Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC) on Sunday warned that limiting qualified immunity for police officers would be a “poison pill” for Republicans as congressional efforts to pass police reform legislation continue in the wake of George Floyd’s death.
Time to pull this Tom over for a traffic stop.
There is no rational legal argument for those who are sworn to enforce our laws to have any immunity from those laws. It makes absolutely no sense.
Then let them vote that way in this political climate.
If they want to live in the 19th century, they should have to say so publicly.
“We think it makes much more sense to keep poisoning our communities instead,” he said. “How else can we stay in power?”
Why do we allow the argument to continue to be framed as “bad behavior” and “misconduct”? These are sworn officers breaking the law they’re paid to uphold.
Stop using wording more appropriate for little Johnny’s parent/teacher conference!
I’m open to making a collection to send package to Scott’s home. Including
(1) Bathroom sink mirrors
(2) Wall mirror
(3) Hall closet mirror
Thank God for Tim Scott! If it wasn’t for him, the GOP Coc–Er–Republicans would be fresh out of Uncle Toms!
Republican cognitive dissonance. It’s really the defining element of their reasoning capabilities. Such as they are.
Amazing:
The Paris #BlackLivesMatter protest today has to be seen to be believed. pic.twitter.com/p61geun2er
— Joshua Potash (@JoshuaPotash) June 13, 2020
What brand of water does TS carry for his Party?
Evian or Pellegrino.
The Chris Rock episode of Seinfeld’s “comedians in Cars Getting coffee” is a good one. At the end, they get pulled over for Seinfeld speeding in a borrowed vintage Lamborghini. As the process unfolds Chris Rock makes several half-jokes about being very nervous and glad Jerry is there. It’s pretty tense and very instructive. Seinfeld is completely unconcerned.
Now would be an excellent time for white liberals to chide everyone about how politics is the art of the possible and purists who can’t accept compromise need to shut up and let the adults in the room get to work. That shit never gets old.
Fine, except that limiting or ending qualified immunity is the only way to truly reform police behavior and departments. It’s also a judicially create a doctrine, not a law passed by Congress. Ironic how the right can tolerate activist judges when their activism in their policy favor. Some sort of limitation of liability is necessary however due to the nature of the job, but a better standard would be “the minimum force necessary to affect a legitimate police purpose” rather than the legal gobbledygook about violating constitutional rights about which a reasonable police officer should be aware… My $.02, but then I was an associate city attorney defending police officers in their official capacity for years
I found this article at MJ interesting concerning calls where it’s not necessary to send police with guns to mental health situations and etc. It saves money also.
CAHOOTS—a free, 24/7 community service—is funded by the city at a cost of around $2 million, or a little over 1 percent of the Eugene Police Department’s annual budget, though it is currently fundraising to expand and make up for COVID-19-related budget cuts.
Under the model, instead of police, a medic and a mental health worker are dispatched for calls such as welfare checks or potential overdoses. In 2017, such teams answered 17 percent of the Eugene Police Department’s overall call volume. This has saved the city, on average, $8.5 million each year from 2014-2017, according to the White Bird Clinic.
“They see that as a poison pill on our side,” Scott said. “We can use the decertification of officers, except for the law enforcement unions say that’s a poison pill.”
Note the explicit alliance between police unions and GOP. There is still not enough clarity about this. I live in NYC. The city’s policing strategy is to have citizens pay thousands of heavily-armed and racially radicalized white MAGA dudes from Long Island and Staten Island to roam multiethnic neighborhoods without accountability. Whose idea of was this? How is this a viable model? We are literally paying hordes of unrepentant Trumpist out-of-towners to terrorize our communities. Scrapping this model wholesale & starting over is obviously the only way forward.
They want their “militias” to tote assault weapons freely in public, but don’t think jugglers should have juggling bats or household knives in their homes.
Sen. Scott: “If we propose an end to qualified immunity, police unions would definitely taze, club, pepper-spray, and shoot the bill.”
This.
Call their bluff and let them go on the record opposing the police reform bill. The Democrats shouldn’t give away their leverage when there is a good chance the GOP will be kicked out of power in 5 months.