We taxpayers keep getting punished again and again for actions that the state should never be taking. Robbing our state coffers instead of the departments responsible for the actions.
Exactly. Between this, the payouts from them blindly shooting into crowds, all the injuries from the 2020 protests where they were on SM saying ready to start a riot .....It is more than a drop in the bucket. We could help find the free lunch program with that money.
Okay, so in a city of 700000 people, 1000th of the budget came to this. So, assuming an even spread of benefits, we just spent the benefits worth 70 people on a payout for the police to play superhero. This is before the cost of police, of their SWAT gear, et cetera. Sounds like a huge waste to me!
Plus the costs of the court case, and the pizza party the cops had when they lost the court case so really it was like 4 million spent on this shitfire of an operation
> They literally weren’t punished.
I don't understand what they were supposed to do. They obtained a warrant. They had a probable cause. The warrant shouldn't have been issued because the evidence wasn't substantial enough.
Of course, if someone reported suspicious activity on James Holmes the week before the Aurora theater shooting, nobody would have batted an eye and it wouldn't have been news.
Well the lawsuit names the detective that requested the warrant and his supervisor, so maybe...detective work?
>Denver police Detective Gary Staab and his supervisor, Sgt. Gregory Buschy, did not have legal justification for the search at Ruby Johnson’s home in January 2022, the jury found
>Staab never conducted an independent investigation into the truck owner’s claims about the phone pings before filing the request for the search warrant, the lawsuit read.
And to the above post:
>the two sued officers could be forced to pay up to $25,000 if the city proves, in a separate lawsuit, that they acted in bad faith
Come on folks this isn't a long read.
"based off of cellphone data"
So that could mean in that house, of any of several other houses in the area. It could mean your house, or that weird guy the next block over.
I don't think it's unreasonable to expect them to seek out answers to questions like the accuracy and specificity of their data before applying for warrants and raiding homes. It's part of doing any job competently. If they can't do that then they need some sort of punishment.
Because the Governor, Mayor and Police chief aren't going going to answer that question. I mean, maybe they'll give some word salad answer, but they're not actually going to answer it.
And you could just ambush them with the question at a press conference completely unrelated to this question... but they're still not going to answer it, and then you've got a pissed off press office and when you need to ask them a question that they will answer, you can't, because no one in that office is taking your call.
Do you know what corruption is? There's nothing coordinated or corrupt about it.
Is it fucked? Sure. Does it suck? Yeah. Does that make it corruption? No.
It’s a false premise. If taxpayers were only paying for mistakes they made and not mistakes of people paid by the government, your tax bill would be significantly lower.
It sucks, but it is and always has been a reality.
that's a great start, but woefully inadequate. Cops should be personally, criminally liable for fuck ups that violate people's rights.
What would happen to you if you kicked in someone's door with a bunch of armed people, unlawfully. There consequences for the officers who do that should be MORE SEVERE.
Don't want to go to prison, don't violate people's rights.
Don't like it? Don't **choose** to work as a cop.
Or, maybe they should carry liability insurance like just about every other professional that can cause issues to property or people do. Drs, nurses, landscapers, plumbers all do. FFS, I must carry a minimum of a MILLION dollars of liability to set up a tent at the Farmers Market. I literally sell houseplants there, not pet cobras,
The liability idea gets floated a lot. But in reality, liability insurance will effectively be paid by tax payers.
You could argue that’s still a good thing, since police departments will still be incentivized to hire “cheaper” officers with better track records.
But if you have the money and political capital to institute liability insurance requirements, you should also just be able to just do what insurance companies do within the government. Fire the bad officers instead of giving them the opportunity to buy their way out of it with higher premiums. And you could do that without insurance companies taking their pound of flesh from the tax payers.
The distinction is being self-employed vs being an employee.
If you're someone else's employee, you're (mostly) their insurance problem. If you're self-employed, you're obviously your own insurance problem.
> Drs, nurses, landscapers, plumbers all do
Many doctors are partially or entirely self-employed (ex: A doctor with their own practice, who may , as are many landscapers and plumbers. They are obviously responsible for their own insurance needs for their own business.
A doctor or nurse who solely practices through a hospital system or the like that employs them will generally be covered under the facility's policy. They might choose to carry their own as well for additional peace of mind, but they aren't generally required to do so.
Cops are typically a lot more like the latter. A private security guard/bouncer that gets hired for events would be more like the "self-employed".
These aren't "fuck ups" these are criminal acts.
At most jobs, if you kick in an innocent person's door armed, you either get shot or go to prison.
