The Unstated Penalty Cities Face if They Do Not Change

[MineralMan]

Minneapolis, MN recently watched yet another black person get killed by its police department. Then, during protests in that city, a woman journalist lost the vision in one eye after being struck in the face by a rubber bullet while covering the protests.

You'd think those horrors would be enough to cause systemic change, but such has not been the case in the past.

Minneapolis has been forced to pay out millions of dollars to victims of police violence over the years. They will be paying out more millions of dollars after losing lawsuits or settling with the two victims described above. That's guaranteed. Who will foot the bill? The local citizens of the city. That's who. Minneapolis, like most municipalities, self insures against such things. That means that the taxpayers pay when the city must make a pay-out for wrongdoing.

That cost is rarely mentioned in the news at the time police violence takes place. It is only mentioned after the city has been forced to pay millions for its failure to prevent such violence. By then, the incident is largely out of the minds of the city's residents.

How many millions of dollars will Minneapolitans have to pay for the MPD's violent flaunting of the law and human decency this time?

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

1. Damages arising from the tort liability of a municipality are capped by statute.

The cap is $500,000 for a single claim or $1,500,000 total for multiple claims arising from a single incident.
https://www.revisor.mn.gov/statutes/cite/466.04 The purpose of the tort claims statute was to ensure that tort damages were available to claimants by abolishing the common-law doctrine of sovereign immunity (with a lot of exceptions), while imposing a cap to protect the cities' and its taxpayers' wallets. Many cities do carry liability insurance through the League of Minnesota Cities Insurance Trust but the members seem to be mostly the smaller cities that couldn't afford even a capped damage award.

[MineralMan]

4. And yet, the city paid $20 million in the Justine Damond case.

https://www.twincities.com/2019/05/03/minneapolis-to-pay-20-million-to-justine-damonds-family/

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

5. There is a provision in the tort claims statute

that says the cap is waived if the agency has sufficient money in an insurance fund. Minneapolis has an insurance fund of its own, and apparently this triggered the waiver. If there's sufficient insurance that means the taxpayers don't have to foot the bill.

[MineralMan]

6. And how much do you suppose Minneapolis will be

paying out in the George Floyd case? How much is in their self-insurance fund? Where did it come from? I maintain that the taxpayers are footing the bill, one way or another.

The Damond settlement has set a standard, I believe. Apparently the cap doesn't apply to self-insured cities, or it would have applied in the Justine Damond case and the payout would have been lower.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

7. Ultimately the taxpayers foot the bill to some extent because an insured city

has to either pay premiums or contribute to its discrete self-insurance fund. The financial advantage to a self-insurance fund is that it can be invested (though all investments suck these days), so when payouts do occur there's not quite as much of a hit all at once. Minneapolis will probably settle claims by Floyd's family quickly, and regardless of the outcome of the criminal charges against the cops. There may be other claims arising from police misconduct during the protests but those might be a little tougher to prove, and claims that police failed to protect property would probably be barred by the public duty doctrine. Obviously Minneapolis is going to have to ante up but the money will come from its insurance fund and not the general budget.

[MineralMan]

9. And, as I said, the money comes from taxpayers in the end.

Governments do not create money. They take money through taxes. My comments stand.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

10. That's what I said, too. The only issue is how much.

[zstat]

2. Little will change until police/unions pay when city is sued. Time to change how money is paid..

Really. Think about. If police had to contribute to their union dues, like a monthly insurance fee, to cover the millions of dollars the people of the city have to pay for "crimes" the police commit, you can be assured of a couple of outcomes: the insurance fees would go up quickly and dramatically in some cities, a lot of police departments would get really pissed at some of their fellow officers who cost them money, and the police would police their own (keep the guys that are costing them money away from the "policing&quot .

I don't think the people in the city should be required to pay the millions of dollars each year.

So lets address the problem where change will occur - follow the money.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

3. "I don't think the people in the city should be required to pay the millions of dollars"

They (we) don't. See post #1.

[Wellstone ruled]

8. Reality is,everyone owning Property in MPLS

will see one hell of a Increase next year. Yes there was a so called cap in place. But,the so called Funds on hand rule would never work.

Once again,the State will do some type of special funding bill written in a way to help bailout the City.

[IronLionZion]

11. Paying all that money should force them to change

Implements reforms on policing. Ban chokeholds. Require body cameras. Reform qualified immunity. Reallocate some police funding and duties towards social services, mental health treatment, wellness checks, etc. that police shouldn't be doing.

There are plenty of police changes that can be implemented immediately and there's no need to wait until it's "out of the minds of the city's residents". What happened this year will likely stay in Minneapolis residents minds for a long time. A $20 counterfeit bill to buy food should never be a death sentence.

[MineralMan]

12. You'd think so, wouldn't you?

Police misconduct costs cities a great deal of money. That, alone, should prompt them to correct the problems. That money could be far better used to correct systemic injustices that lead to such police misconduct, I think, and help heal the community.

[IronLionZion]

13. The size and scale of the protests this year are global

so there better be some reforms this time. They know what to do. Much of it doesn't cost much, just needs the political will to do it. Police chiefs, mayors, city councils, governors, etc. have promised reforms. Several cities have already banned chokeholds.

[Hugin]

14. We live in a culture that will whistle past a mass shooting at an elementary school...

without an iota of introspection as to what the hell is wrong with us.

Now, the Republicans are trying to stifle this latest outrage with exactly the same silence which has worked so many times before.

What I'm seeing is that what is wrong may not be as much of a policing problem, but, a justice problem.

Off-the-books settlements have become the norm. Throw enough money and silence at any problem and it will go away.