New Report Finds American Taxpayers Have Paid More Than $1B in Five Years for Police Misconduct Cases

So lets see now, the cops break the law and kill people and the people pay for it while cop gets away without paying any money or having money taken from their budgets and never get arrested...ITS GOOD TO SEE FAIRFAX COUNTY IS IN STEP WITH THE REST OF THE COUNTRY.  

Bad policing has cost American taxpayers more than $1 billion, according to a report by The Wall Street Journal. WSJ reporters Zusha Elinson and Dan Frosch conducted an in-depth study of public records and found the cost of settling police misconduct cases has almost doubled over a five-year period.

“The 10 cities with the largest police departments paid out $248.7 million last year in settlements and court judgments in police-misconduct cases, up 48 percent from $168.3 million in 2010, according to data gathered by The Wall Street Journal through public-records requests,” reported the WSJ. “Those cities collectively paid out $1.02 billion over those five years in such cases, which include alleged beatings, shootings and wrongful imprisonment.”

Ultimately, taxpayers end up footing the bill for these settlements. Cities either pay the legal costs by self-insuring, with the money coming from city funds, or the cases are handled by insurance companies. But just like car insurance, the more claims filed, the higher the premium. However, officers rarely end up paying out of their pockets for bad behavior. Notorious Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio has managed to fend off several decades of lawsuits, because the county picks up the tab. The Arizona Republic reported lawsuits against the Maricopa sheriff’s department have cost the county $44 million. And that’s one of the reasons why Arpaio stays in office. The minute he retires, he becomes responsible for the legal costs, according to a Salon article.

Of all the the cities tracked by the WSJ, New York had the costliest police department, racking up $601.3 million in legal costs over five years. Payments for settlements and judgments jumped from $93.8 in fiscal year 2013 to $165 million in 2014, reported the WSJ. The city recently paid the family of Eric Garner, who was choked to death during an altercation with Staten Island police, a $5.9 million settlement.

Sometimes incidents of police abuse are so blatant municipalities want to settle the cases quickly to stop bad publicity. The County of San Bernardino took two weeks to pay Francis Pusok $650,000 after a news helicopter captured sheriff’s deputies kicking and punching him. Pusok didn’t even have time to file a lawsuit before he received a cash settlement