By John Vibes
One of the most corrupt policies in place to protect police officers who commit violence in the line of duty is the legal protection that comes when a victim files a lawsuit against an aggressive cop. When a victim of a police assault wins a lawsuit against the police department, the city’s taxpayers are usually on the hook for the restitution fees. However, a new policy change in Baltimore—which will set a revolutionary precedent—will finally have the guilty officers feeling the pain in their pockets for once.
In a memo sent out by police union president Gene Ryan this week, Baltimore City officers were warned about how they could be charged with punitive damage if a jury finds that they acted with malice during an attack on a citizen.
The email stated that:
Many of our officers are sued for monetary damages by individuals they have arrested or have come in contact with. These lawsuits allege wrongdoing on the part of the officer and oftentimes allege that the officer acted with malice. Malice means that the officer’s alleged actions were motivated by a personal hatred towards the individual suing him or her. If the person suing the officer wins on the question of whether the officer committed a wrong, the Plaintiff can recover monetary damages to compensate him or her for any injury and/or expenses incurred resulting from the officer’s actions. If a jury finds that the officer acted with malice, the jury has the option to award punitive damages which are designed to punish the officer and to serve as a deterrent to the officer not to repeat the alleged wrongful conduct found to have occurred by the jury.
Most times, the officer who is being sued will dispute the allegations made by a Plaintiff and successfully defend a claim for punitive damages. However, many juries award punitive damages despite the lack of evidence of malice even in cases where the police officer has not been charged criminally and been found to have acted within the scope of his/her duties consistent with the rules and regulations of the Baltimore Police Department. In the past, the City of Baltimore has generally supported the officers by paying punitive damages as well as the compensatory damages awarded for the actual injury. Since Andre Davis has been named as our new City Solicitor, he has adopted a policy of not paying any punitive damages despite the fact that the Police Officer has been found to have acted appropriately by the office of the State’s Attorney as well as the Baltimore Police Department.
What this means is that police officers are now required to pay these punitive damage awards, which can amount to thousands of dollars, out of their own pockets. Since punitive damages cannot be discharged in bankruptcy, the successful citizen can file an attachment against your wages taking 25% of your net bi-weekly paycheck until the amount of the punitive judgment is satisfied.
Please keep this in mind as you go about performing your duties.
The email was leaked to Baltimore crime journalist Justin Fenton for The Baltimore Sun, who posted the following tweet on Tuesday.
Earthquake going through the Baltimore police force after this message blasted out by union about city no longer covering punitive damages in lawsuits: “The successful citizen can file an attachment against your wages taking 25% of your pay … Please keep this in mind” pic.twitter.com/uwFTm7Tg1A
— Justin Fenton (@justin_fenton) February 7, 2018
City Solicitor Andre M. Davis responded to the leaked email on Wednesday by saying that the union was lying and that this policy has been in place for decades.
Former City Solicitor George Nilson has confirmed this, saying “In the past, the city law department has appropriately refused to pay malice judgments.”
Davis pointed out that the Local Government Tort Claims Act doesn’t require local governments to pay punitive damages for police officers but most local bureaucrats go along doing so anyway without question.
“The statement was flatly wrong in several respects and deeply misleading in other respects. The statute reflects the ordinary common sense notion that if government employees are told that no matter how badly they misbehave, no matter how maliciously they inflict harm or injuries on their fellow citizens, their employer will pay for that harm, then we can expect an increase in such harm. Employees, including police officers who, no doubt have the most difficult job in government, are not privileged to inflict gratuitous injury on others without also incurring personal consequences.” Davis told WBAL.
Davis also took issue with the fact that the email stated that officers are charged without evidence, which is an obviously false claim considering that police are held to a much lower standard than average citizens in the US legal system.
“Instead of speaking out forcefully to encourage FOP members to police in a professional and constitutional manner, as the Commissioner-Designate [Darryl De Sousa] has promised will be his guiding light, and as the federal court consent decree mandates the Police Department to achieve, the FOP leadership’s message seems to be an attempt to dissuade officers from continuing to do their challenging jobs in good faith reliance on the City’s contractual and state law obligation to protect them from baseless lawsuits. This is unfortunate and troubling. Nevertheless, the Law Department will always stand with our officers and give them the legal defense, counsel, and such additional training as may be needed so that they remain on the constitutional side of urban policing in the twenty-first century at all times,” Davis said.
The Baltimore Sun reported that as many as nine Baltimore police officers could have to pay tens of thousands of dollars in damages for recent cases where they found guilty of attacking someone with malice. These cases are reportedly what provoked this recent tantrum from the police union.
John Vibes is an author and researcher who organizes a number of large events including the Free Your Mind Conference. He also has a publishing company where he offers a censorship free platform for both fiction and non-fiction writers. You can contact him and stay connected to his work at his Facebook page. John just won a 3-year-long battle with cancer, and will be working to help others through his experience, if you wish to contribute to his treatments consider subscribing to his podcast to support . This article first appeared at The Free Thought Project.
