You know how leftists are always complaining about police misconduct? Apparently, they aren’t as serious about the issue as they would have us believe.
It seems that whenever footage emerges showing a police officer abusing a civilian – especially one who is a racial minority – they take to the airwaves and interwebs to demand change in policing while railing against law enforcement.
Yet, data seems to show that Democrats and leftist activists aren’t too great at dealing with corrupt police at the state and local levels despite constantly calling for action from the federal government.
Pre-Settlement Legal Funding Company High Rise Financial looked at data from the Police Funding Database, which compiled numbers of legal cases and amounts of settlements paid out for incidents of police misconduct.
The data from 2009 to 2022 reveals a surprising trend: Four out of the five states with the most police misconduct cases are blue states. These include California, which ranked first, New York, Illinois, and Maryland. Texas was the only red state in the top five.
California leads the pack with 29 reported cases of police misconduct. This is 409 percent above the national average. The state has also paid out $332, 455,000 in total settlements. Despite its progressive image and numerous promises from state leaders to address systemic police corruption, these issues persist in the Golden State.
New York, with 16 cases, has the highest average payout per case at $72,961,800. This amounts to a total of over $1 billion. While the number of incidents is lower than in California, the massive payouts could suggest serious misconduct or highly publicized cases that might require substantial settlements.
Illinois came in third place with 15 cases and a total payout of $330,105,000 with an average of $22,007,000 per case.
Texas, the only red state in the top five, had 14 cases and has paid $28,495,297 in total settlements. This is an average of $2,035,378 per case.
Lastly, Maryland, with 13 cases and a total payout of $81,279,000, averages about $6,773,250 per case.
Politicians in each of these states have loudly proclaimed their opposition to systemic abuses in law enforcement. There is a stark difference between the promises of Democratic politicians to promote accountability in law enforcement and the reality on the ground in their states.
The data suggests that progress in this matter has been limited – or even nonexistent. It seems these politicians are leveraging the issue more as a tool to appeal to voters instead of trying to do something to solve the problem.
Of course, it is worth considering the argument that the fact that states like California and New York have paid out so much in settlements indicates they are serious about making sure victims of police misconduct are compensated. This is as it should be, of course. When the government wrongs a civilian, it should make it right.
However, the issue is that when local and state governments have to issue these payouts, they are coming directly from taxpayers who have nothing to do with the officers’ actions. The officers who abuse their authority are rarely required to come out of pocket.
Qualified immunity is often used to shield officers from civil liability. Even in cases where courts deny qualified immunity to officers, they are typically indemnified, meaning they still don’t have to pay for their actions. Instead, the taxpayers are the ones who have to pony up.
Democrats are quite fond of demonizing the police while also blaming Republicans for the bad apples who often get away with malfeasance. Yet, they have done little to nothing to deal with the issue in their own backyards, which suggests that their rhetoric is mere projection. If they truly cared about police misconduct as they say, then why would they allow it to run rampant in their cities and states?
If I were to don my trusty tinfoil hat, I might be tempted to think Democrats avoid addressing police brutality because if they dealt with the problem, they might lose a politically charged issue to exploit during campaign season. After all, if they have all the answers for stopping police misconduct, why haven’t they bothered to implement them?