This is Nuts Too
I must be going crazy. First this, and now comes this story, via Overlawyered.com:
A former Inglewood police officer [Jeremy Morese] who was fired for punching a black teenager and slamming him against a patrol car was awarded $1.6 million Tuesday by the jury in a discrimination lawsuit he and his partner brought against the city [note that the teenager was handcuffed at the time]
OK, we won't even get into the fact that employers should be able to fire "at-will" employees for just about any old reason. How, though, have we gotten to a world where a police department can't fire an officer who abused a handcuffed man?
It gets better, though:
the jury was unanimous in awarding $810,000 to Morse's partner, Bijan Darvish, who had been disciplined in connection with the 2002 incident.
Darvish was suspended 10 days (presumably without pay) for falsifying a report to cover up for his partner's abusive actions. Ignore for a moment whether a 10 day suspension is the right punishment for his actions (I would have fired the guy), but ask - how is $810,000 proper recompense for a 10 day suspension, even if the suspension was totally invalid? The main damage was lost pay -- but on this basis the $810,000 for 10 days pay would represent $29,565,000 for a whole year. I guess I need to quit my job and go sign up as a police officer in Inglewood, because they sure as heck make more money than I do.
By the way, if I was an African-American, I would sure as hell stay away from Inglewood, or any other community that pays million dollar rewards to cops that beat the hell out of black people.
