Police officers in the United States.
So far this year 2022 have killed, have killed police officers have killed more than 700
people in the United States.
So far this year, they are on track on track.
Excuse me, to make this the deadliest year for police killings in the United States.
And the big question has been for many decades now, how do we fix this?
How do we get rid of the murderous cops?
How do we hold them accountable?
How do we change the culture of these police departments across the country to make this
behavior stop?
Because it's not just the killings.
I mean, that's obviously the worst of the worst, but you have incidents where police
are leaving people, paralyzed, leaving them with permanent damage or otherwise costing
them tens of thousands of dollars in hospital bills because the police decided, well, let's
just beat the hell out of 'em anyway.
And so far, unfortunately, while we have held some individuals accountable individuals,
we haven't been able to change the culture.
So enter an unlikely ally in this situation that unlikely ally that's actually having
some success with changing the culture of police departments happens to be the insurance
industry because here's what's happening.
Whenever police departments or individual police officers get busted, you know, with
murdering somebody or they beat the hell outta somebody.
And then there's the lawsuits.
And the settlements that we see from that, the individual officers aren't paying that
money.
The police departments aren't paying that money.
Do you know who pays that money?
It's the insurance groups that actually represent these, uh, police departments kind of like
your health insurance, right?
You go to the doctor, you pay your part.
The insurance company comes in and pays the rest.
That's kind of how it works.
These police departments pay their premiums to have this insurance coverage that will
pay out whenever they have to make these, you know, 27 million payments, uh, 12 million
payments, uh, in the case of, uh, Brianna Taylor and George Floyd, that's what those
numbers were.
The insurance companies cover that and to make up for it, what the insurance companies
are doing are saying first and foremost, if you don't change your culture, if you continue
doing these things, beating people up or killing them, we're gonna drop you.
And guess what?
There's no other insurance coverage in your area.
We're literally the only provider.
So if you don't change, if you keep doing this to people you're done.
So that means the next 27 million payment that you pay out is literally coming out of
your pockets.
So there have been instances across the country with smaller police departments that have
said, we're gonna force our officers to go through more deescalation training in order
to not lose our insurance coverage.
You have also seen areas where the insurance coverage prices have increased, uh, by 200
to 400% over just the last three years.
And those are the ones who have, you know, histories of civil rights violations of police
murders.
They're seeing the biggest increases, but even those that do not have those issues,
they have seen their premiums increase from 30 to 100%.
So even the, you know, police that aren't doing the horrible things, they're still having
to pay more to make up for all of the other bad apples.
So this puts the pressure on the good cops to put the pressure on the bad cops to stop
doing the bad.
And the insurance companies are right there telling them if you don't stop, it is going
to cost you.
And every one of your officers possibly millions of dollars.
So is it worth it?
Is it worth it to be able to go out there or just beat the hell out of any black person
you see, because you don't like the color of their skin, is that worth millions of dollars
to you?
So maybe think long and hard next time before you pull out that gun and start firing, because
the next time you do, you could be the one footing the bill.
And as I said, some police departments have taken that warning to heart and they're forcing
their officers to go through additional deescalation training, which is what is needed.
We still have a long way to go, and I'm not a fan of insurance companies at all, but if
they're gonna be our ally in this, if this is what finally gets police departments to
change, then I think that's an Alliance worth forming.