You’re leaving out the part where the police got COS involved who then harassed the family for months. As others have mentioned, they’d have no ability to sue for the actions of the officers unless there was existing case law about almost the exact situation. Qualified immunity protects officers who do stupid shit like this.
I think the main issue in this story is that most Americans wouldn’t feel comfortable leaving their kids outside by themselves, even though it’s really safe outside. It’s a real issue.
It's silly to pretend that there are no people who might want to do harm to children, but as a father, I'm not really worried about them. I am, however, worried about the police hassling my kids and my family for the reasons presented in the article.
My kids are very very little now, but it's something my partner and I discuss how to handle in the future. We live in a typical suburb now, but we're planning a move to the city for several reasons. Counterintuitively, we think this will provide our children more freedom to grow. Our impression is that police authority goes unchecked in the suburbs, while the city resists police overreach (sometimes).
Conversely, some neighbors just moved in from Seattle (I'm in an east coast suburb). They are ecstatic they can just let their kids play outside now. Something they said they couldn't do when living back in the city.
> I think the main issue in this story is that most Americans wouldn’t feel comfortable leaving their kids outside by themselves
Father of 5 here and you are fully correct. Our kids are not meaningfully safer with constant supervision - and by mandating it, we're knee-capping their ability to develop problem solving skills.
Police officers in the United States are universally indemnified by their employers. There’s no constitutional or case law which requires this it’s just the rule everywhere.
Indemnification means that their employer (i.e. municipalities) must pay for their legal defense in a civil suit and any judgment that arises under it.
1983 cases are technically against individuals but not at all in a practical sense.
For some reason activists have zero interest in tackling this issue even though it could be done on a divide and conquer basis and even though it would provide much more deterrence than eliminating QI. I almost suspect the influence of the plaintiffs’ bar is at play.
I'm still confused on what your saying. If a public official wins a § 1983 suit under a qualified immunity defense, there are no monetary damages to be indemnified against. Their employers only have to indemnify them if it is found they did not have qualified immunity and then had a judgement against them.
Are you saying that, for practical purposes, qualified immunity doesn't matter to the individual as they will almost always be indemnified anyway? I suppose this is true in a pragmatic way, but not in theory. As you say, there's no law that says the government agency has to indemnify. While I'd be surprised to find a case where the official ended up paying anything out of their own pocket, there are plenty of cases where the official has lost their job over a judgement against them and none that I could find where they won the case due to being covered under qualified immunity but still lost their job over it.
Practically speaking there is no effective recourse. For things to change, need USSC to remove the qualified immunity doctrine which USSC basically created on their own in 1970s. State law could put in a few fixes, but generally few people are really interested.
A couple years ago BLM had energy yet was distracted and diverted from the enabling problem - USSC qualified immunity.
They key difference here is whether you care more about bad officers facing consequences or the victims getting compensation.
Eliminating qualified immunity only helps with the second part and does zero with respect to the first, but advocates of reform never make that clear.
Even with qualified immunity sometimes victims win judgments. On the other hand indemnification is 100% universal and effective at protecting cops. No cop ever pays anything out of his own pocket, period.
I have a feeling that if municipalities start having to pay out lots of settlements for civil rights abuses by police, they'll start reconsidering the limits of indemnification.
