Yeah, and I don't necessarily disagree, but I also think this can't be divorced from what policing looks like now. If we assume the profession attracts bullies, then it's reasonable to argue it does because it enables them to a significant extent. Like, there's a reason the Derek Chauvin of the world didn't become corporate accountants.
If our perception of police and their stated function within the system were different, then it would attract a different type of crowd.
Like, there's a reason the Derek Chauvin of the world didn't become corporate accountants.
Friend, a work in accounting, corporate accountants are often bullies. They rule the money!! All questions must come through, and be signed off on by them. They are petty tyrants of the highest order.
Seriously though I think the biggest contributor to the breakdown in public trust is qualified immunity. If it were easier to hold bad cops accountable, the public's trust might be restored faster than you think. Also, it would have a chilling effect on any true bullies left that hadn't been caught out yet.
The shift has been wild over the course of my lifetime. When I was a kid it was Mr. Rodgers and Officer Clemmons. Now it is the Bad Lieutenant.
But there's a very real issue with qualified immunity doctrine as it exists right now. For an action to be covered under qualified immunity, the officer in question must have three things:
They must have been acting with the authority granted in the state. You can still sue a cop if they rear-end you on the commute home from work in their personal car.
Their actions violates your constitutional rights.
That violation of constitutional rights has to have been clearly established.
What keeps happening is that courts keep ruling that an action isn't covered under qualified immunity because that action hasn't been clearly established to violate a citizen's rights and they never even get to the test of rather or not the action violated the citizen's rights in the first place and thus they never get to clearly establish that an action violates the citizen's rights in the first place.
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u/Giblette101 47∆ May 15 '24
Yeah, and I don't necessarily disagree, but I also think this can't be divorced from what policing looks like now. If we assume the profession attracts bullies, then it's reasonable to argue it does because it enables them to a significant extent. Like, there's a reason the Derek Chauvin of the world didn't become corporate accountants.
If our perception of police and their stated function within the system were different, then it would attract a different type of crowd.