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[00:00.000 --> 00:03.560]  Warning, the following show contains explicit language.
[00:03.560 --> 00:07.680]  Certain people should not listen to this show, such as children and panty-waist adults who
[00:07.680 --> 00:15.440]  cry like 12-year-old little girls when they hear profanity.
[00:15.440 --> 00:16.760]  Welcome back, my friends.
[00:16.760 --> 00:21.120]  I am Dave Champion, and today we're going to talk about something out of the city of
[00:21.120 --> 00:22.120]  New York.
[00:22.120 --> 00:27.200]  Not a place I often hear a lot of great things coming out of news that excites me, but there
[00:27.240 --> 00:30.120]  is an exception, and this is it.
[00:30.120 --> 00:36.480]  The New York City Council has voted as part of a larger police reform package to end the
[00:36.480 --> 00:40.600]  practice of qualified immunity for police officers.
[00:40.600 --> 00:43.240]  Now, I'm going to explain to you what qualified immunity is.
[00:43.240 --> 00:48.920]  You may think you know, but I'm going to suggest to you that there's more to it than the superficial
[00:48.920 --> 00:53.320]  things you've heard in the news about it or seen on social media, and those things may
[00:53.480 --> 00:57.760]  result in a difference in how you see the issue of qualified immunity.
[00:57.760 --> 01:00.360]  Now, I want to be clear.
[01:00.360 --> 01:04.960]  Typically, people who are on the right support qualified immunity.
[01:04.960 --> 01:07.840]  We're going to get into that in a few minutes, and people on the left are not.
[01:07.840 --> 01:13.360]  Now, I'm going to posit to you today that it's absolutely not a left-right, it's absolutely
[01:13.360 --> 01:16.480]  not a Republican-Democrat issue whatsoever.
[01:16.480 --> 01:21.000]  It is an issue of government accountability.
[01:21.000 --> 01:26.680]  If you support qualified immunity, I want to suggest that New York City's move is positive
[01:26.680 --> 01:29.940]  because it will increase accountability.
[01:29.940 --> 01:34.880]  One would think a discussion about qualified immunity would begin with my describing precisely
[01:34.880 --> 01:38.680]  what qualified immunity is, and I'm not going to.
[01:38.680 --> 01:41.640]  I'll get there, but that's not where the conversation starts for me.
[01:41.640 --> 01:47.080]  The conversation starts for me at the conclusion of the American Civil War.
[01:47.080 --> 01:49.640]  You're like, what?
[01:49.640 --> 01:53.320]  Why are we talking about that in terms of qualified immunity?
[01:53.320 --> 01:54.320]  There's a connection.
[01:54.320 --> 01:55.320]  That's why.
[01:55.320 --> 02:02.160]  At the end of the Civil War, the freed black slaves from the southern states did not have
[02:02.160 --> 02:07.960]  citizenship because citizenship then as now, the de jure citizenship, the same citizenship
[02:07.960 --> 02:13.980]  as George Washington and John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, that citizenship then as now is
[02:13.980 --> 02:19.440]  derived from your birth upon the land in a state of the union.
[02:19.640 --> 02:25.360]  When the freed slaves, when the slaves were freed at the conclusion of the Civil War,
[02:25.360 --> 02:30.040]  the constitutions of the states from which they'd been freed did not grant them citizenship.
[02:30.040 --> 02:33.740]  It didn't matter that the North had won the war, the constitution of those southern states
[02:33.740 --> 02:40.120]  still did not grant those black slaves that were now free citizenship.
[02:40.120 --> 02:44.840]  What Congress did was enacted, they went to the states and they adopted through the state
[02:45.320 --> 02:48.280]  process, the Fourteenth Amendment.
[02:48.280 --> 02:52.280]  People are very confused in the U.S. about what the Fourteenth Amendment really does,
[02:52.280 --> 02:58.200]  so I'm going to tell you the Fourteenth Amendment created a second class of citizen.
[02:58.200 --> 03:02.640]  I don't mean that as in second class, although it is, I mean it was second because the first
[03:02.640 --> 03:07.240]  one was the de jure citizenship people got from being born upon the land or state of
[03:07.240 --> 03:08.240]  the union.
[03:08.240 --> 03:12.860]  This is a second form of citizenship and it is indeed second class.
[03:12.860 --> 03:17.420]  By the Fourteenth Amendment, the freed black slaves who did not have citizenship because
[03:17.420 --> 03:21.220]  the constitution of the states in which they were born did not provide it, were then granted
[03:21.220 --> 03:27.020]  this U.S. government citizenship, this federal citizenship, and it applied, according to
[03:27.020 --> 03:31.980]  the Supreme Court, it applied not only to the freed black slaves but to their posterity.
[03:31.980 --> 03:36.020]  So with that under our belts, now we get to the part about the Fourteenth Amendment which
[03:36.020 --> 03:38.140]  pertains to qualified immunity.
[03:38.140 --> 03:47.040]  The Fourteenth Amendment gives Congress the responsibility, the authority, to protect
[03:47.040 --> 03:54.180]  its citizenship, to protect its citizens, to protect the citizens covered under the
[03:54.180 --> 03:58.200]  Fourteenth Amendment, which people are going to say this is racist and it's not.
[03:58.200 --> 04:00.340]  This is absolute constitutional law.