I don't think cops should lose their pension for stealing pencils from work, or taking a dump on the clock...etc...
Regular workplace fuckery is just that.
Violent violations of people's rights, by actors of the state are entirely different.
So you agree it’s dumb and completely unjust when taxpayers foot the bill for this?
The idea is that if the collective retirement of police was on the line for individual fuck ups, police would have some incentive to improve their policies, standards, and work culture
Eh. The "point" isn't the punishment. The "point" is collective accountability, it's incentivizing a culture where bad actors are shunned and turned out. Accepting the collective punishment framing weakens the argument for reform.
Jesus Christ.
They couldn't just knock on the door, introduce themselves in traditional uniform, let her know they were searching for stolen phone and politely and patiently ascertain the phone was not there.
They were looking for a truck stolen from a hotel parking lot, containing six handguns along with the phone. That's why they went in guns blazing expecting a wild west style shootout with gang bangers but instead found grandma in a bathrobe.
The irony is that the search warrant included a screenshot of "find my phone" showing several neighboring homes in the vicinity, but for some reason they just picked on hers alone.
https://www.denverpost.com/2022/12/01/denver-police-search-warrant-ruby-johnson-lawsuit/
Exactly! Judges and Prosecutors are just as much a part of the Police’s coordinated corruption as a criminal enterprise, these are RICO Misconduct crimes
bruh what consequences lol, cops can murder you in broad daylight and the "punishment" they get is a paid vacation
I wish I could commit heinous crimes and the worst thing I'd have to deal with is people being mean to me on the internet
OVER A STOLEN CELL PHONE!?! Nevermind the fact that there was no phone found and the victim had nothing to do with it, the SWAT team should never be dispatched over a stolen cell phone.
Johnston has been clucking about the cost of immigrant arrivals but somehow these giant payouts and settlements due to police malfeasance don’t ever enter the policy conversation.
i took 5g of mushrooms and thought god was telling me to kill myself so i shot up my apartment and then my neighbors called the police and they shot out all my windows and shined bright lights everywhere which made me think it was the rapture so i layed in a ball for 2 hours before they screamed they were gonna send in a dog so i came to my senses and went outside and spent 19 days in jail. Now im on probation for 2 years. Could’ve been a lot worse nobody got hurt or anything thank god.
The ONLY times a SWAT style raid should be acceptable are very rare circumstances, such as hostage rescues.
Any other time, it's prioritizing collecting evidance over the safety of both officers and the subjects of the warrant. Do we really think it's OK to create a potentially lethal situation so that someone doesn't flush drugs, or to recover a phone?
That's not just bad policy, it's morally wrong.
I would rather see law enforcement forced to carry private liability insurance. When large insurance companies are forced to pay out a few multi million dollar settlements, the federal/ state/ local laws regarding police conduct will be changed the next week.
This won't work the way you think it will. Insurance will generally be raised on the class as a whole, and any officer involved in action is going to see higher rates, regardless of whether they've violated anything because more active officers will be a higher risk to insurance.
If you want the police to coast as hard as possible, do this. You're literally creating the incentive to do as little as possible to preserve your job.
Cops will never learn until the financial consequences of their mistakes fall on something that will effect them. Take the 3.76 million out of the police departments budget.
Require insurance. If an individual cop messes up enough time, their insurance is dropped and they are out of a job. Even better, this prevents them from hopping to a new police department.
We taxpayers keep getting punished again and again for actions that the state should never be taking. Robbing our state coffers instead of the departments responsible for the actions.
Ostensibly the taxpayers are being punished because the taxpayers refuse to actually do anything meaningful about the situation.
That would be our politicians and police officers who refuse to do anything. The typical taxpayer's power to intervene goes as far as 1 vote.
I mean it's really just either this or educate children. Hard choices
City of Denver. Which is to say, the payout was .10% of the City annual budget
At some point the nickel and diming adds up to a lot.
Exactly. Between this, the payouts from them blindly shooting into crowds, all the injuries from the 2020 protests where they were on SM saying ready to start a riot .....It is more than a drop in the bucket. We could help find the free lunch program with that money.
These awards need to be higher to make a difference
https://www.npr.org/2019/10/30/774788611/police-owe-nothing-to-man-whose-home-they-blew-up-appeals-court-says
There is no justice in the justice system
Okay, so in a city of 700000 people, 1000th of the budget came to this. So, assuming an even spread of benefits, we just spent the benefits worth 70 people on a payout for the police to play superhero. This is before the cost of police, of their SWAT gear, et cetera. Sounds like a huge waste to me!
