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by ceejayoz 493 days ago
> Part of me wonders whether it is sincerely possible to violate someone's constitutional rights "in good faith".

Person running down the sidewalk pursued by someone shouting "stop, thief!" gets tackled by a cop and cuffed. Turns out to be mistaken identity or they'd done self-checkout. Rights violation? Yes. Good faith? Also, yes.

1 comments

> Person running down the sidewalk pursued by someone shouting "stop, thief!" gets tackled by a cop and cuffed. Turns out to be mistaken identity or they'd done self-checkout.

Not sure that'd be a rights violation. The cop would be able to say they had reasonable suspicion that a crime was being committed justifying the detention. Excessive force is a possibility depending on the details, such as the extent of the injuries that resulted from being forced to the ground or if the cop ordered the runner to stop before tackling them.

I think steelmanning the arguments for QI is that that's what it's for. Cop can't be sued for excessive force in that scenario.

Of course, in reality it's moved well beyond that into the realm of absurdity.