What Real Hate Looks Like

The utter contempt, the downright hate being demonstrated by elected officials grandstanding for the cop-hating movement in America was on display in New York City recently once again. Mayor Bill De Blasio and the New York City Council are not content with simply sticking the knife in the back of every one of New York City’s 36,000 sworn police officers, no that isn’t enough. Now they are twisting it.

This should be concerting to every law enforcement officer and every agency in America. This ending qualified immunity for local police will be sweeping every urban agency in America that has liberal politicians on city councils. It has been in the crosshairs of cop-hating groups as part of their inane police reform agenda. Even Congress is considering removing this protection for police officers in its police reform bill HR 1280.

As many of you reading this may know, qualified immunity is a judicially created doctrine that protects state and local law enforcement officers by shielding them from harassment, distraction and liability for acts that may violate someone’s civil rights if it can be shown that the acts do not violate clearly established statutory or constitutional rights of which a reasonable person would be aware. It is a high standard to prove that when making a split-second decision, an officer cannot reasonably be able to determine in an instant, a legal determination.

What doesn’t get talked about enough is that when people file civil lawsuits against police, their lawyer wants to go after the deep pockets. That would be the city, a municipal corporation and their insurers. That is where the money is. Recently, the city of Minneapolis settled a lawsuit with the family of George Floyd, who died in police custody, for $27 million. You may have heard of the case. No police officer has wealth or assets totaling $27 million. If they did, they would not be in policing. Not for what the average officer is paid in salary and benefits.

So, the question is why it’s so important to go after the assets of an underpaid law enforcement officer in a civil lawsuit? For spite. If given a choice, no civil lawsuit plaintiff would go after an officer’s assets instead of a municipal corporation’s. This has never been an issue until this war on police. It’s why I referred to it as New York City twisting the knife.

The doctrine of qualified immunity takes into account the difficulty in police making decisions. It gives them and their family protection against losing their homes and other assets. It allows police to do what they need to do in serving and protecting. Without the protection that qualified immunity offers, what officer in their right mind will take any risks on the streets. Risks like pulling over a suspicious vehicle or conducting a field interview stop? These police actions can quickly go to hell in a heartbeat, often times through no fault of the officer. Those two activities are what is needed to keep crime and violence in check. Without it, the criminals and perpetrators of disorder control the streets. New York City is finding that out since the Ferguson effect, named after the police use of force in Ferguson, Missouri. Officers are no longer as assertive as they need to be. It’s no longer worth risking not only their lives but their family finances and assets. I don’t blame them. The results have been catastrophic for law-abiding communities in poor black and Hispanic neighborhoods.

Crime is surging in many urban cities as a result of continually pounding on the police. Homicides, robberies, aggravated assaults like nonfatal shootings and car thefts are exponentially rising. Homicides are up 45 percent and shootings are up 97 percent in New York. Across America in 51 various cities,

homicides are up 35 percent and shootings are up 10 percent, according to Christian Science Monitor research.

Crime rises for a number of reasons but it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to make a valid correlation between a lack of quality of life enforcement and rising crime rates. Assertive policing is necessary for quality of life enforcement. It is not happening and with cities eliminating qualified immunity protection for officers, this vital police activity will not return soon.

Cops are not stupid. It won’t take long for police officers to counter to protect their family assets by taking everything of value out of their name and either setting up a trust or putting assets in their spouse’s name exclusively. With no assets in their name, it will be difficult to go after them. You can’t squeeze blood out of a rock, after all.

My fear is that these attacks on police by cities won’t stop here. Next, these bastard criminal-coddling politicians will suggest an end to benefits for line of duty deaths and survivor benefits. Don’t say that these politicians wouldn’t stoop that low. They have proven time and time again that their moral elevator has no bottom floor.

David Clarke Jr. is former Sheriff of Milwaukee Co, Wisconsin, President of AmericasSheriff LLC, Board member of the Crime Research Center, author of the book Cop Under Fire: Beyond Hashtags of Race Crime and Politics for a Better America. To learn more visit www.americassheriff.com