As we are all trying to heal from the verdict of the Philando Castile case, it was reported that his family was given 3 million dollars in a settlement. We know that there is no amount of money that can bring him back it still makes me wonder if the courts and a jury found the shooting to be justified then what is the money for? I mean if you go to trial for stealing and a jury of your peers find you not guilty, the state doesn't give money to the person or establishment that accused you of stealing, right?
This is just the latest settlement agreement awarded to a family where the officer was acquitted on all charges. I found some information that really makes you think.
It was reported that Chicago alone has spent $642 million dollars on police brutality- related cases since 2004 that's roughly $53 million a year. This has in turn caused some public schools to be shut down and other city project budgets to be either tremendously cut or cut off. In 2014 Chicago PD was said to give the family of Laquan McDonald, a 17 year old unarmed young black man who a police officer shot 16 times $5 million under the agreement that they would not publicly release footage of the shooting. In the fatal shooting of 12 year old Tamir Rice, his family was given $6 million. The list as we all know goes on and on.
It's said that just in the cities of Chicago and New York alone these types of cases are costing tax payers somewhere ranging and up to maybe more of almost a billion dollars. I'm not going to get into any actual numbers but that is large enough for me to know that this just doesn't seem right. Instead of paying out settlements why not take some of taxpayers' money and put that toward better police training and implementing more education for officers in deescalating a situation or how to properly pull someone over for an actual reason. Or teach and implement that officers not shoot first and ask questions later. In the UK the police don't even carry guns. On an episode of [The Young Turks] Francis Maxwell says that there were a few American police officers having a sit down or discussion with police officers in the UK and they showed a video of someone running around with a knife and not even 10 seconds into the video the American officer was like "oh yea, he would be shot". That's so sad for a country that's supposed to be "the greatest country in the world". Now don't forget that the almost $1 billion spent on settlements is just for New York and Chicago. Not to mention the number of police killings has continued to increase. The number of police killings of almost every month in 2017 thus far is more than the in same month of 2016. Which means that more of tax payers' money could potentially be spent on settlements of these types of cases.
Of course this isn't about money this is about preventing more senseless killings from happening and also holding police officers accountable for their actions and not letting them get away with the "I was scared for my life" story. I'm sure right off the top of your head you can think of situations where you just think he was running away, how could you have feared for your life? One writer from the daily news, Shaun King who is working on a five part series of how we need to shift this problem made very interesting suggestions. Why not take this money from the budgets of officers' pensions, the officers involved in the fatal shootings should have their pensions and investments be put toward funding these settlements. I think that this will make officers think twice about shoot first, ask questions later. If you want to hurt someone, hurt their pockets.
What do you think? How do feel? Do you have any suggestions? I would love to hear your thoughts on this.
This is just the latest settlement agreement awarded to a family where the officer was acquitted on all charges. I found some information that really makes you think.
It was reported that Chicago alone has spent $642 million dollars on police brutality- related cases since 2004 that's roughly $53 million a year. This has in turn caused some public schools to be shut down and other city project budgets to be either tremendously cut or cut off. In 2014 Chicago PD was said to give the family of Laquan McDonald, a 17 year old unarmed young black man who a police officer shot 16 times $5 million under the agreement that they would not publicly release footage of the shooting. In the fatal shooting of 12 year old Tamir Rice, his family was given $6 million. The list as we all know goes on and on.
It's said that just in the cities of Chicago and New York alone these types of cases are costing tax payers somewhere ranging and up to maybe more of almost a billion dollars. I'm not going to get into any actual numbers but that is large enough for me to know that this just doesn't seem right. Instead of paying out settlements why not take some of taxpayers' money and put that toward better police training and implementing more education for officers in deescalating a situation or how to properly pull someone over for an actual reason. Or teach and implement that officers not shoot first and ask questions later. In the UK the police don't even carry guns. On an episode of [The Young Turks] Francis Maxwell says that there were a few American police officers having a sit down or discussion with police officers in the UK and they showed a video of someone running around with a knife and not even 10 seconds into the video the American officer was like "oh yea, he would be shot". That's so sad for a country that's supposed to be "the greatest country in the world". Now don't forget that the almost $1 billion spent on settlements is just for New York and Chicago. Not to mention the number of police killings has continued to increase. The number of police killings of almost every month in 2017 thus far is more than the in same month of 2016. Which means that more of tax payers' money could potentially be spent on settlements of these types of cases.
Of course this isn't about money this is about preventing more senseless killings from happening and also holding police officers accountable for their actions and not letting them get away with the "I was scared for my life" story. I'm sure right off the top of your head you can think of situations where you just think he was running away, how could you have feared for your life? One writer from the daily news, Shaun King who is working on a five part series of how we need to shift this problem made very interesting suggestions. Why not take this money from the budgets of officers' pensions, the officers involved in the fatal shootings should have their pensions and investments be put toward funding these settlements. I think that this will make officers think twice about shoot first, ask questions later. If you want to hurt someone, hurt their pockets.
What do you think? How do feel? Do you have any suggestions? I would love to hear your thoughts on this.
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