[04:00.340 --> 04:05.340]  When I say it gives Congress the right to protect the citizens and the citizenship of
[04:05.500 --> 04:10.140]  and the rights of the Fourteenth Amendment citizens, it's not white folks and that is
[04:10.140 --> 04:11.700]  not a racial statement.
[04:11.700 --> 04:15.420]  The Supreme Court has specifically said the Fourteenth Amendment applied to the freed
[04:15.420 --> 04:21.460]  black slaves, to their posterity, and to others similarly situated like the Chinese that were
[04:21.460 --> 04:25.540]  held not necessarily in slavery but in a form of bondage on the West Coast.
[04:25.540 --> 04:29.620]  So generally speaking, the Fourteenth Amendment had absolutely no bearing on white people.
[04:29.620 --> 04:34.100]  And by the way, the sponsors of the bill, the people who supported the bill, the people
[04:34.620 --> 04:39.140]  I'm sorry, not the bill, the amendment, who talked it up, who wanted it ratified, they
[04:39.140 --> 04:42.540]  said point blank, it has nothing to do with white folks.
[04:42.540 --> 04:46.540]  If perchance you want to know more about that part of the discussion, you can go to a website
[04:46.540 --> 04:54.100]  called OriginalIntent.org, click on the education, there's three little circles that come up
[04:54.100 --> 04:58.940]  when you go there, click on the circle that says education, and then there are three treatises
[04:58.940 --> 05:00.320]  I would suggest you read.
[05:00.320 --> 05:04.200]  One is citizenship, the other is constitutions, and the last one is the Fourteenth Amendment
[05:04.200 --> 05:05.360]  clarified.
[05:05.360 --> 05:09.140]  You can get away with reading just the Fourteenth Amendment clarified, but if you want to be
[05:09.140 --> 05:13.280]  really well-rounded in all this, I would suggest you read the treatise on citizenship first,
[05:13.280 --> 05:18.400]  then the one on constitutions, and then the one entitled Fourteenth Amendment clarified.
[05:18.400 --> 05:22.080]  So now we understand to whom the Fourteenth Amendment properly applies, and we understand
[05:22.080 --> 05:29.600]  that Congress in the amendment is tasked with, is the authority to protect the citizens embraced
[05:29.600 --> 05:31.320]  by the Fourteenth Amendment.
[05:31.320 --> 05:35.160]  What form of protection does that often take?
[05:35.160 --> 05:40.600]  Well, the one that's most familiar to Americans is the Civil Rights Acts, and qualified immunity
[05:40.600 --> 05:43.560]  is directly tied to these Civil Rights Acts.
[05:43.560 --> 05:45.920]  Let me explain how it went.
[05:45.920 --> 05:54.480]  Going into the 60s, we had the Civil Rights Act of 1960, the Civil Rights Act of 1964,
[05:54.480 --> 06:07.200]  the Civil Rights Act of 1965, and then in 1967, the Supreme Court fashioned out of thin
[06:07.200 --> 06:11.080]  air the doctrine of qualified immunity.
[06:11.080 --> 06:16.040]  I'm going to read you a fairly sound definition of qualified immunity, then I'm going to read
[06:16.040 --> 06:20.600]  you a very brief snippet from the Supreme Court case in which the Supreme Court created
[06:20.640 --> 06:26.640]  the concept of qualified immunity out of thin air, and then I'm going to tell you exactly
[06:26.640 --> 06:32.520]  what qualified immunity was intended to do when it was first created by the Supreme Court
[06:32.520 --> 06:33.520]  in 1967.
[06:33.520 --> 06:38.680]  Okay, so on with a fairly decent definition.
[06:38.680 --> 06:45.400]  Qualified immunity is a legal principle that grants government officials performing discretionary
[06:45.400 --> 06:46.400]  functions.
[06:46.400 --> 06:50.440]  That's different than ministerial functions, but that's a video for another day.
[06:51.280 --> 06:58.000]  From civil suits, nothing to do with criminal, unless the plaintiff shows that the official
[06:58.000 --> 07:05.440]  violated, quote, clearly established statutory or constitutional rights of which a reasonable
[07:05.440 --> 07:08.360]  officer would have known.
[07:08.360 --> 07:09.360]  Close quote.
[07:09.360 --> 07:11.520]  Okay, so quick recap on that.
[07:11.520 --> 07:17.640]  It provides government employees, it calls them government officials, but government
[07:17.640 --> 07:29.560]  employees with immunity in civil suits if they were performing a discretionary task.
[07:29.560 --> 07:35.040]  The most important thing to understand about qualified immunity, the most important thing,
[07:35.040 --> 07:38.080]  and this is going to bring us all back around to the city of New York here in a few minutes,
[07:38.080 --> 07:45.080]  the most important thing is the way the Supreme Court fashioned the doctrine of qualified
[07:45.160 --> 07:48.240]  immunity, it is automatic.
[07:48.240 --> 07:55.240]  So if you're a government employee performing a discretionary function and you get sued,
[07:55.240 --> 07:57.400]  boom, you have qualified immunity.
[07:57.400 --> 08:02.560]  The burden for removing qualified immunity rests with the plaintiff who alleges that
[08:02.560 --> 08:05.920]  they were harmed by the government official's actions.