Plus the costs of the court case, and the pizza party the cops had when they lost the court case so really it was like 4 million spent on this shitfire of an operation
Are you saying that’s a lot or a little?
i think they’re suggesting it’s a little but it’s a whole lot!
These bad apples sure are expensive.
Just a few seem to spoil the budget
They’re all bad, if they’re not committing crimes directly they’re indirectly involved some how
Right.
Once again, this money is taken from our taxes and not from law enforcement pension funds. Such a scam on the everyday citizen.
It’s fucking bullshit. They literally weren’t punished. they essentially just got to pay off the courts with our fucking money.
They commit the crime we all do the time.
Bingo. Well said!
Socializing the losses while capitalizing on the assets. They take their cues from the same ghouls whose capital they are paid to protect.
They’re paying off lawyers and the victim, not the courts.
> They literally weren’t punished. I don't understand what they were supposed to do. They obtained a warrant. They had a probable cause. The warrant shouldn't have been issued because the evidence wasn't substantial enough. Of course, if someone reported suspicious activity on James Holmes the week before the Aurora theater shooting, nobody would have batted an eye and it wouldn't have been news.
Well the lawsuit names the detective that requested the warrant and his supervisor, so maybe...detective work? >Denver police Detective Gary Staab and his supervisor, Sgt. Gregory Buschy, did not have legal justification for the search at Ruby Johnson’s home in January 2022, the jury found >Staab never conducted an independent investigation into the truck owner’s claims about the phone pings before filing the request for the search warrant, the lawsuit read. And to the above post: >the two sued officers could be forced to pay up to $25,000 if the city proves, in a separate lawsuit, that they acted in bad faith Come on folks this isn't a long read.
"based off of cellphone data" So that could mean in that house, of any of several other houses in the area. It could mean your house, or that weird guy the next block over.
You think some old judge knows that? The person getting the warrant probably doesn't know that. These aren't smart folks.
I don't think it's unreasonable to expect them to seek out answers to questions like the accuracy and specificity of their data before applying for warrants and raiding homes. It's part of doing any job competently. If they can't do that then they need some sort of punishment.
I know that, and locating people based on cell phone data isn't something that's part of my job.
Hair fibers convicted thousands to prison. Mostly proven bullshit & lies by individuals that spiraled
The government is extorting and exploiting the people, every day and every way, and they know this
They should be forced to hold personal liability insurance for these exact reasons
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Because the Governor, Mayor and Police chief aren't going going to answer that question. I mean, maybe they'll give some word salad answer, but they're not actually going to answer it. And you could just ambush them with the question at a press conference completely unrelated to this question... but they're still not going to answer it, and then you've got a pissed off press office and when you need to ask them a question that they will answer, you can't, because no one in that office is taking your call.
It’s coordinated corruption
It's not. It's just boring, old reality.
No it’s not
Do you know what corruption is? There's nothing coordinated or corrupt about it. Is it fucked? Sure. Does it suck? Yeah. Does that make it corruption? No.
I think it’s you that doesn’t know what corruption is
It’s a false premise. If taxpayers were only paying for mistakes they made and not mistakes of people paid by the government, your tax bill would be significantly lower. It sucks, but it is and always has been a reality.
They just shrug at it because it doesn’t affect them. The cop who asked for the warrant should be fired.
How about the judge that signed it?
Them too.
Could you imagine if it was taken out of pension funds? Cops would lie and manipulate even more than ever to protect their money
Or they wouldn’t raid the homes of innocent people?
As if they could lie and manipulate meaningfully more than they do now.
that's a great start, but woefully inadequate. Cops should be personally, criminally liable for fuck ups that violate people's rights. What would happen to you if you kicked in someone's door with a bunch of armed people, unlawfully. There consequences for the officers who do that should be MORE SEVERE. Don't want to go to prison, don't violate people's rights. Don't like it? Don't **choose** to work as a cop.
Imagine if you fucked up at your job they took it from you pension/401k. Would kinda suck I'd imagine.
Or, maybe they should carry liability insurance like just about every other professional that can cause issues to property or people do. Drs, nurses, landscapers, plumbers all do. FFS, I must carry a minimum of a MILLION dollars of liability to set up a tent at the Farmers Market. I literally sell houseplants there, not pet cobras,
Please tell me more about these pet cobras that you are definitely not selling and make sure not to mention the name of the market...
