Simple Rule: You arrest someone, you are responsible for their life

[samsingh]

- if they die in police custody, the police are responsible. They have to ensure the arrestee's safety and life.

No more crap about someone hung themselves or jumped around in a backseat. If you shoot an unarmed black person, there BETTER be a video showing the need for that excessive force. No video, I think we should charge the police with murder because they killed someone.

[randys1]

1. If the city can be sued into nonexistence, it will teach other cities what they

cant get away with

[enough]

2. This is a very important point. Thanks for stating this so clearly.

It's part of the erosion of the principles of rule of law that this simple fact is now not at all understood.

[uponit7771]

3. Good point, there are so many angles of responsibility LEOs need to take after they decided to pull

... out the handcuffs or the weapons

[mythology]

4. There is a difference between somebody committing suicide and somebody being murdered

by being handcuffed in the back of a van and left to be bashed around. One is an intentional action that is obviously dangerous to another person and the other isn't.

I don't know if Sandra Bland committed suicide or was murdered, but Bland herself talked about how she battled depression, indicating that the people around her were at least capable of being aware of her situation. If the cops who didn't know her were responsible, what does that make her family and friends who knew her, who watched her suffer from depression and still weren't able to prevent the suicide? Suicides are almost never the result of a single event. Instead they are a build up of a lot of small events over time.

As somebody who has battled depression and made a lot of stupid choices (thankfully I've never been suicidal) because of it, it's not fair to hold the people around me for those choices.

[ThePhilosopher04]

5. I doubt seriously she committed suicide ...

no doubt in my mind she was murdered. My opinion of course.

[ncjustice80]

6. It would be better just to disarm the cops entirely.

The need for an *actual* armed response is rare enough that we could easily get by with armed response squads for emergencies. There is ZERO need for the average patrol officer or investigator to carry a gun.