Originally published at: Black man mauled by Circleville police dog was pulled over because his truck "was missing a left rear mud flap" | Boing Boing
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i know it is small consolation to the victim here, but if that cop didn’t have a dog to let loose he probably would have shot him instead. he obviously was a threat. WHAT THE F**K!!!
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“Do not release the dog with his hands up!”
“…but the dog didn’t have its hands up, so… I released him [shrug]”
wonder how long they had to search after the fact to discover a “missing left rear mud flap” (or covertly tear it loose) as a lameass cover story? -sigh-
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What he meant to say was “we have no problems with the racism here in the city of Circleville”
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There are no “racial problems here in the city of Circleville,” says its mayor.
Says the mayor of a town so lily white that a suntan would probably get someone discriminated against. Seriously. I’ve lived here about three years now, and am embarrassed by the lack of diversity this town has.
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Even the woman State Trooper was like “I can’t believe this shit.”
The fact they were yelling to not release the dog, makes me wonder if they dealt with this guy before and know he likes to release the dog when it isn’t necessary.
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Lawsuit incoming!
I’m hoping Jadarrius gets a life changing settlement and officer Speakman is relieved of duty, but unfortunately, I doubt the second.
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A lawsuit settlement which will have to be paid for, directly or indirectly, by the people of that community, because of qualified immunity.
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From what I gather, these K9 cops do absolutely love to release their dog. They spend lots of time training for it after all. In the rest of society when a dog has proven a propensity to bite people, the dog is put down. I know I’m preaching to the choir here, but K9 use is very problematic in almost all of it’s iterations.
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There are no “racial problems here in the city of Circleville,” says its mayor.
Preaching to the choir here I’m sure, but just as a general rule, when a white person says “we have no racial problems here”, maybe get a second opinion from a not-white person rather than taking their word for it.
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I believe the municipality would need to pay any settlement due to its vicarious liability as Speakman’s employer. Immunity is a defense to being sued but doesn’t affect who pays for any judgment. Unfortunately Speakerman would have to be out of uniform and off the clock for any of his actions to be considered outside the scope of employment.
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obviously the cop who attacked the man with the dog should be in prison, but even the cop who was yelling that should be suspended.
- go over to the other person and speak softly, don’t yell and raise the temperature even higher.
- if you are going to yell something, phrase it in the positive: “restrain that dog.”
negative commands encourage push back; and that’s even assuming the “not” is heard. this is !%$ basic deescalation.
so much this ^
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Driving while black with a missing mudflap?
Try that in a small town!
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Yes, as I said, the people of that community would have to pay that. How do you think the municipality gets its money? It’s possible (maybe probable) that the city has insurance for such things, but the city still has to pay that premium and the premium may go up as a result of this. Either way, the people of that community pay, which was my point. The officer won’t pay, not because of vicarious liability, but because of qualified immunity. Vicarious liability won’t prevent an individual from being personally liable if they act negligently. Qualified immunity will protect law enforcement officers from even being sued personally, even if they act negligently. He wouldn’t have to be out of uniform and off the clock to lose qualified immunity. He would have to just not be acting within the scope of his role as a law enforcement officer. Usually, this only happens if the officer is actually charged with, and convicted of, a crime, as happened with Derek Chauvin.
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For the record, it is small town, but it was not after dark when they set a dog on Jadarrius Rose.
“Well, try that in a small town
See how far ya make it down the road
Around here, we take care of our own
You cross that line, it won’t take long
For you to find out, I recommend you don’t
Try that in a small town”
Unless “that” is police brutality.
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To me “personally liable” means you as an individual actually pay the judgment, not just that the jury found you liable on the verdict sheet. Even if there were no qualified immunity, and a jury found Speakman civilly liable, he would not pay any amount of the judgment from his own pocketbook (and the city would pay for his defense too).
My understanding of qualified immunity reform is that the financial consequences to the municipality from civil lawsuits will lead to policing reforms, greater ability to fire officers, etc. At least that’s the theory. It would be more effective to hit bad actors directly in their pocketbook, but removing qualified immunity doesn’t result in personal financial liability.
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Well I meant both. With qualified immunity, the individual officers can’t even be named in the lawsuit, much less be made to pay any of the judgment. As far as whether or not he would have to pay anything personally if qualified immunity were removed, it would depend on exactly how that was done. Colorado recently removed qualified immunity, but they included a provision to allow law enforcement entities to indemnify individual officers up to a certain amount, which is fairly large, if I remember correctly. So in Colorado now, the individual officers can be sued, but they generally won’t have to personally pay a dime, unless the judgment is massive, or, again, if they committed a crime, which would release the department or municipality from their obligation to indemnify the officer. But it doesn’t have to be that way. The law could prohibit indemnification as well. This is something that can be done. Things do not have to stay the way they are.
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You would be hard pressed to find a non-white person here in Circleville to get a second opinion from. I’ve lived here the past few years (not actually in Circleville, but just outside of it) and I don’t generally do anything here in town. I always drive to Columbus to do anything outside the home. So I didn’t realize just how white this town is until I saw this article. And it’s funny that I read it here before I saw it in any local news source.
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