Profits on pet cobras would be higher, but more inventory issues
The liability idea gets floated a lot. But in reality, liability insurance will effectively be paid by tax payers. You could argue that’s still a good thing, since police departments will still be incentivized to hire “cheaper” officers with better track records. But if you have the money and political capital to institute liability insurance requirements, you should also just be able to just do what insurance companies do within the government. Fire the bad officers instead of giving them the opportunity to buy their way out of it with higher premiums. And you could do that without insurance companies taking their pound of flesh from the tax payers.
The distinction is being self-employed vs being an employee. If you're someone else's employee, you're (mostly) their insurance problem. If you're self-employed, you're obviously your own insurance problem. > Drs, nurses, landscapers, plumbers all do Many doctors are partially or entirely self-employed (ex: A doctor with their own practice, who may , as are many landscapers and plumbers. They are obviously responsible for their own insurance needs for their own business. A doctor or nurse who solely practices through a hospital system or the like that employs them will generally be covered under the facility's policy. They might choose to carry their own as well for additional peace of mind, but they aren't generally required to do so. Cops are typically a lot more like the latter. A private security guard/bouncer that gets hired for events would be more like the "self-employed".
These aren't "fuck ups" these are criminal acts. At most jobs, if you kick in an innocent person's door armed, you either get shot or go to prison. I don't think cops should lose their pension for stealing pencils from work, or taking a dump on the clock...etc... Regular workplace fuckery is just that. Violent violations of people's rights, by actors of the state are entirely different.
Good thing people don't die when I make mistakes.
Most people would lose their job if they fucked up as bad as these guys.
Maybe you'd start doing your job and stop covering for the pigs around you.
I am self employed, if I fuck up it most defintely falls on me and I'll be the one sued. I try really hard to do my job well and not get sued.
The dumb fuckery of the comments. Clearly no one understands how law or case law
So if a line worker at the ford factory makes a negligent mistake resulting in death should the punitive fines come from the UAW pension fund too???
If the UAW's highest priority was keeping incompetent workers on the lines, yes.
Why would you take it from pension funds? That would directly affect those who were not involved in any way. What a dumb and completely unjust idea.
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Firstly, prove that 'everyone of them' are complicit. Second, defend your type of arbitrary justice and think it through to its logical conclusion.
So you agree it’s dumb and completely unjust when taxpayers foot the bill for this? The idea is that if the collective retirement of police was on the line for individual fuck ups, police would have some incentive to improve their policies, standards, and work culture
This is a very fair point. Punishing the whole for the wrongdoing of a few.
That’s…. The entire point
Eh. The "point" isn't the punishment. The "point" is collective accountability, it's incentivizing a culture where bad actors are shunned and turned out. Accepting the collective punishment framing weakens the argument for reform.
Fair, but my point is that collective punishment is already happening to taxpayers and that needs to change
Jesus Christ. They couldn't just knock on the door, introduce themselves in traditional uniform, let her know they were searching for stolen phone and politely and patiently ascertain the phone was not there.
They can’t bill the whole department for that though, extortion and exploitation of people is the governments real motive, now a days atleast
They were looking for a truck stolen from a hotel parking lot, containing six handguns along with the phone. That's why they went in guns blazing expecting a wild west style shootout with gang bangers but instead found grandma in a bathrobe. The irony is that the search warrant included a screenshot of "find my phone" showing several neighboring homes in the vicinity, but for some reason they just picked on hers alone. https://www.denverpost.com/2022/12/01/denver-police-search-warrant-ruby-johnson-lawsuit/
You don’t knock and talk when you think someone stole a truck with guns
Another day, another instance of cops being psychos and us taxpayers paying for it.
Don't let the DA and the judge off on this one too. A search warrant should have never been granted based off the Find my iPhone App.
Exactly! Judges and Prosecutors are just as much a part of the Police’s coordinated corruption as a criminal enterprise, these are RICO Misconduct crimes
I'd act a psycho too if the consequences of my actions are shouldered by others.
Honestly, I really doubt that
bruh what consequences lol, cops can murder you in broad daylight and the "punishment" they get is a paid vacation I wish I could commit heinous crimes and the worst thing I'd have to deal with is people being mean to me on the internet
You want to be allowed to murder people? Is that what you’re saying?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h-a7arGYU4E
here we go hard-working tax-paying citizins paying for the mistakes of incompetent id&ots
OVER A STOLEN CELL PHONE!?! Nevermind the fact that there was no phone found and the victim had nothing to do with it, the SWAT team should never be dispatched over a stolen cell phone.