[08:05.920 --> 08:13.580]  Wow, that is really bass-ackwards trying to get somebody who has been injured by the government
[08:13.580 --> 08:19.820]  and a specific agent of the government to prove that that agent doesn't deserve qualified
[08:19.820 --> 08:21.020]  immunity.
[08:21.020 --> 08:24.940]  That's not supporting the rights of the people, that's supporting government power and it's
[08:24.940 --> 08:28.980]  completely bass-ackwards and we'll talk about that more in a few minutes.
[08:28.980 --> 08:33.740]  But it's an important principle to understand right now that it's automatic, in this case
[08:33.740 --> 08:38.500]  we're talking about police officers, it's automatic for them unless such and such can
[08:38.500 --> 08:39.500]  be shown by the plaintiff.
[08:39.500 --> 08:43.340]  So the burden of proof ends up being on the plaintiff.
[08:43.340 --> 08:47.460]  So here's the short quote from Pearson v. Ray, which was a Supreme Court case in which
[08:47.460 --> 08:53.820]  the court fashioned out of whole cloth in 1967, the principle, the doctrine of qualified
[08:53.820 --> 08:54.820]  immunity.
[08:54.820 --> 09:01.000]  And the quote is this, a policeman's lot is not so unhappy that he must choose between
[09:01.000 --> 09:07.340]  being charged with dereliction of duty if he does not arrest when he had probable cause
[09:07.340 --> 09:11.260]  and being punished with damages if he does.
[09:11.260 --> 09:16.460]  So you may be thinking to yourself, well wait a second, if he had probable cause how
[09:16.460 --> 09:18.940]  can any of this be wrong?
[09:18.940 --> 09:23.540]  So the court's being disingenuous in that quote and I want to be very clear about that.
[09:23.540 --> 09:24.540]  Here's what was happening.
[09:24.540 --> 09:30.380]  Remember I talked about the Civil Rights Act of 1960, then 64, then 65 and then miraculously
[09:30.380 --> 09:34.140]  in 67 the Supreme Court fashions the qualified immunity doctrine.
[09:34.140 --> 09:37.100]  So let me tell you exactly what this is all about.
[09:37.100 --> 09:46.020]  Despite the fact that the North won the Civil War and the slaves were freed, the vast majority
[09:46.020 --> 09:54.660]  of America, which would be white, back at the time the Civil War ended and moving forward
[09:54.660 --> 10:03.060]  for 100 plus years, the vast majority of the population of America said okay, so black
[10:03.060 --> 10:04.180]  people are not slaves.
[10:04.180 --> 10:05.180]  That's cool.
[10:05.180 --> 10:06.180]  We dig that.
[10:07.180 --> 10:09.700]  But they're sure as hell not equal to us.
[10:09.700 --> 10:12.580]  That was, I mean, that sounds bizarre, yes?
[10:12.580 --> 10:16.100]  It has dwindled over time so it's kind of hard for people in 2021 to really get their
[10:16.100 --> 10:17.380]  arms around that.
[10:17.380 --> 10:18.380]  But that was the fact.
[10:18.380 --> 10:24.020]  I mean you go back till I say just, I'm going to pull a number out of my head, 1940.
[10:24.020 --> 10:28.340]  You could have, if you could have taken a poll on this, virtually no white Americans
[10:28.340 --> 10:34.220]  would have believed that blacks, would have said that blacks were equal to rights or entitled
[10:34.260 --> 10:37.980]  to everything on the exact same level as whites.
[10:37.980 --> 10:41.020]  That just was not a cultural belief.
[10:41.020 --> 10:45.900]  And of course that played out in law enforcement as well.
[10:45.900 --> 10:52.940]  I remember when I was a young boy, probably 11-ish, there was a big shopping center about
[10:52.940 --> 10:56.980]  a half block from my house and the security was all off-duty cops.
[10:56.980 --> 11:00.620]  And I would go over there and I had befriended them and they liked me and so I'd hang around
[11:00.620 --> 11:03.740]  them and they would talk in front of me.
[11:03.740 --> 11:04.740]  I mean it didn't matter.
[11:04.740 --> 11:12.860]  I mean they probably had, I'm going to guess, a dozen LAPD officers as off-duty security.
[11:12.860 --> 11:16.260]  And it didn't matter which two or three were working the evenings that I would go over
[11:16.260 --> 11:17.260]  there.
[11:17.260 --> 11:23.780]  It was very, very clear that they viewed black Americans differently than they viewed white
[11:23.780 --> 11:24.780]  Americans.
[11:24.780 --> 11:26.100]  Although like 11, I didn't really get to that was a problem.
[11:26.100 --> 11:29.100]  I was just like, oh, okay, okay, okay.
[11:29.100 --> 11:35.140]  The point being that that was in the 60s, which is exactly the era we're talking about
[11:35.140 --> 11:41.200]  where the Supreme Court fashioned out of whole cloth the concept of qualified immunity.
[11:41.200 --> 11:43.580]  So here's what happened.
[11:43.580 --> 11:49.080]  Police officers across the nation and virtually every single police department, they treated
[11:49.080 --> 11:55.780]  black citizens or black suspects, depending on the circumstances, totally different than
[11:55.780 --> 11:59.660]  they treated white citizens or white suspects.
[11:59.660 --> 12:05.220]  There was a huge divide in the law enforcement world on how those two different groups got
[12:05.220 --> 12:06.220]  treated.
