Georgia college student reportedly received a ticket from a cop after a Flock camera flagged her newly purchased vehicle as having no insurance when it did. According to a WSB-TV report, posted by podcast host Kacee Allen, the car has a temporary license plate, but the student presented a valid insurance card. Despite this, the officer reportedly still issued a citation. The incident reportedly happened twice, and the student now has to defend herself in court
According to the news report, the database that Flock cameras rely on was yet to be updated. This caused the system to falsely flag the newly purchased vehicle.
Renee Jones, the student’s mother, said her daughter was doing everything required of her. This included maintaining insurance and carrying proof of coverage.
In a just world, the officer, the police department, and Flock would all owe her compensation. I’d put the amount at about 10x the fine for the offense.
The problem is that any fees cops get for doing stuff coming out of tax money.
In a way I understand why, but it just bullshit at the end of day.
A proposal I’ve seen floated a few times is to require police to carry liability insurance individually and give them a stipend for an average/reasonable amount. This is usually paired with changes to qualified immunity to make lawsuits and insurance claims easier.
The idea is that risky behavior from police costs them money personally.
I’m wanting to say I like this idea, but…
It just freaking sux. There are good cops out there who don’t need to be pumped into one insurance ideology (fraud) - but til the bad cops get the punishment they deserve there is no good solution.
This is a general problem with the whole system - including unaffordable healthcare. If healthcare would be free; freakton of lawsuits wouldn’t happen.
Without those lawsuits the insurance would go down, lawyers would not clog up the system with ‘got hurt in an accident’ cases - and this would reflect all parts of society.
I believe the cops not getting punished for being bad is just one of the hundred symptoms of the system failing.
Break it down; 2% cop 5% department 25% flock
The extra 20 from flock goes back to taxpayers who had to pay the department’s portion.
That adds up to 30%. Maybe you meant 25/50/25.
I’d have to know more before breaking it down. If Flock told police departments that these alerts are up to date and reliable, I might assign them up to half the blame. If there were clear that the information could be a few days old, then I’d set it smaller, but not to zero because I think offering an “alert” product to law enforcement for minor administrative offenses based on stale data is irresponsible.
Similarly for the department and the officer, I have to ask whether there’s a policy about how to handle this sort of thing. If there’s a bad policy, the department gets most of the blame. If the officer decided to ignore a valid insurance card and trust a third-party database, the the officer gets most of the blame.
Oops, I wasn’t really doing the math as I went
Originally I was adding up to your 10x + a adding in bunch extra for flock, but somepoint my brain switch that 10x to 10%. Oh well, the specific numbers dont really matter.
I think greater responsibility should be placed on the department to encourage firing. If the burden is mostly on the officer, than the department bean counters won’t care as long the officer can write more “valid” tickets to offset the bogus ones.
Its also like if a waiter drops a tray of food on someone causing injury. Who is financially responsible to the injured person, the business or waiter? I think most of would agree that the business is. The business is fully within their rights to fire that waiter, but they can’t withhold pay for the damages. If the business can prove the tray was intentionally thrown, then they can sue the waiter. But, the injured party should never have to talk to the waiter.
Should the be the same for an officer, if they make a mistake it’s on the department to make it right with the affected parties. If the department proves the officer maliciously broke protocol or law, then they can sue them separately. The victim of the officer’s actions should be made “whole” by the department, then the department and officer can figure it out on their own.