Louisville Metro Police Department

• But civil suits are by now a familiar tool of grieving families on a familiar quest.
• In mid-April 2023, Minneapolis settled two civil lawsuits against the city’s police department, for nearly $9 million.
• Why are Black people so often ignored when it comes to complaints about their interaction with police?

Automatic credibility

• One reason for this is that, throughout American society, Black people are viewed as criminals.
• This stereotype encourages more police encounters, which in New York City, for example, has led to Black people’s being twice as likely to be stopped by the police.
• This might also explain why Black people, who are 12.5% of the national population, represent 33% of people arrested for nonfatal violent crimes.
• Taken together, these things set up a hierarchy of credibility that shields police from accountability.

Shields against accountability

• According to UCLA law professor Joanna Schwartz, legal protections like qualified immunity protect police officers from repercussions that stem from abuse.
• Qualified immunity is a 1967 Supreme Court doctrine that protects police and other government official from frivolous lawsuits.
• The law shields police from accountability by requiring that complaints include evidence to show that police conduct was unlawful and that the officer knowingly violated the law that was deemed illegal in a previous case.

The issue is not Black and white

• And what my research demonstrates is that the disproportionate killing of Black people by police happens for two reasons: 1) Black people live in racially segregated communities that are heavily policed.
• 2) Black people are viewed as perpetual criminals.
• This perspective has allowed me to understand how other groups are also affected by police violence in ways similar to Black Americans.
• Systematic police abuse of Black people and routine misconduct against homeless people and those with serious mental illness make encounters with police officers dangerous and potentially deadly.