[12:06.220 --> 12:09.300]  I mean it sounds bad, but it's the truth of that era.
[12:09.300 --> 12:13.980]  We're just doing the shit they'd always done, we'll just treat blacks completely different
[12:13.980 --> 12:19.780]  than they treated white as far as the officer's commission of his job, that discretionary
[12:19.780 --> 12:24.580]  function that the doctrine of qualified immunity addresses.
[12:24.580 --> 12:31.260]  So really what the Supreme Court was saying is, okay, so we've had a hundred plus years
[12:31.260 --> 12:37.940]  of race, rampant racism, even though blacks are no longer slaves, rampant racism, Jim
[12:37.940 --> 12:41.240]  Crow laws, on and on and on, right?
[12:41.240 --> 12:47.380]  So suddenly Congress waves its magic wand and now what we're seeing is individual cops
[12:47.380 --> 12:53.060]  being dragged into civil court and they're being financially knocked for doing what they've
[12:53.060 --> 12:54.300]  always done.
[12:54.300 --> 12:56.820]  We've got to slow that shit down.
[12:56.820 --> 13:00.260]  That's all qualified immunity was originally about.
[13:00.260 --> 13:05.980]  But of course, as with most things, when the government gets a power, it doesn't matter
[13:05.980 --> 13:09.900]  whether it's a power granted by the legislature or power in this case fashioned a whole cloth
[13:09.900 --> 13:14.700]  by the courts, when the government gets a power, it's going to abuse it and qualified
[13:14.700 --> 13:16.580]  immunity is one of the worst.
[13:16.580 --> 13:19.100]  It's right up there with asset forfeiture.
[13:19.100 --> 13:22.900]  And of course the Supreme Court couldn't just say, no, no, no, no, hey, hey, qualified immunity
[13:22.900 --> 13:31.760]  only applies to cops that have violated the statutory rights that Congress has put in
[13:31.760 --> 13:39.700]  place by the civil rights act of 60, 64, 65 to protect this other class of citizenship,
[13:39.700 --> 13:41.420]  which is most black folks.
[13:41.420 --> 13:45.540]  So you can't apply it to other kinds of versus.
[13:45.540 --> 13:48.100]  We couldn't come out and say that, right?
[13:48.100 --> 13:49.100]  Qualified immunity.
[13:49.100 --> 13:52.620]  Yeah, it's just when cops are violating the rights of 14th Amendment citizens who are
[13:52.620 --> 13:56.220]  not the average white guy on the street, Supreme Court couldn't say that.
[13:56.220 --> 14:02.180]  So now over the years, qualified immunity applies to cops completely all the time in
[14:02.180 --> 14:06.340]  everything they do, no matter who they're fucking with, no matter whose rights are violating,
[14:06.340 --> 14:08.520]  they are protected.
[14:08.520 --> 14:14.140]  With all I've said, you might think that I find qualified immunity a terrible doctrine.
[14:14.140 --> 14:15.380]  I don't.
[14:15.380 --> 14:21.500]  I find it a terrible doctrine as practiced, as engaged in, as established by the United
[14:21.500 --> 14:23.580]  States Supreme Court.
[14:23.580 --> 14:30.340]  Do I believe that any government official, even cops out of it from any government official
[14:30.340 --> 14:37.100]  who is doing exactly what the Constitution dictates, exactly what the statute dictates,
[14:37.100 --> 14:41.300]  exactly and is staying within the boundaries of the constitutional rights of the people
[14:41.300 --> 14:42.300]  they're encountering.
[14:42.300 --> 14:47.180]  Do I believe that that person should have to be held personally liable simply because
[14:47.180 --> 14:48.180]  they're a government employee?
[14:48.180 --> 14:49.500]  I don't.
[14:49.500 --> 14:53.100]  But the system as it exists is broken.
[14:53.100 --> 14:59.500]  And I will tell you, was it just a year or two ago, there was a paper put out by a rather
[14:59.500 --> 15:05.380]  prestigious political science professor saying exactly that, saying qualified immunity as
[15:05.380 --> 15:12.020]  it is applied in this country, in the United States, in the applications it is, this wholesale
[15:12.020 --> 15:16.500]  granting of it to every cop in America is a broken system that needs to be fixed.
[15:17.020 --> 15:19.660]  We're going to talk in a moment about how to fix it.
[15:19.660 --> 15:25.900]  I should tell you that not everyone on the New York City Council voted for this package,
[15:25.900 --> 15:30.460]  this large package of police reforms, of which one element was getting rid of qualified immunity
[15:30.460 --> 15:33.060]  for NYPD officers.
[15:33.060 --> 15:38.540]  There is a councilman, Robert F. Holden, and this is a statement from him, ending qualified
[15:38.540 --> 15:44.060]  immunity will prevent the best young men and women in our city from joining the police
[15:44.060 --> 15:45.060]  department.
[15:45.620 --> 15:48.340]  Wrong answer.
[15:48.340 --> 15:50.140]  Totally wrong.
[15:50.140 --> 15:57.620]  It will encourage the best men and women and it will discourage the pieces of crap who
[15:57.620 --> 16:03.420]  just want a good paying job with benefits and they are weak of moral character.
[16:03.420 --> 16:05.100]  They are unethical.
