AP
The police officers who arrested a Black pastor while he watered his neighbor’s plants can be sued, a federal appeals court ruled Friday, reversing a lower court judge’s decision to dismiss the pastor’s lawsuit.
A three-judge panel of the 11th U.S. Court of Appeals unanimously ruled that the three officers who arrested Michael Jennings in Childersburg, Alabama, lacked probable cause for the arrest and are therefore not shielded by qualified immunity.
Qualified immunity protects officers from civil liability while performing their duties as long as their actions don’t violate clearly established law or constitutional rights which they should have known about. More
About damn time!
This isn’t new. YouTube is filed with videos of the “blue line gang” doing this every day across the country. Demanding ID is like crack cocaine to a cop. If you don’t bow down and do exactly as you’re told they “detain you with handcuffs for your protection” at which time they hope you resist ever so slightly thereby giving them probable cause to arrest you for resisting arrest. It’s bullshit and a catch-22 but that’s the police state we live in today in the land of the free.
I understand the sentiment but, don’t paint with such a large brush.
I was good until the end. Emotional distress means pastor Mike sees a paycheck. As I believe police need to behave to a high standard I believe people who claim to be ‘of the cloth’ ought as well. Sniffing out a payday over minor misbehavior under color of authority is not a high standard.
Being a respectful guy I can say my interactions with LEO’s are for the most part satisfactory. Granted I’m a white guy, no criminal record, I’m usually asleep before 9:30. But here’s an example of what respect can do for you. This past Wednesday I was driving locally on a divided highway, approaching a construction zone, light rain. The lady ahead of me was slowing down, then speeding up, then slowing down again. I had to pass her, on a turn. Sure enough, State Trooper right there. Pulled me over. I was “yes sir, no sir”. He had me at 74 in 50 and he just gave me a warning. White privilege.
My inclination is that had Pastor Jennings been given a sincere apology this could have been settled with a handshake. They probably didn’t have it in them to man up and do that though.
The insanity of “qualifed immunity” should never have existed. It has no basis in the Constitution or prior common law and was Magiced into existence by politicians and crooked judges as a means of escaping accountability for their criminal misconduct.
FOR THE LAST TIME!
1. You can video record IN PUBLIC!
2. You don’t have to show I.D. unless you have done something wrong, “What’s the charge?” should be asked before giving I.D., if there is no charge pending, don’t show I.D.
3. You dogs have the right to be dogs on your property, stop shooting people’s dogs!
4. Every person living in a precinct should know the FULL names of every police officer that patrols your area, AND their full address. They know everything about you, but then they sneak off to another town to live and hide, delete their name from the internet and search companies.
5. “Back up” is intended to get 3 or 4 WITNESSES for when the irritated officer provokes a target into fighting back, they’ll beat the hell out of him, then all claim in court it was the victim’s fault.
They aren’t peace officers, they are ARMED COLLECTION AGENTS FOR THE CITY. And they are going to UPSELL every traffic stop to squeeze more coins out of you for city budgets.
Enemies of the people, and ONE THING Black Lives Matter got accomplished, is putting a beat-down on some of these cats way WAY over due.
AND don’t think the police have a soft spot for right-wing people, they follow the directions of the mayor and if they mayor doesn’t like your group, your marching, your gathering, your protesting, those cops will gleefully micromanage your flag-waving rally, provoke, beat the snot out of you, so don’t for a second thinking that defending the boys in blue will help you in any way.
Coming from family being in LE since I was a kid, I have always said there are good cops and there are bad cops. There are some people who put on a badge and a gun on their hip and they think their shit don’t stink.
I’ve known them all. I’m an old lady and knock on wood have never been pulled over, but have been the passenger many times with others who were pulled over. I’ve seen the good cops who had a legit reason to pull you over and are polite and usually hand out a warning. Then I’ve seen the Barney Fife cops who really had no reason to pull you over who were scared of their own shadow. Those types are funny if it isn’t for the fact they scare you because they’re liable to shoot you. Then I’ve seen the dick cops who pull you over for something stupid or they lie about why they pulled you over and they are assholes from the first word out of their mouth.
Sadly, at least in my state I see a trend every year of more bad cops than the good cops. Even with the Highway Patrol who once were above reproach that are pretty much thugs. I’ve lived in 3 different counties where our taxes were raised to pay off lawsuits lost by bad cops. IMO they should have to pay that shit out of their own pockets, not ours. I never raped someone in jail as was the case in one of the lawsuits, so why should I have to pay for that? I never pulled out on a major highway in front of someone seriously injuring an entire family, so why should I have to pay for that? Oh and he wasn’t headed to a call, he just failed to look and pulled out right in front of someone and then claimed after the fact that he had his lights and siren on. The other was a cop who shot a man while he was in handcuffs and on his knees.
There is no qualified immunity for any government authority who violates constitutional rights.
The rights of all the J6 folks are being denied, the persons responsible should be held in jail, tried and sued out of existence.
No taxpayer monies, their money.
GESTAPO personnel were recruited from regular cops.
There’s no reason to believe that American cops are any different than German cops.
All they need is opportunity – and political/juridical protection – which is exactly why we’re experiencing thuggishness on the part of the FBI, SS, CIA, beat cops, &c.
“A fish rots from the head.” and we’ve allowed traitors, thieves, liars, corrupt-o-crats, and miscreants to lead the House, the Senate, and the White Hut for nearly a generation. This criminal class needs its strong-arm as much as its propaganda-arm.
And we need not kid ourselves; this putrid miasma of corruption has settled into every city in every state in the Union – down to nearly every county.
mortem tyrannis
izlamo delenda est …
The neighbor should apologize. Why didn’t he just ask why he was watering the plants?
And if they’re all neighbors it’s not a very friendly neighborhood.
Judgements against blue-suited thugs should be paid for out of the cops’ pension fund. Existing and future pensioners should experience a real reduction in income. Judgements should not be paid out of tax-payers money. The cops should feel this directly and painfully so as to keep their members in line.
Let’s take a look at the contemporary police officer today; they dress ready for combat, many are grossly overweight for the profession, and that profession attracts a particular personality, enormous yet delicately fragile egos. Orcas is correct, there’s no end to the videos on YT demonstrating lahr enforcement violating citizens civil rights, namely DEMANDING identification so they can run it through the criminal database so they can make the BIG BUST! ‘Qualified Immunity’ is clearly unconstitutional and in reality financially protects municipalities from bad cops catastrophically moronic decisions. But there’s also the issue of the bad cop culture. One cop will flagrantly violate a citizen’s rights and 5 others will either just watch or participate. In fairness 99% of my encounters with lahr enforcement have been benign, however I observed firsthand the radicaliszation of a university police force after 9/11 where they went from friendly and assisting to aloof and unnecessarily aggressive. This department also has 2 MRAPs. The only way to improve this situation is to remove QI and have it legally codified as unconstitutional and the entities that employ lahrenforcement will be legally and financially forced to screen personell to reject the bad apples. JMO