Police Union Offers Citizens $500 To Get Hurt, Killed, Or Sued As Amateur Cops

from the new-level-of-audacious-stupidity dept

Police unions have never been the sharpest tool in the law enforcement PR shed. Over the years, they've claimed officers should be subjected to less scrutiny than Walmart employees, flashbang-burned toddlers are the price society pays for "safe" neighborhoods, and anything remotely suggesting greater accountability or transparency will probably result in dead cops.

Hey, I get it. Zealous advocacy and all that. Unions need to show the rank-and-file their dues are being put to use. And it's the best use possible: self-preservation and consistent maintenance of the status quo. Unions will always strongly advocate for their officers, even when advocating positions officers don't agree with. To sum up: ridiculous. And here we are with yet another ridiculous police union action.

Recently, a video went viral showing an officer begging for help from a security guard while a number of people stood around filming his losing battle with an arrestee. Maybe the problem was callous citizens and their anti-cop attitudes. Maybe the problem is the reduction of real life to social media filler. Or maybe it was just the bystander effect: the more bystanders there are, the more everyone assumes someone else will step up and help out.

The correct response from New York City's Sergeants Benevolent Association would have been nothing more than some grousing about civilians and their nipple-suckling. Instead, the SBA chose to get involved in the worst possible way.

A police union wants to turn random bystanders into vigilantes-for-hire — by offering $500 to any civilian who helps cops wrestle down suspects who are resisting arrest. The cash proposal from the Sergeants Benevolent Association is aimed at getting those who normally would make videos of cops taking people into custody to put down their phones and actually get involved. “When you see an officer struggling, rather than take your cellphone out, assist the officer and you’ll receive an award of $500,” SBA president Ed Mullins told The Post.

Oh my. $500 is barely going to cover an hour of bystanders' attorney's time. Good lord, what an awful idea.

If Joe Self-Deputization decides to pitch in and help a professional suspect-subduer subdue a suspect, he could get injured or killed. Who's legally responsible in this wrongful death suit? The union? The PD? The city? The suspect? The officer who needed help? Someone's going to get sued and all the union can offer is a conditional $500.

Let's up the ante: instead of the civilian being injured during the helpfulness, it's the cop. Can the cop sue the person incentivized to assist the officer by the officer's union? Does the officer sue the union for pitching such a stupid idea?

What if the amateur officer has a gun and handles it as responsibly and accurately as cops do? Now he's got a dead cop on his hands and zero chance of obtaining $500 since the suspect has probably used this unexpected opportunity to flee the scene. Is this person going to jail? A lawsuit is inevitable. No one knows who's suing who at this point, but what happens to the erstwhile officer while the litigation logistics are sorted out? Assaulting an officer charges and all the sentence enhancements that brings?

What if the suspect is killed or injured by the non-officer? Can he sue or press charges?

These are all questions no one's answering. And they need to be answered. You can't just encourage a bunch of non-professionals to pitch in with crime fighting without deciding who's indemnifying who when everything goes sideways.

The only bright spot in all of this stupidity is only bright if you're as cynical as I am. It appears one New York legislator is planning to introduce a bill that will make it much easier for those involved to sue the government post-clusterfuck.

State Sen. Martin Golden (R-Brooklyn), a retired cop, will introduce a new good Samaritan law to shield civilians from liability if they help cops. The bill is still being drafted, his office said. “The current good Samaritan law does not protect citizens who assist first responders. It is my intent to introduce legislation in the Senate that corrects this shortcoming,” Golden said.

Cool. This almost makes it official policy. This might codify the state's liability when suspects, cops, or citizens are injured and killed during assisted altercations. It shields citizens from liability, which pushes it back on the government. Officers have a variety of immunities already available to them, but this law would implicitly condone assistance efforts by citizens, making it a policy issue when lawsuits start rolling in. If an injury/death stems from a policy or law, it's much harder for government entities to dodge liability.

My guess is there will be few takers. Attempting to help a cop out with an arrest is an activity with very few positive outcomes. People jumping into these situations greatly increase their risk of being injured or killed, and they sure as hell do not possess the training needed to assess the danger before getting involved. $500 doesn't pay for much medical care, much less much lawyering.

If the police union would like more citizens to support their officers, perhaps it should spend more time considering how much its own actions and statements have harmed community relationships with law enforcement. The fact that the union feels it needs to pay citizens to help cops is an indictment of the system unions helped create -- one that has elevated officers from their position as public servants to one of warlords presiding over disputed territories.

If fewer people are interested in coming to the aid of cops, it's not because there's no financial incentive. Only an organization completely out of touch with the people its officers serve would arrive at this conclusion. And because it came to this conclusion, the union has again illustrated why it shouldn't be allowed to represent the officers it's supposed to be serving. Officers have been dumping dues into a PR disaster for years. Maybe it's time they made their money do a little talking of its own.

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Filed Under: arrests, assistance, pay offs, police, police unions