clear cut - the clear cut ones pull at our heartstrings because they are so egregious.

[mcguire]

Let's be honest here.

There are no "close-call mistakes" in the situations which have caused outrage. The problem is that the officers involved have excessive support to defend themselves.

If changing that causes some people to "avoid taking a job", good. The public has an interest in them not being in that job.

[mamurphy]

>There are no "close-call mistakes" in the situations which have caused outrage

I agree with you on that! As I said, "the clear cut ones pull at our heartstrings because they are so egregious."

The problem as I see it is that it's hard to tailor a bright-line policy that creates increased personal liability for police for their clear abuses of power and brutality, that doesn't also create increased personal liability for their close-call, reasonable mistakes. Some of the "5 demands" I have been seeing seem like reasonable starts [0]; none that I have seen focus on increased personal liability.

>If changing that causes some people to "avoid taking a job", good.

I would guess that you and I have drastically different estimations of how large an exodus from policing the wrong kind of policy change could cause. We need police reform, but we also need police.[1]

[0]For example, https://i.redd.it/e5ka53eb5k251.png

[1]See, for example, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23410144 "Montreal once had a 16 hour police strike, creating a natural experiment in what happens without police..."

[mcguire]

It is impossible to draw a "bright-line" for anything, anytime, anywhere. This is, in fact, why the legal system employs things like juries, standards of evidence, standards of care, and the "reasonable man". And they do pretty well in most cases in handling "reasonable mistakes".

The point here is that none of those are allowed to operate: the police are extended extensive immunity for criminal actions by the structure of the system, as well as immunity from individual civil liability for those actions.

All government officials should be free from nuisance liability suits for their job-related activities. But if a majority of police require immunity from the consequences of criminal activity, you are going to end up with much more than three million dollars of damage.

[s1artibartfast]

>On the other hand, if I assaulted or murdered someone at work I wouldn't expect them to cover for me.

Future allegations may or may not be true. Even officers who follow all procedures want legal defense against false or questionable accusations.