In the 1980's laws were passed in the United States establishing the so-called "qualified immunity" for police officers. What it means is that a police officer cannot be personally sued for minor rights violations in situations where the actions of the officer were reasonable considering the circumstances.
In other words, if a police officer happens to commit a minor rights violation against a civilian by accident or due to the circumstances of the situation, if that action is deemed to otherwise be reasonable and justified considering the entirety of the event. Likewise if the police officer simply didn't know that particular aspect of the law (such as, for example, that he had no right to demand ID from someone in that particular situation, thus making it technically a Fourth Amendment violation.)
A civilian who has been wronged in this manner might be recompensed (eg. monetarily) by the police precinct or by some other government official, but the police officer himself cannot be personally sued because of the infraction, unless it was extraordinarily egregious and malicious.
The reasoning behind this is that if police officers needed to be constantly afraid of being personally sued if they made even the slightest of mistakes or had the slightest of lapses of judgment in a chaotic situation, this could severely hinder the effectiveness of policing and law enforcement. It could also needlessly burden the law enforcement and judicial system. And rather inevitably many people would try to sue police officers opportunistically just to see if they can win a sizeable sum of money in spurious lawsuits (or even genuine lawsuits which are nevertheless caused by very minor and largely inconsequential infractions).
The problem is that the main entity that enforces qualified immunity and decides whether it applies or not... is the police forces themselves. This has lead to egregious corruption and abuse of the system in many police precincts around the country. More and more egregious rights violations and outright abuse and police brutality is being committed, as the officers feel safe in their immunity from being sued. Sure, perhaps the victim might be paid a hefty sum by the city or state, but that won't be away from the officer's own pocket, so he literally doesn't need to care. It won't be his money.
This really needs to change. It's one of the main reasons why you see numerous examples of police officers just standing by, watching, as mobs of people commit serious crimes in front of them, and do nothing to stop it. They just watch mobs of people destroy property, block traffic, harass and assault people, and they do nothing to stop it. They are too cowardly to stop it, so they don't, because they don't have to. They don't have to stop it because nothing will happen to the officers themselves. Not only does nobody care, but in fact they can't even be personally sued for their inaction and complicity, even if someone did care.
In a certain way, police officers in the United States are literally above the law. Much of the law doesn't apply to them. They can break the law (up to an extent, but still), and nothing happens to them. They are protected from prosecution. And not as in the law itself saying "this doesn't apply to law enforcement officers". I'm talking about laws that do officially apply to them... but that doesn't matter because they can't be prosecuted for breaking those laws anyway.
That needs to stop, seriously.
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