After 22 years in prison for a crime he did not commit, man gets to sue after all.

This is the second case I've heard of where the police officer was sued individually, along with the city. I think it is high time these things happened, and look forward to them happening more.

As a brief explanation, as I understand it and I may be wrong, and if you know better please let us all know. You can't sue a cop without permission. You have to demonstrate to the Judge that the officer was not acting within the established policies and laws governing his actions. Which makes cases like this ripe for such a suit. Since the department always backs the cop, that means that lawsuits are too few and far between. That's probably why the cops are so angry that video recording is protected under the first amendment everywhere.

In this case, a man with a limited education, he'd finished the 6th Grade, was lied to by police, threatened for days, until he signed a confession that had been prepared for him. He was convicted, and sentenced to two life terms for torturing and murdering two children.

After 22 years he was proven innocent by DNA testing by Project Innocence. Now, he wants to sue the police department, the city, and most importantly the cops who abused him into confessing. The Judge has ruled that the cops can be sued individually and referred to the abuses as egregious. I won't bother playing the guessing game, you already know, this man is black.

We as a society need to reign in these out of control police officers. We need to explain to the every department that these types of behaviors are absolutely unacceptable. We need to write our District Attorneys demanding to know why the cops doing these abuses are not charged with crimes. They are not enforcing the law, or operating according to policy. They are abusive bastards who should be locked up.

It used to be a principle that it was a privilege to serve the public. It was a privilege to be a firefighter, a paramedic, a member of the military, a politician, and yes, even a cop. It was a privilege to serve the public, it was even called a "higher calling" to do such work. It seems to me that too many of these are now operating as though it is a privilege to be served by the public servants. That is something we've lost, public service means that the individual serving is the servant, and is supposed to serve the public. Too many Politicians act like it's an honor to be represented by them, we are the lucky ones to have someone as awesome as they. Too many cops have the same attitude. Aren't we lucky that he's out there protecting us? We would lucky if they were serving instead of abusing and brutalizing people.

Courthouse news had this gem. Cops were planting drugs on a woman to cover up the illegal search. Aren't we lucky that they are the cops who are protecting us? Not satisfied with planting the evidence, they also had the county crime lab tamper with her blood tests to make them show positive for drug use. Now, why aren't these cops charged with perjury? Why aren't they charged with possession with intent to distribute drugs? They had the drugs in their possession, and intended to transfer possession to an innocent person, that would seem to be intent to distribute. Try them as drug dealers and see them locked up.

We talk about the 1%, and granted the 1% economically cause a lot of damage. But the 1% of the population that is law enforcement cause just as much damage, and even more to individuals and families as the rich do, but nobody calls on reforms for that, because no politician will ever run on the platform of reigning in the police, or reforming law enforcement.