“The family of a Colorado man who was fatally shot last year by a deputy … after calling 911 for help when his SUV got stuck … will receive a $19 million settlement” from the state and local municipalities, NBC News reported on Tuesday, May 23, 2022 (read story here).
Two deputies were fired and later indicted, with the deputy who shot Christian Glass, 19, a geology student, facing second-degree murder charges.
Colorado seems to have more than its fair share of bad police. Aurora, Colorado, arguably is the nation’s worst police department (see examples here, here, here, here, here, and here). And it was in Aurora that Elijah McClain died from an encounter with police (details here), resulting in a $15 million settlement and indictments of three cops and two paramedics.
Nearby Loveland, Colorado, paid a $3 million settlement after its cops brutalized a frail, elderly woman with dementia (details here). In that incident, three cops were fired, but it would’ve been cheaper not to hire them in the first place.
But Colorado isn’t unique. America has a nationwide crisis of police racism and brutality, with urgent need for reforms in the recruiting, training, supervision, and discipline of police officers. Several major cities, including Seattle, have been under court orders to reform their police departments. The problem is especially acute in small towns and rural areas, which can struggle to attract police job applicants, and they sometimes take other police agencies’ rejects.
Police work is one of the few remaining decent paying jobs that doesn’t require a college degree. But it’s a job that requires good judgment and tolerance of stress. It can attract the wrong people. Weeding them out is crucial, but police agencies aren’t doing a good job of that, and cop unions fight to keep rogue cops on the streets.
The result is America has a killer cop problem, and that’s extremely costly for taxpayers. Today, an unjustified police killing typically settles for millions of dollars. When will rogue cops become too expensive for communities to tolerate? It often seems citizens have no control over their police. When will that change?
Related story: A Kansas cop who used the authority of his badge to stop women in parks and other public places, and then sexually assaulted them, was sentenced to 23 years in prison (see story here).