$428 MILLION Paid by NY over NYPD settlements in 5 years

Freaking wow. "But body cameras are too expensive!".

So before everyone flips out, no, not all of those are going to be settlements for police misconduct. The article does a good job being fair about that.

As Gothamist pointed out, these settlements aren't all the result of basic misconduct by cops. For example, the largest payout, $11.5 million, went to Google engineer Sasha Blair-Goldensohn, who was nearly killed in 2009 when a tree branch fell on him in Central Park.

Still, there are more than 10,000 cases (average settlement: $33,875) listed on the document provided to MuckRock, and it seems likely that most are about what you'd expect.

This is a massive problem.

We need more accountability, and those that are unfit to perform their duties without violating citizen's rights need to be let go. They also need to be held accountable. I'm not sure how we could actually do that.

One thought I've had is making police officers hold a sort of insurance similar to malpractice insurance that doctors hold. Give discounts for wearing a body cam etc. No insurance, no work available as a cop. Harsh? Yeah. Reasonable? I think so. I don't think the taxpayers should continually fund police criminality or abuse.

That is an INSANE amount of money being doled out, paid for by us.

If you want to check out the FOIA

Link

a reply to: Domo1

Yah, anything to defend the police. I'm sure that sends its own kind of message.

Public officials lose their right to privacy when on duty. They should wear cameras, independently monitored.

The tech has been around for a while and mostly it hasn't been utilized when it comes to the police.

All that stuff in Ferguson? Would be settled in a minute with a camera. Might have ever happened.

a reply to: Domo1
I'm too lazy to look it up,but I know america's favorite sheriff Joe and his gang have racked up 500 mil in legal costs.

a reply to: blkcwbyhat

That's disgusting.