Insure The Police

No, this isn't a toned-down version of an NWA rap from the late '80s.

Insure The Police / Committee For Professional Policing (CFPP) is a Minneapolis organization pushing for a change that's long overdue.  CFPP wants every Minneapolis police officer to be required to carry personal, professional liability insurance.

In order to drive a car, you have to have liability insurance in case you cause an accident and/or injure someone through your own shitty driving.  Why shouldn't this same reasoning apply to a law enforcement officer who has the ability to kill or main every civilian he/she interacts with?

If you're a driver who's had too many violations or caused too much misery to others, at some point your insurance premiums will skyrocket to an exorbitant unaffordable rate, and/or your insurance carrier will flat-out refuse to insure you.  You're off the road.  Problem solved.  Take the bus, Asshole.

And using this same free-market personal-responsibility approach (Conservatives, are you listening?), a power-crazed trigger-happy cop who has generated too many brutality complaints will no longer be able to obtain his required liability insurance.  Problem solved.  Ah, the invisible hand the marketplace.  Sorry Biff, you'll have to find another line of work.

This may not be a perfect solution, but it beats the shit out of the current situation:  No matter how mean, stupid and hot-tempered a cop is, and no matter how many gazillions of dollars the local police department (i.e. your tax dollars at work) has paid in legal costs and medical compensation to Officer Inbred's victims, Officer Inbred stays on the force.  He just goes on about his daily routine, getting raises and promotions right on schedule, safe inside his little bubble of unaccountability,  while his victims are forever disabled and local taxpayers are being bled dry.

There are exceptions, but the above scenario is pretty much the norm.  

I don't think the majority of decent honorable police officers deserve to be stereotyped, blamed, (profiled, if you will) because of the few sickfucks who wear a police uniform.  But the growing public fury and backlash are inevitable when the proverbial bad apple keeps getting protected and shielded from any possible accountability.

I hope the Committee For Professional Policing is able to bring about this long-overdue reform in Minneapolis.  And after Minneapolis, hopefully other American cities will catch on.