[16:05.100 --> 16:08.540]  They are willing to fuck people over to get ahead.
[16:08.540 --> 16:12.340]  Those people will no longer want to become cops and those people should have never been
[16:12.340 --> 16:14.020]  cops in the first place.
[16:14.020 --> 16:20.140]  And that brings me to how I believe the qualified immunity standard should be applied in the
[16:20.140 --> 16:22.700]  United States.
[16:22.700 --> 16:28.420]  We need to reverse the current paradigm, which is that it automatically applies if you are
[16:28.420 --> 16:33.620]  a government employee and you're performing a discretionary function.
[16:33.620 --> 16:37.380]  If that's so, then you automatically have qualified immunity.
[16:37.380 --> 16:38.420]  We need to flip that on the side.
[16:38.420 --> 16:41.100]  We need to completely reverse that.
[16:41.180 --> 16:46.140]  When a person, a plaintiff claims in court that they have been wrong, their constitutional
[16:46.140 --> 16:51.540]  rights, their unalienable rights, or statutory rights, however you want to characterize that,
[16:51.540 --> 16:58.020]  have been violated by that particular agent that they're suing, by that I mean enforcement
[16:58.020 --> 17:03.700]  agent, there needs to not be the presumption of qualified immunity.
[17:03.700 --> 17:07.180]  But and here's the real kicker to this.
[17:07.260 --> 17:14.020]  Give that government enforcement agent the opportunity to earn qualified immunity by
[17:14.020 --> 17:19.660]  placing evidence into the record of that proceeding.
[17:19.660 --> 17:25.820]  And that brings us to the elements that an officer can submit into the evidentiary record
[17:25.820 --> 17:30.380]  of the proceeding in order to earn qualified immunity.
[17:30.380 --> 17:37.740]  So here are the points that I believe the defendant officer should enter into evidence
[17:37.740 --> 17:40.580]  in order to earn qualified immunity.
[17:40.580 --> 17:47.740]  Number one, was the officer in his actions, could he reasonably have understood himself
[17:47.740 --> 17:55.880]  to be obedient to the relevant sections of his state's constitution, to which every officer
[17:55.880 --> 17:58.220]  takes an oath.
[17:58.220 --> 18:07.020]  Number two, was the officer, based on his training and experience, obedient to the federal
[18:07.020 --> 18:13.260]  constitution, again, to which every officer takes an oath of allegiance.
[18:13.260 --> 18:18.480]  Especially when we talk about the federal constitution, we get into the issue of reasonable
[18:18.480 --> 18:25.880]  suspicion and probable cause, and those are usually pretty tightly wrapped up in a question
[18:25.880 --> 18:29.840]  of whether the officer's actions were wrongful.
[18:29.840 --> 18:33.600]  In a great percentage of these cases, whether the officer had reasonable suspicion or whether
[18:33.600 --> 18:37.500]  the officer had probable cause is a big part of that equation.
[18:37.500 --> 18:42.880]  So being obedient to the US Constitution, which would include the doctrines of reasonable
[18:42.880 --> 18:48.000]  suspicion and probable cause, is something that the officer should place on the record
[18:48.000 --> 18:51.440]  based on his training and experience.
[18:51.440 --> 18:58.480]  He understood, based on the totality of circumstances, the facts at hand, that he did have reasonable
[18:58.480 --> 19:01.480]  suspicion or he did have probable cause.
[19:01.480 --> 19:04.280]  I do want to take a moment and talk about CYA.
[19:04.280 --> 19:07.080]  For normal people in society, that's normally thought cover your ass.
[19:07.080 --> 19:10.560]  In law enforcement, it stands for can you articulate?
[19:10.560 --> 19:14.940]  One of the reasons I think it's important, since the judge is hearing this, not a jury
[19:14.940 --> 19:22.660]  as far as in my scenario, can the defendant officer earn qualified immunity?
[19:22.660 --> 19:28.440]  Can you articulate is probably best determined by a judge.
[19:28.440 --> 19:35.100]  What I mean by that is if an officer is skilled and charismatic and knows exactly which points
[19:35.100 --> 19:42.140]  to add and which points to not testify to, they might be able to bamboozle ignorant jurors.
[19:42.140 --> 19:47.220]  It's harder for a cop when it comes to reasonable suspicion and probable cause to bamboozle
[19:47.220 --> 19:48.220]  a judge.
[19:48.220 --> 19:51.060]  I'm in no way saying it's a perfect scenario.
[19:51.060 --> 19:54.340]  There is no perfect scenario because we're talking about human beings and the law.
[19:54.340 --> 19:58.620]  But I think it's better that the officer has to make his case about reasonable suspicion
[19:58.620 --> 20:04.460]  and probable cause to a judge, not to 12 ignorant Americans who don't understand the legality
[20:04.460 --> 20:06.380]  of any of that.
[20:06.380 --> 20:10.940]  Number three, the totality of the facts meet the statute.
[20:11.340 --> 20:14.820]  Let me explain how law works, especially from a police officer's side of things.
[20:14.820 --> 20:16.420]  You've got the law, what it says.
[20:16.420 --> 20:21.220]  In the case of police officers, things that are generally prohibited, that's the context
[20:21.220 --> 20:24.700]  in which cops work, that's prohibited by statute.
