T. Greg Doucette: Cops are great — Subium • Bluesky web client

Cops are great

"Detroit paying $300,000 to man wrongly accused of theft, making changes in use of facial [recognition] technology" apnews.com/article/detr...

Detroit paying $300,000 to man wrongly accused of theft, making changes in use of facial technologyapnews.com The city of Detroit has agreed to pay $300,000 to a man who was wrongly accused of shoplifting. It is also changing how police use facial recognition technology to solve crimes.

Was it you that suggested that the law should change so that all of these settlements/verdicts should be paid out of Police pension funds? I’ve been trying to remember where I read that.

No, my take was that cops should be required to carry individual malpractice insurance – pay settlements from that, watch rates rise based on risk, and price bad cops out of the profession

But if we did that cops might be afraid to act at all. What if there was an active shooter situation at an elementary school, for exam… oh.

This is along the lines of requiring insurance for gun ownership. It prices certain guns / people combinations out of the market. No one is selling insurance for a 10 year old to own an AR. And safety solutions can be priced in to drive costs down. Could even be part of the same law.

Me: Qualified Immunity is bullshit. Cop Friend: Without it, I couldn’t do my job. Me:

Thank you for the reply. Also an idea I think would be excellent to implement.

It’s a brilliant idea to be fair.

Sadly will never happen. Republicans brand it as an employment program for plaintiffs attorneys, and Dems don't have the muscle to counteract that messaging

They can save money with the union's group plan, hopefully leading to "dammit Frank, leave that kid alone, if there's another premium hike I can't take the family to Branson this year."

Is that how medial malpractice insurance works?

In the aggregate, I'd say so? Scope of practice does tend to be constrained based on medmal premiums But there are unrelated confounding problems that mitigate the effect, including big overall shortage of doctors, medical boards general refusal to discipline bad docs, etc

I think the public-vs-private employment status with cops means some of those confounding factors don't carry over. Public budgets are fixed, tough to justify hiring a bad cop with high premiums. Bad docs with high premiums can still bring in a profit

Thanks, I understand some of that. Appreciate the explanation

Sort of - medical malpractice costs vary by a bunch of different factors, including, e.g., "when someone successfully sues a professional in this specialty the payments are absolutely massive", which isn't necessarily correlated with how good the provider is. www.leveragerx.com/malpractice-...

Medical Malpractice Insurance Cost [2023 Guide] | LeverageRXwww.leveragerx.com Medical malpractice insurance is pricey. Yet, prices depend on your location, specialty, & history. Learn more about this investment!

If it worked like medical malpractice a SWAT team member in a state with high liability limits might be priced out even if they're super careful and never violate anyone's rights, kind of like how in one county I lived in, absolutely no one was willing to deliver babies anymore.

Thanks for explanation

Post