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Comment by sandworm101 | Hacker News Reader

> Do police pay for damages in cases where a raid is excessive force?

Generally speaking no. Even if it looks really bad and they honestly want to make amends, they wont as doing so may be seen as an admission of wrongdoing either usable in or encouraging of a lawsuit. As a general rule, damage done during the execution of a warrant will not be covered by the police or their insurance provider.

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They're generally sued actually, and when they really fucked up they pay a LOT as a result.

> they pay a LOT as a result.

They don't pay a bit. We, on the other hand, pay and don't receive value for our money.

That... is a good point. I forgot that it's taxpayers suing ourselves.

Goddamn it.

Except that many/most local governments are in turn covered by insurance. So suing them is not fundamentally different than suing a private citizen with similar insurance. Both costs are born by the pool of insurance purchasers, private and public.

ITT: I learn just how pitifully limited and inaccurate my knowledge of insurance is. Is there a good place to learn more about this topic, online?

The insurance is likely owned by "us" anyways through our mutual funds, retirement plans, etc. And high insurance fees come out of our pocket directly as well by making such policies more expensive in the next city.

The issue though is that it's not the pockets of the guilty. Officers are almost entirely shielded from the legal and financial costs of the damage they do.

When we ask "Why do they behave like that?" the answer is because they can, and there's literally no reason for them not to. They're literally consequence free.

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