[20:24.700 --> 20:30.580]  And then you have the facts, which is did that guy or that gal do something which is
[20:30.580 --> 20:33.420]  violative of that prohibition, right?
[20:33.420 --> 20:37.940]  So the defendant officer who wants to earn qualified immunity should be required to show
[20:37.940 --> 20:47.980]  the judge, OK, here's the actions I perceived the plaintiff in the lawsuit had committed,
[20:47.980 --> 20:54.340]  which was violative of the exact language of the statute or statutes.
[20:54.340 --> 21:01.740]  Because again, judges are more in tune with that kind of issue than 12 ignorant jurors.
[21:01.740 --> 21:06.580]  So a judge, being steeped in the law and working with the law day in and day out for decades
[21:06.580 --> 21:13.500]  in most cases, is better prepared to determine whether that officer is BS-ing or whether
[21:13.500 --> 21:22.100]  that officer actually, the facts, met the burden placed on the officer by the law to
[21:22.100 --> 21:25.380]  show this and such reasonable suspicion and probable cause.
[21:25.380 --> 21:31.420]  So the officer should have to present evidence to the court substantiating to a fairly certain
[21:31.420 --> 21:40.420]  degree that the fact situation was relevant to the perceived offense, makes sense?
[21:40.420 --> 21:45.700]  Number four, did the officer follow department training?
[21:45.700 --> 21:50.900]  For me, based on my experience in law enforcement, this is huge.
[21:50.900 --> 21:54.980]  This should perhaps be, I probably should have put it as number one.
[21:54.980 --> 21:55.980]  And here's why.
[21:55.980 --> 21:58.820]  For instance, when an officer goes through the academy, let's say they're going to do
[21:58.820 --> 22:01.260]  a felony stop.
[22:01.260 --> 22:07.280]  They are taught, traffic stop, they're taught how to use cover and concealment.
[22:07.280 --> 22:12.220]  When they're going to approach what they perceive to be a dangerous suspect on the street, they
[22:12.220 --> 22:14.220]  are taught to use cover and concealment.
[22:14.220 --> 22:15.820]  That's in the academy.
[22:15.820 --> 22:23.420]  That is how we, the people, through our institution, have trained these cops to do what they do,
[22:23.420 --> 22:24.420]  right?
[22:24.420 --> 22:27.100]  And then the cops go out on the street and they completely ignore the training and they
[22:27.100 --> 22:28.500]  do whatever the fuck they want.
[22:29.300 --> 22:32.740]  You can see this, especially on YouTube, time and time and time and time and time again.
[22:32.740 --> 22:36.620]  When you're looking at either officer's body cam footage or a bystander caught it on a
[22:36.620 --> 22:40.720]  cell phone, that kind of footage, you'll see it all the time.
[22:40.720 --> 22:43.940]  A suspect is presumed to be armed.
[22:43.940 --> 22:48.740]  And you'll see the cop or cops get out of the unit, guns at the ready, and they will
[22:48.740 --> 22:54.020]  start advancing on the suspect, get on the ground, get on the ground, get on the ground.
[22:54.020 --> 22:55.620]  They're advancing on the suspect.
[22:55.620 --> 22:59.860]  So keep in mind, they only think it's the guy.
[22:59.860 --> 23:02.500]  It may not be the guy, right?
[23:02.500 --> 23:07.860]  So what if the guy scratches his ass?
[23:07.860 --> 23:13.780]  The cops have no, they don't have a nanosecond to find out whether the guy's reaching for
[23:13.780 --> 23:16.000]  a gun or scratching his ass, right?
[23:16.000 --> 23:19.100]  Because they're advancing out in the open, guns drawn.
[23:19.100 --> 23:22.660]  The guy reaches back to scratch his ass, let's say he's mentally ill, reaches back to scratch
[23:22.660 --> 23:23.660]  his ass.
[23:24.660 --> 23:29.300]  The two guys unload eight or nine rounds into the guy and kill him.
[23:29.300 --> 23:33.700]  Now would they have had to do that if they were behind their car doors as they were taught
[23:33.700 --> 23:34.700]  in the fucking academy?
[23:34.700 --> 23:36.460]  No, of course not.
[23:36.460 --> 23:41.420]  Would they have had to do that if they chose some sort of cover or concealment in the immediate
[23:41.420 --> 23:44.860]  area where the suspect is, which exists in the overwhelming number of cases?
[23:44.860 --> 23:46.140]  No, they would not.
[23:46.140 --> 23:49.860]  If the guy reached back to grab his ass, they would not have to turn him into a bullet sponge
[23:49.860 --> 23:53.020]  because they would have that little bit of extra discretion.
[23:53.020 --> 24:01.940]  So by ignore, I'm just baffled, how many people, how many, I don't know, perhaps tens of thousands
[24:01.940 --> 24:07.380]  of people have been gunned down by police because the cops did not use cover or concealment
[24:07.380 --> 24:10.500]  like they were trained in the fucking academy.
[24:10.500 --> 24:13.780]  They were cowboys, they got away from the cover and concealment, they were advancing
[24:13.780 --> 24:20.820]  on the suspect, and if the suspect did anything, the cop's justification is, well, I had like
[24:20.820 --> 24:25.580]  one 100th of a second to make that tough decision, life or death, you know, which it
[24:25.580 --> 24:30.100]  wouldn't have fucking been if he had been using cover and concealment, you fucking cock.
