The Bill McIntosh Show sat down with Michael Letts of In-Vest USA (www.investusa.org) to discuss the recent Supreme court cases involving the protection of qualified immunity for law enforcement professionals.
The very idea that family members, for example, of perpetrators can sue police over alleged excessive use of force while arresting or neutralizing their miscreant kin should make all Americans indignant.
In April the Biden Administration, through Jen Psaki, chimed in on the law enforcement shooting death of knife wielding, 16 year old Ma’Khia Bryant who was regarded as a “child” by the selectively empathetic Jen Psaki despite the fact that Bryant threatened a woman with imminent harm with a knife in Columbus, Ohio as seen on police video. Psaki, predictably, invoked woke issues such as disproportionately high numbers of Blacks & Hispanics as victims of “police violence”, “systemic racism and implicit bias” and the Biden Administration’s support of legislation to reform police nationwide.
The message? White Police Officer Nicholas Reardon who shot a Black girl poised to stab a Black woman with a knife, is a racist bigot!! LeBron James was quick to tweet “YOU’RE NEXT” above a photo of Reardon who deserves only praise for his quick action to protect a potential victim (and then deleted the indignant, GANGSTA Tweet).
These SCOTUS cases, specifically, City of Tahlequah (Oklahoma) v. Bond and Rivas-Villegas (of Union City, California) v. Cortesluna come at a time when American law enforcement can best be described as demoralized, beleaguered and abandoned. New Jersey Attorney, Patrick J Graham in his Public Entity Newsletter (Oct. 28th, 2021), concerning these Supreme Court cases stated:
“The United States Supreme Court has taken two opportunities to reaffirm the use of the defense of qualified immunity as applied to police officers who have been sued for civil rights violations pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983….The Supreme Court’s analysis in these recent decisions centered on the doctrine of qualified immunity and the doctrine’s protection of officers from civil liability so long as the officers’ conduct “does not violate clearly established statutory or constitutional rights of which a reasonable person would have known.” The Court explained that the doctrine of qualified immunity will be applicable to “all but the plainly incompetent or those who knowingly violate the law.”
The simple fact is that the BLM supported Defund The Police and “let’s second guess a cop today” sentiments are devastating for the proper fulfillment of law enforcement’s mission of preserving public safety. Michael Letts commented what is at stake:
“You cannot have first responders, law enforcement, firefighters rushing into life and death decisions having to stop for a moment and say “no, can I get sued?” or what I’m fixing to do. That’s how people get killed. That’s how people die. The courts have always recognized that and fortunately, the Supreme Court upheld that opinion the last couple of weeks, that we [police] still are entitled to qualified immunity, because quite frankly, if you remove qualified immunity, there would be a mass exodus from first responders, there wouldn’t be anybody left. Why would you put yourself in a position to be sued by as you pointed out earlier? There’s a lot of crazies that would sue just for the principle of suing [and] risk your whole future, your whole financial stability, without qualified immunity, you wouldn’t do and there wouldn’t be and I don’t blame them either. Would I do it? It wouldn’t be anybody out there to protect us. And we would be in anarchy and it’d be every man for himself.”
The work of a policeman or woman is dangerous enpugh as it is and removing the shield of qualified immunity would be the last straw in a long line of offenses against cops and sheriffs nationwide. Fortunately, that protection remains in place for now.
Letts urges people in their localities to do church and community fundraisers to obtain funds to join with In-VestUSA’s mission of furnishing bullet proof vests for law enforcement nationwide. Find out more at (www.investusa.org)
