The problem is that then when a police officer breaks the law and harms you, and you later sue them, the taxpayers end up paying the settlement due to the fact that you have to sue the whole department rather than the criminal themselves. There are no consequences, criminal or civil, for the person who actually broke the law.

New York City taxpayers pay $300M a year or so (IIRC) paying out civil judgements against the exceptionally violent NYPD.

How is that a problem? It was after all the tax payers who voted for politicians who are in favor of violent policing.

I feel the issue here is that the courts are corrupt and do not convict police for their crimes. Not that you cannot sue employees. I feel fixing a broken criminal justice system with civil lawsuits only creates more issues than it solves.

> It was after all the tax payers who voted for politicians who are in favor of violent policing.

It's often not so simple.

The police retaliate against politicians who don't toe the line. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/01/nyregion/chiara-de-blasio...

Bad cops often can't be gotten rid of: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/jun/30/police-union...

> A court in 2009 convicted Washington DC police officer Michael Sugg-Edwards of sexually assaulting a teenage woman in his squad car. After conducting its own internal investigation, the department quickly fired the then 35-year-old officer.

> But, six years later, Sugg-Edwards was back on the force. A provision in the police union’s contract allowed him to appeal against the decision to a union-selected arbitrator who reversed the department’s firing and reinstated him – with back pay.

> In San Antonio, an officer fired twice for challenging handcuffed suspects to fight him for their freedom was reinstated by an arbitrator both times. A second San Antonio officer who engaged in unauthorized car chases was also reinstated twice. In Columbus and Oklahoma, officers who kicked men in the head were rehired.

The problem is that the violent criminal suffers no consequences whatsoever.

Any consequences, even kludgy ones, are better than none.

Perhaps the increased cost of liability insurance for the most violent will ultimately force them out of a job that shields them from criminal liability for violent crime, as someone else pointed out.