[24:30.100 --> 24:35.060]  So for me, standard number four is that the officer, whatever he did, he can point to
[24:35.060 --> 24:39.740]  what he went through in the academy or in-service training and say, I was trained to do it this
[24:39.740 --> 24:40.740]  way.
[24:40.740 --> 24:44.260]  If he can't do that, like, wait a second, so that was completely adverse to what you
[24:44.260 --> 24:47.300]  were taught, then he should not get qualified immunity.
[24:47.300 --> 24:52.060]  The final one, obedience to department policy.
[24:52.060 --> 24:56.860]  This is perhaps the least significant, but it should be in there because department policy
[24:56.860 --> 24:59.180]  exists for a reason.
[24:59.180 --> 25:04.340]  It is meant to carry forward what the community, through its police chief, its city council,
[25:04.340 --> 25:08.420]  its sheriff, how the community expects policing to take place.
[25:08.420 --> 25:13.320]  I say it should be in last place because it isn't law, okay, we want to be very clear
[25:13.320 --> 25:14.540]  about that.
[25:14.540 --> 25:20.540]  So the judge who's going to hear these arguments, if the officer has fulfilled number one, which
[25:20.540 --> 25:24.420]  is obedience to the state constitution, number two, obedience to the federal constitution
[25:24.420 --> 25:28.560]  and proper application of things like reasonable suspicion and probable cause.
[25:28.560 --> 25:32.060]  Number three, the facts meet the statute.
[25:32.060 --> 25:34.500]  Number four, follow department training.
[25:34.500 --> 25:41.780]  When you get to number five, department policy, the judge should determine whether the policy
[25:41.780 --> 25:46.420]  bears upon the foregoing four points.
[25:46.420 --> 25:53.140]  If the policy is unrelated to those four points, it may not be relevant to earning qualified
[25:53.140 --> 25:54.140]  immunity.
[25:54.140 --> 26:00.620]  However, if the policy is in place in furtherance of one through four and the person ignored
[26:00.620 --> 26:06.740]  the policy, then yeah, that should go into the part of the equation for denying the officer
[26:06.740 --> 26:10.220]  saying, no, I'm sorry, you did not earn qualified immunity.
[26:10.260 --> 26:16.040]  Over the last handful of years, it seems a number of lower courts have really had some
[26:16.040 --> 26:18.460]  serious doubts about qualified immunity.
[26:18.460 --> 26:22.780]  And there's been cases that would have been unthinkable 15 or 20 years ago where courts
[26:22.780 --> 26:27.060]  have said to an officer, no, I'm sorry, I'm going to waive your qualified immunity.
[26:27.060 --> 26:30.180]  However, that's a trickle.
[26:30.180 --> 26:33.240]  It's not a tsunami.
[26:33.240 --> 26:39.900]  This is why what's happening in New York is so important because NYPD officers will start,
[26:39.900 --> 26:43.780]  well, go into a suit absent qualified immunity.
[26:43.780 --> 26:50.580]  And if they're going to get it, the court is going to have to say, I feel your actions
[26:50.580 --> 26:56.440]  justify now applying qualified immunity to you.
[26:56.440 --> 27:01.460]  To my knowledge, New York City is going to be the first and only place in America with
[27:01.460 --> 27:09.460]  that construct because I always say we don't need to presume that this is so or that's
[27:09.700 --> 27:15.220]  or it would go down like this or make some predictive assessment based on what we think
[27:15.220 --> 27:20.740]  would happen if there's a place where it's actually really functioning like New York
[27:20.740 --> 27:25.220]  City is going to, by the way, the bill has not been signed, but de Blasio, it is said
[27:25.220 --> 27:26.220]  he's going to sign it.
[27:26.220 --> 27:29.140]  So this should be a reality very soon.
[27:29.140 --> 27:33.860]  So this is going to be a place in New York where New York, as far as qualified immunity
[27:33.860 --> 27:37.220]  for officers will be functioning completely different than the rest of the country.
[27:37.220 --> 27:42.020]  So we can look at the lawsuits that are brought against officers in that jurisdiction and
[27:42.020 --> 27:44.000]  see how that plays out in court.
[27:44.000 --> 27:48.540]  We can look and see what sort of recruits now gravitate towards the job and which don't,
[27:48.540 --> 27:50.900]  which I think is going to be great.
[27:50.900 --> 27:58.780]  But even if the average unethical schlump doesn't really get that he's not in a very
[27:58.780 --> 28:03.580]  good position if he joins NYPD and intends to be weak of morality and weak of ethics
[28:03.620 --> 28:09.980]  and so forth and is going to get himself in trouble, even if he joins, the absence of
[28:09.980 --> 28:17.020]  qualified immunity is going to provide for greater accountability.
[28:17.020 --> 28:21.260]  Now I think perhaps the last thing I need to talk about is monetary awards, monetary
[28:21.260 --> 28:23.660]  damages in a civil suit.
[28:23.660 --> 28:29.420]  There's nothing about New York's action, which is to strip NYPD officers of their qualified
[28:29.420 --> 28:30.420]  immunity.
[28:30.420 --> 28:35.100]  And I presume this applies to New York Transit cops and all sworn peace officers that work
[28:35.100 --> 28:37.020]  for the city of New York.