This is a step in the right direction, but the police should be individually responsible compensatory damages. Better yet, the individual police officers should be made to buy insurance covering their actions. Salaries could be adjusted to consider what the cost would be for an officer with a spotless record. Police who routinely abuse citizens will not be insurable, and therefore unemployable. Those who have not progressed to that level will see the cost of insurance rise so their paychecks will shrink giving the incentive to behave in an appropriate manner. As long as the individual police officer is not held accountable personally for his or her actions, there is no incentive to change.
I like that insurance idea.
I agree. But, the establishment that allows and encourages such behaviors and actions should be fiscally and criminally responsible as well. Mayors, council people, commissioners, sheriffs, commanding officers, etc. All of them.
You are absolutely right.
Yup, The best idea yet! I guarantee that everyone will be surprised how well this will work to suppress police excessive force in the future of this city. Hitting the Police State where it hurts in the pocketbook is better than all the ‘training’ in the world. You wouldn’t believe how many multi-millions Chicago pays out for police brutality and bad arrests every year on the arm of it’s taxpayers who already can’t afford their continuously rising taxes and the virtually bankrupt city-and most of Illinois actually, has to keep raising their property and state taxes income taxes to keep from going bankrupt?
Next, the city councils across the nation should quit using citizen’s hard earned tax dollars to pay for the illegal surveillance State equipment like the highly suspicious license plate scanners to start with?
Excellent observations and assessments. I concur fully Mahatma–Muhjesbude. And then, we can take it further from city officials to federal. Then the unelected bureaucrats and corporation execs and managers. And all the ‘aids, help’ as well.
I agree as it needs to reflect the contractual obligations those folks are under. They take an oath of office and are usually bonded. That oath and bond is held by John & Jane Q. Public, who pay they’re salaries. Let the people hold them to account, as they ought to be.
Right on. I enthusiastically concur. All those paid by us, supported by us, got/getting wealthy by us; should all be held to account for what they have done.
There has been no paradigm shift. Police, because they are acting as LEOs in their private capacities under color of law as employees of a corporation and NOT peace officers under oath of ‘the law’, are all bonded and must pay from their own bond if they act unlawfully, which ALL of their actions are unless they are keeping the peace (their only sworn duty as peace officers, LEOs are not peace officers, they are a whole other animal).
They always act in their private capacities (not under oath or officially) under color of law (having the appearance of law but with no authority without some sort of nexus or contract) and each one is bonded because they’re acting unlawfully (rogue, outside the real law) and the corporations that employ them don’t want that liability, and have never, ever had it. This is business, as sad as it is, as usual, nothing to see here.
Their bonds are all up for grabs if they run afoul of the law, and they do that every time they turn on their lights and pull you over for speeding, because speeding is not an emergency, and an emergency is the only time they may use them.
It is not the duty of the police to protect you. Their job is to protect the corporation and arrest code breakers. Sapp v. Tallahassee, 348 So. 2nd. 363, Reiff v. City of Phila. 477 F. Supp 1262, Lynch v. NC Dept. of Justice, 376 SE 2nd 247.
You are right they act under the color of law when they really have no lawful authority. One of the big problems is that the courts are complicit in their crimes. Rarely is a law enforcement officer found guilty or punished. Their own agencies routinely excuse their actions. A recent example is the sheriff in Tennessee who ordered his deputies to shoot and kill a man who did not represent a clear threat. The local state attorney backed him. You’ll be able to knock me over with a feather if he is ever held responsible in any way. We’re living in a police state, and it seems to be getting worse rather than better.
“It is not the duty of the police to protect you. Their job is to protect
the corporation and arrest code breakers. Sapp v. Tallahassee, 348 So.
2nd. 363, Reiff v. City of Phila. 477 F. Supp 1262, Lynch v. NC Dept. of
Justice, 376 SE 2nd 247.”
I keep police and peace officers distinguished by recalling that POLICe enFORCE the POLICies of the corporate entities and these are deemed Legal, although perhaps not Lawful. The LAW does not require force to protect or uphold itself, so we only need officers minding the peace. I think of the Andy Taylor character which was in effect modeled nearly verbatim as a peace officer, after all Andy was a Justice of the Peace.
Of course if you do win a rare victory in court & manage to attach their wages ;plan on moving to another state or their brethren will be harassing you till you are incarcerated.
Right on. Every time you, friends, family, partners, colleagues, etc, turn around there will be a cop. Following, stops, citations, knocks on the door, etc will ensue. Happens in all functions and areas of government. The corruption doesn’t end.
