Nolte: The Self-Destructive Lunacy of Ending Qualified Immunity for Police Officers

Sen. Mike Braun (R-IN) might or might not have pulled his insane bill to pretty much abolish qualified immunity for police officers.

Braun, who is obviously in some sort of moral panic, who is obviously completely out of touch with the American people, got massacred by Tucker Carlson this week over this, and deservedly so. There are reports he pulled it. Reports he did not. Regardless…

What we are seeing across the Republican Party is a startling tone-deafness, is a feckless party caught in the Stockholm Syndrome of Washington, DC, and cable news, where they actually believe that acting as Black Lives Matter-Lite is the way forward. We see this from Braun, we saw this from Sen. Tim Scott’s (R-SC) attempt to appease the mob with his police reform bill, and we sure as hell saw it when Mitt Romney marched with the terrorists.

Instead of standing up for our country against these lies and smears about systemic racism, instead of defending the police, too many in the GOP are either siding with the left-wing terrorists burning down our cities and desecrating our history, or they lack the moral courage to stand up.

Republicans have the White House and the Senate, and they are still worse than useless. They are appeasers. History is making an emergency call, and the GOP not only refuses to answer; they are on the other line conspiring with traitors and anarchists.

So what exactly is qualified immunity…?

First off, it’s not a special privilege for police officers. Qualified immunity protects all government officials, and it was essentially created by the Supreme Court in 1967 and strengthened again by the Court in 1983. The idea, and it’s a good one, is to protect government officials, including police officers, from personal liability.

Qualified immunity is not absolute immunity. If the government official acted in good faith, this person cannot be held personally liable. If the official acted in a way that can be proven as bad faith, such as an obvious act of criminality, there is no immunity.

The reasons for this immunity are obvious. Who is going to want to work in government if they may be personally sued and bankrupted over a mistake or error in judgment? Who would want to risk losing their home, losing everything they have, or having their wages garnished for life? Who wants to be at the mercy of left-wing activists in a society as litigious as ours?

Now, imagine you’re a police officer, especially in this McCarthyite environment, in this era of the Woke Taliban. Imagine you can be personally sued by a left-wing activist every time you make an arrest. Imagine you face the loss of your home every time you pull someone over. Imagine knowing that no matter how frivolous, these left-wing activists can still personally bankrupt you through the legal fees required to defend yourself.
If qualified immunity is extinguished, there are only three possible outcomes, or some toxic mixture of all three:

1. Every law enforcement officer in the country resigns. And who could blame them?
2. As Ace of Spades points out, police budgets that are already strained and at risk of being drastically cut, are further strained because taxpayers will now be on the hook to pay the costs involved in covering every law enforcement officer with personal liability insurance.
3. Cops stop doing their jobs. Who’s going to risk losing their home? Who wants to risk paying even the deductible of the liability insurance? Who wants to risk all your free time being eaten up in a lawsuit? Who wants to risk anything for a public that has turned its back on you.

Ending qualified immunity is pure madness, is just a backdoor way to abolish the police.

What’s more, it is not as though citizens who feel their rights have been violated by a police officer do not have recourse. They can sue the government — the town, city, county, or state — whichever is liable for the officer.

There is only one reason to push for the madness of abolishing qualified immunity and that’s to, at best, weaken the police and police departments, or, at worst, abolish the police altogether.

Instead of seeking to appease these terrorists in a way that will only make poor and predominantly black neighborhoods less safe, these Vichy Republicans should be educating the public and defending the police based on the following facts:

• Police shootings of unarmed people (including blacks) have dropped dramatically over the past few years.
• Black and white deaths at the hands of police officers are almost perfectly representative of the country’s racial make-up involving police interactions.
• The black imprisonment rate has been dramatically shrinking since 2006.
• Blacks and whites are equally satisfied with their local police.

This entire anti-police jihad is based on lies, and except for Tucker Carlson, no one on our side has the courage or the ability to fight for the truth. It’s either appeasement, cowardly silence, or incoherence. 

Follow John Nolte on Twitter @NolteNC. Follow his Facebook Page here.