[28:37.020 --> 28:42.300]  However, some people might think, well, wait a second, you know, if I was wronged, I could
[28:42.300 --> 28:45.500]  get anywhere from hundreds of thousands of dollars or millions of dollars from the city
[28:45.500 --> 28:46.500]  of New York.
[28:46.500 --> 28:47.500]  What am I going to get from that fucking cop?
[28:47.500 --> 28:51.260]  He's making $92,000 a year and he's got, you know, a mortgage and three kids.
[28:51.260 --> 28:52.260]  What am I going to get from him?
[28:52.260 --> 28:53.260]  Okay.
[28:53.260 --> 28:54.260]  So it doesn't work that way.
[28:54.260 --> 28:55.260]  It's not either or.
[28:55.260 --> 28:58.860]  You can still sue the officer and the agency if it's a big money case.
[28:58.860 --> 29:02.100]  You'll still get paid from the agency big dollars.
[29:02.100 --> 29:09.140]  But what will happen is there will be a consequence to the officer who's violated your rights.
[29:09.140 --> 29:14.420]  That officer, I mean, whether the monetary award against the officer is $1,500, $15,000,
[29:14.420 --> 29:20.820]  $52,000, whatever the jury awards against that specific officer who did not earn qualified
[29:20.820 --> 29:27.820]  immunity, yeah, other cops are going to look at that and go, holy shit, I'm not putting
[29:27.820 --> 29:29.100]  myself in that position.
[29:29.100 --> 29:32.940]  Now, also, right wingers are going to say this is going to stop cops from doing their
[29:32.940 --> 29:33.940]  job.
[29:33.940 --> 29:37.140]  No, there's nothing in this that will stop cops from doing their job.
[29:37.140 --> 29:41.740]  All it's going to do is stop cops from violating people's rights wrongfully because that's
[29:41.740 --> 29:45.300]  the only circumstance in which the cops are going to be held personally accountable is
[29:45.300 --> 29:50.080]  if he cannot show by the evidence that he was respectful of the Constitution, obedient
[29:50.080 --> 29:54.620]  to it, obedient to the state constitution, federal constitution, the facts of the statute,
[29:54.620 --> 29:57.640]  and the other, all five of those criteria I talked about.
[29:57.640 --> 30:03.540]  If the officer is obedient to all of that, he's off the hook, right?
[30:03.540 --> 30:10.120]  So tell me, right wingers, which of those five elements do you not want cops to engage
[30:10.120 --> 30:12.040]  in when they encounter you?
[30:12.040 --> 30:16.220]  Do you want them not to give a shit about their oath to the US Constitution?
[30:16.220 --> 30:21.160]  Do you want them not to give a shit about when dealing with you about their obedience
[30:21.160 --> 30:22.800]  to the state constitution?
[30:22.800 --> 30:26.160]  Do you not want them to give a shit whether the facts of the situation they're looking
[30:26.160 --> 30:30.120]  at with you actually are violative of the statute?
[30:30.120 --> 30:35.080]  Do you want them to completely ignore department training at your expense?
[30:35.080 --> 30:39.040]  Do you want them to violate department policy that is in place to protect you?
[30:39.040 --> 30:43.440]  So yeah, right wingers, don't do this whole like rah-rah, shispoomba thing.
[30:43.440 --> 30:44.440]  Think about it.
[30:44.440 --> 30:48.420]  If you were the guy and you were being wronged, wouldn't you want the officer to be obedient
[30:48.420 --> 30:50.780]  to that so you wouldn't be wronged?
[30:50.780 --> 30:54.680]  I've got another video I'm going to be doing sometime in the next couple of weeks about
[30:54.680 --> 31:01.040]  people who engage in cop worship and believe in gun rights and why that is a completely
[31:01.040 --> 31:03.000]  contradictory paradigm.
[31:03.000 --> 31:09.180]  If you found this to be a thoughtful and cogent breakdown of qualified immunity and the circumstances
[31:09.180 --> 31:13.480]  with the current event and how it plays in and the history and the law and so forth,
[31:13.480 --> 31:16.060]  please help me to be here for you.
[31:16.060 --> 31:19.000]  Go to DrReality.News.
[31:19.000 --> 31:21.100]  Take a look at Income Tax Shattering the Miss.
[31:21.100 --> 31:24.700]  Go ahead and get yourself a copy because it's much like this presentation.
[31:24.700 --> 31:28.140]  It takes you back to what Congress was originally doing with the income tax laws, which by the
[31:28.140 --> 31:34.360]  way has never changed in, I don't know, 110 years somewhere in that range, has never changed.
[31:34.360 --> 31:37.860]  The people that Congress imposed the tax on way back then are the same people that are
[31:37.860 --> 31:42.440]  liable for the tax today, which I'm going to tell you is not the vast majority of Americans.
[31:42.440 --> 31:46.460]  So whether or not you choose to do anything about the information you find in Income Tax
[31:46.940 --> 31:50.200]  I guarantee you it will blow your mind.
[31:50.200 --> 31:53.940]  You will enjoy the hell out of it.
[31:53.940 --> 32:00.860]  You will never, ever be able to look at the federal government the same way after you've
[32:00.860 --> 32:02.860]  read Income Tax Shattering the Miss.