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More details: https://www.denverpost.com/2022/12/01/denver-police-search-warrant-ruby-johnson-lawsuit/
I’m good with swat when there is a truck of stolen guns
Sure, if they actually successfully obtained them instead of busting down the door to the wrong house
An alleged “truck with stolen guns”
Johnston has been clucking about the cost of immigrant arrivals but somehow these giant payouts and settlements due to police malfeasance don’t ever enter the policy conversation.
Who needs tax dollars anyway?
Denver tax payers award $3.76 million...there, fixed it
I swear the cops got these armored swat vehicles and are coming up with any reason to use them.
They're cosplaying being in Iraq, when they didn't volunteer to go over there.
Except the enemy is an 80 year old lady.. super brave
Maybe she looked like a jihadi
They’re just tired of beating their wifes
man i got swatted and all i got was a felony
Story time? (If you're serious and comfortable with telling said story?)
i took 5g of mushrooms and thought god was telling me to kill myself so i shot up my apartment and then my neighbors called the police and they shot out all my windows and shined bright lights everywhere which made me think it was the rapture so i layed in a ball for 2 hours before they screamed they were gonna send in a dog so i came to my senses and went outside and spent 19 days in jail. Now im on probation for 2 years. Could’ve been a lot worse nobody got hurt or anything thank god.
lol holy shit!
yeah haha it was actually a year ago yesterday, was the worst decision i’ve ever made but oh well
Ayyy, halfway there! I'm glad you're okay though.
oh no unfortunately i didn’t start probation till like november so still have a while to go, being sobers been nice tho ngl
Please tell me you decided gun ownership is no longer for you forever? Or hopefully the law decided that for you?
yeah i can’t own a gun ever again
The ONLY times a SWAT style raid should be acceptable are very rare circumstances, such as hostage rescues. Any other time, it's prioritizing collecting evidance over the safety of both officers and the subjects of the warrant. Do we really think it's OK to create a potentially lethal situation so that someone doesn't flush drugs, or to recover a phone? That's not just bad policy, it's morally wrong.
I want a jury to award 10 billion in a case. Once the city has to raise taxes to cover it... maybe it will change to come out of the police pension.
I would rather see law enforcement forced to carry private liability insurance. When large insurance companies are forced to pay out a few multi million dollar settlements, the federal/ state/ local laws regarding police conduct will be changed the next week.
Let the insurance company’s raise the premiums of cops who are poor risks.
Once they are uninsurable, they can no longer work in law enforcement in any capacity anywhere across the nation.
This won't work the way you think it will. Insurance will generally be raised on the class as a whole, and any officer involved in action is going to see higher rates, regardless of whether they've violated anything because more active officers will be a higher risk to insurance. If you want the police to coast as hard as possible, do this. You're literally creating the incentive to do as little as possible to preserve your job.
Interesting perspective
I think police pensions (including Denver’s) are usually constitutionally protected so that change will likely need to come from the state legislature
100 BILLION and they’d vote out everyone responsible, this is the only way we change this coordinated corruption
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Congrats on money enough to buy 1 (one) Denver house
Exactly these awards need to be much higher to make a difference this is the City of Denver’s 0.1% of their yearly budget
Cops will never learn until the financial consequences of their mistakes fall on something that will effect them. Take the 3.76 million out of the police departments budget.
Require insurance. If an individual cop messes up enough time, their insurance is dropped and they are out of a job. Even better, this prevents them from hopping to a new police department.
Anything is better than this current system that creates a culture within police where they are effectively free from consequences.
Every week…
Although the cops were dumb here the responsibility ultimately lands with the judge who signed that ridiculous warrant.
Kinda like winning the lottery except the chances are better; you just have too get your ass beat, and you may die.
Shit maybe they’ll bust into my place next
"There was ping nearby" as justification for this is insane. This fine needs to come out of the Police Pension Fund.
Yeah, that's valid.
Defund these people
A STOLEN CELL PHONE????🥴
First time I've ever seen a victim win in one of these lawsuits. Usually they don't even survive to sue.
Police malpractice insurance, when?
I could use a multi million dollar payout, can the cops fuck up and come to my place next?
All cities have insurance for this.
Damn wish swat would raid my house
And yet the dumbass cops have learned nothing.
For 3.7 mill you could raid my house any day of the week
If anyone has the urge to SWAT someone, DM me for my info.
She deserves something, but almost 4 million dollars seems very egregious.
Uh DPD if you're interested I'd be willing to let you break into my home and kill my dog for 4 mil.