Wow, what a fun anti-police circle jerk we got in here.
Qualified immunity needs restructured a bit, but I understand the design and intent of it. The fact that an officer can do something truly fucked up and if it hasn’t been ruled on before that you can’t stick a hedgehog up someone’s ass, then the officer may get QI.
But most of the time, QI protects the individual officers from lawsuits and not the department. This is to protect the officers doing their jobs without fear of being sued all the time. This is because police work requires split second life or death decisions. And an officer getting QI doesn’t stop the family from suing the department and getting millions, it stops the people from suing the officer for his ford f150.
All use of force is judged by the 4th amendment and Supreme Court cases that govern use of force like graham v Connor and tn vs garner. If a judge rules that the use of force violates the 4th amendment and those cases, the lawsuit moves forward.
I don’t know how some of these cases mentioned in the article when others that were clearly justified uses of force (alton sterling, for one) get millions when a shitbag pedo trying to get a gun out of his pocket is shot.