Excellent start, but if a law has been on the books for years and not followed; the question remains: Why not? Corruption and protection of said corruption never ceases. I believe that the City and it’s gaggle of criminals is tired of money being taken from pockets and not being able to stuff their pockets as full as tax payer money as they could be. Yes, it is good that the Baltimore public knows, but how about prosecutions of the guilty instead of laying responsibility onto the victims? And not just the cops, but the DA’s and judges as well for refusing and colluding NOT to do their jobs and prosecute an convict criminal acts instead of protecting said acts. Never happen, but hey…..
Great! It’s about time and only right.
No matter how you look at it those of us who have been badly victimised know that this thing called ‘government’ is actually organised crime. You only have to ask the question of how can anyone get a fair trial in any court that stands to make money off your conviction? The judge makes money, the prosecutor makes money, the lawyers make money and so on.
You and the general public are being fleeced through taxation, fines, fees, etc.
It is a war that most don’t understand. The legislatures write unconstitutional laws that treat us as if we are all their slaves, cops enforce these unconstitutional laws and commit extortion at the same time. The courts go along with it and protect their system before protecting the people. They get away with it because people are afraid to see the truth. It is a system of racketeering and extortion. It is not a government of the people, by the people, for the people as we have all been deceived into believing.
What you must understand completely, for, this is a tactic, putting something between the people and their Police is a strategy, a strategy that will pay off when the Filthy Rich, their Politicians and Judges, need the Police to keep us from -getting at them. The Rich Suits want the Police to hate us, to want us dead, because that is the end game. The destruction of relationship, the relationship of the people and their police, has for the last decade become a hate campaign initiated by the Main Stream Media by order of their Banker King, over there in England. Look at every failed nation, every time, a deadly nation, the people afraid to look their police in the eye. It is not the lack of land and mineral wealth that makes these failed nations failed nations, it is, the Filthy Rich holding the people of the land in escrow, until they need that chuck of people-money developed and implemented.
I don’t care how hard it is for you to stop watching (learning from) Main Stream Media, you have to do it. We, the people, are just playthings today, the King and his cast playing us like silly children, like a blind person with a hammer in a house of glass. Every single thing white people try to do today turned against them as they, we, are labeled and guided to think we have took advantage of other people and our kind, of people, the Police, are out of control. While the County Council raises the tax on a Red Light Ticket, they are at the same time trying to figure out how to cash in on the Property Forfeiture (highway robbery) little thing the Police are being brainwashed to think –they, got it coming.
Divide and conquer, who profits? There, you figured that out easy enough, how about doing some studying of history and knowing just who (they), he, is? Think of the power you will have when finally you learn who the King of the World is, who the soldiers of this King are and how, where, they are based. You know what, I just caught myself thinking: don’t tell them what they ought to know, then, they will get to work and make the changes that save people from a fiery death. People, want to act stupid let them, for, in a time every effort you have made to enter the game will be validated. People, white people, truly are clueless, certainly are lazy, really are, sitting with their butt holes situated right above the long shaft with a needle like point.
Look, here’s how you must think to figure ‘it’ out before it happens, or, at best, have a chance of recovering after the fact. Where do all roads lead? If you could you would like to see just who owns what, leaves you guessing, really unfair, we, don’t even have a chance if we don’t have a clue about the game. On the very bottom line of every document in the world that give ownership, leadership, to people, as in who owns the Media, really, the bottom line, the last name on the list. Sure, Rothschild, you guessed that easy enough. Rothschild, in some conflagration of names and places would pop up, in this case….try, every other case too
Santos talks about the Vatican, others talk about the Queen, “America,” London England, so many discussions so many possible candidates for King of the World, no, not really. Rothschild, stands alone, the very top of the Pyramid, the only God people have, the King of Kings, bar none. When we understand this, Universally, when we realize the answer is so easy, right in front of our eyes, ie, take it to the Lord, loudly, with threats, with a real show of force, if need be, but take it, always take it, to the right person, to the King of the World, Rothschild.
Demand of the Family every change we desire, even so that every one of us is rich, rich so we have food to eat, water to drink, fresh air to breathe, and a roof over our heads, all of us, us people. Darn it, figure it out, no more wars, no more drug addiction, no more cancer, wars and rumors of wars, etc., etc., etc..
Nothing I write or think is copyrighted, nothing of myself demands any sort of special consideration, everything I know and feel I learned on the Internet. Like Jordan Maxwell taught me in my first existence, that everything I knew was a lie, has, proven itself to be true. The truest truth, I know. So much I want to tell you, except, it really is too much. Don’t know any gods, but I do know the truth when I read it, it is written ‘work out your own salvation with fear and trembling’ so it must be and, so, what’s holding you back? They will laugh at me, so what? Don’t hide your diamonds under rocks of lies and treachery. Let your light shine.
…good make that policy, and a bunch of the good suggestions on this post a national policy…