Thread by @DigitalSamIAm

One of the things I keep thinking about is @justinamash's bill to end Qualified Immunity. It's not a perfect solution + I don't think it goes nearly far enough, but it's a concrete policy that has merit + can have a positive impact for thousands who have been denied justice.

Obviously, no one *really* likes tort law, but it's an interesting vehicle that may be able to change incentive structures + drive (much needed) reform to policing (especially at the local level).

Removing QI opens the door for a host of legal remedies (discovery, civil suits, criminal charges), as well as removes a significant bargaining chip that pushes victims of police brutality toward a settlement vs. a day in court.

Right now, most cities have a line item for settling police lawsuits. It's just "the cost of doing business" -- which is why things don't change. But if that cost of doing business increased 100x overnight, it probably would. That penny on the dollar becomes the whole dollar.

Next, personal "malpractice" insurance should be mandatory for every officer - just as it is for every attorney, every doctor + every person who operates a motor vehicle. If you can't be insured, then you can't be a cop. This adds another layer of accountability + oversight.

Buit again, this might not be enough. So we need a national registry for all police officers, which includes all of their badge numbers, record of service, complaints + insurance provider. And as with the Bar association, complaints must be handled by an independent investigator.

This removes the defense from municipalities that they "didn't know" about an officers misconduct + significantly lowers the probability that such misconduct will be papered over -- because again, independent investigator AND private, third-party insurance.

In order to make hiring bad cops *even more* expensive for cities/PDs, remove all punitive damage caps on instances of police brutality, overreach, rights violations, assault, etc. Then (as happened with the Catholic Church) provide a look-back window where the SoL is waived.

There will be some eye-popping verdicts, which will scare the bejesus out of police departments everywhere...especially if police pension funds are fair game for settlements (which they absolutely should be). Now good cops are incented to remove bad cops.

Because one bad cop doing something dumb or thug-ish could mean a (significant) hit to the good cop's pension + retirement security. That'll put the #BlueWallOfSilence to the test. Again, boring + definitely not sexy. But sometimes you've got to break systems by a thousand cuts.

In addition to all that, I do think every mayor should sign a "One Strike" policy for officers: one instance of brutality or abuse = immediate removal from the force, immediate cessation of pay, no reinstatement anywhere for 2 years (why the national registry is critical).

One thing I think would come out of this: significantly better candidate recruitment + training (esp. in de-escalation) -- not only will PDs see that better-trained officers are much less likely to engage in unnecessary violence, but they are able to achieve better outcomes.

Obviously the @GLFOP will hate *all* of this, but that's usually a good sign that we're on the right track. This is by no means exhaustive, but I think this has a decent shot of *starting* to correct the flaws in the system. I firmly believe incentives - financial + legal - work.

I get that a lot of people are hurting + angry right now - but I do think we need to come up with concrete policy proposals focused on correcting systematic injustice - and that starts with re-aligning incentives + removing barriers to justice.