As bad as many of the cops in this thread have been, this might legitimately establish a new low.
The department had a hair up their collective ass because the family had won a wrongful death lawsuit when an officer manhandled her brother – she was in fact reluctant to ask them for help because of that. If you have conflicts with the police, obviously you do not deserve decent service.
The coroner found traces of meth and pcp in his body – we can be sure that that report is accurate, right?
Even if he was trippin’ balls, hiding his death for seven months is inexcusable.
From the article, it seems like the investigator from the coroner’s office, at least, was on the up-and-up. He identified the body, verified the identification with state records, passed all the necessary contact info to the cops, and–supported by his contemporaneous notes–followed up repeatedly with them. He’s also the one who told the family where the man was buried.
The real problem seems to have been the lead missing persons investigator, who covered everything up until he retired. Two weeks after the new investigator took over, she contacted the family and sent an officer to tell them what happened.
There is also the crash investigator who couldn’t find the dead man’s family to inform them that their family member was run over by a cop. After having the person’s name and fingerprints verified.
It sounds like this was a deliberate act by the original investigator, possibly based on dislike of the family. I think he should get sued to within an inch of his life.
Now that he’s retired, would qualified immunity still protect him? I suppose so given his malfeasance was committed as part of his official duties.
You mean prosecuted? There are some pretty serious crimes here, even before we get into the all-too-plausible possibility of murder.
MSN.com non-paywalled version:
Justice Department announces investigation of a Mississippi town’s police force.
Lexington officials have promised to cooperate with the investigation, the Justice Department said.
Suuuuuure they will.
Clarke said there have been allegations Lexington police officers have stopped, searched and arrested people without justification and used force against people who did not pose a threat to officers.
There are also reports officers used illegal roadblocks targeting Black drivers. About 86 percent of Lexington’s population is Black, and the city has a poverty rate near 30 percent.Officers have also allegedly retaliated against people questioning or recording police activity and have routinely arrested people for using profanity, a violation of the First Amendment.
About 86 percent of Lexington’s population is Black. The rest are cops and cop’s families.
Update on the civil case against Pierce County Sheriff who decided delivering newspapers while black must be a crime:
Too bad Sheriff Shithead doesn’t have to pay this himself.
Also, in case you are wondering, Troyer is still the Sheriff.
Yea, I’m not sure how this is any kind of deterrent.
Discriminate against someone and call the police on him because he’s black?
No problem, just have the taxpayers cover the cost of the lawsuit. This dude has suffered no consequences whatsoever from his actions. What’s to stop him (or the next guy) from doing exactly the same shit?
And that’s why I think cops should foot their own insurance bill. If you do something stupid, insurance will cover the settlement, but your rates go up, not ours. If they go up to the point where you can’t afford them or the insurance company drops you, you can’t be a cop anymore. Come to think of it, that would have the added benefit of forcing bad cops out of the service even if the PD would have otherwise kept them on.
There’s plenty of reasons this probably wouldn’t work, but I’d love to see the idea explored some day.
Ah, the heartland.
That was disgusting and disturbing. I hate that people like that exist.
I absolutely love this idea. Why do you think it wouldn’t work? (Or did you just mean politically it ain’t ever gonna happen?)
TLDR, my concerns are mostly that departments would cover the increased costs to the officers and/or they’d spin the story to make the insurance companies look like the bad guys.
My initial reason for thinking that is because, unless payroll is transparent and raises are handed out based on specific, objective metrics, I’d worry that if a cop does something that would cause their rates to go up, the department would simply give them a raise or bonus to cover the cost.
I also think there would be a lot of PDs blaming insurance companies for ‘being political’ and accusing them [the insurance companies] of being able to essentially make unilateral firing decisions with no oversight. I’m not saying it’s true, I’m just saying it’s an easy way to spin the situation that would get the Thin Blue Line people worked up into a tizzy.
Also, in this case, the insurance company would almost be acting like a PD oversight/watchdog group. They’d even be able to do some good by lowering [previously raised] rates if the officers go through some type of training to address whatever the problem is/was.
If you want to make sure a disgraced cop can’t just get re-hired a few counties over, this would be a good start.
I have no idea if insurance companies would be interested in wading into that minefield. Especially since we occasionally hear about insurance company’s pulling out of the PDs altogether. Hell, maybe the threat of losing the entire department’s insurance will be enough to get PDs to actually start making sure their cops behave.
I have a few other thoughts, but I think having officers carrying (all, or at least part) of their own insurance would help sidestep qualified immunity protections.
And one last thought, how long would it be before you start seeing the people for a smaller government trying to pass laws that prevent insurance companies from raising rates for police officers?
Yeah, let’s remember how well putting private insurance companies in charge of most of US health care has worked out.
The insurance companies would insist on putting in clauses along the lines of “we ain’t paying jack if the actions were performed not in the line of duty, if against department rules, or if while committing a crime.” (hopefully committing a crime is against department rules 
)
Now that I’m thinking of it, are there such clauses currently in the insurance?
I’m not sure how that would apply here. This would be a lot more like home/auto/business insurance. It’s not like medical insurance where you’re buying into it, at least in part, to get better prices on other products and services.
If such a clause is applicable, wouldn’t it already be in their current policies?
Police departments already have insurance, I’m just suggesting that officers pay their own share of it.