I actually just finished up training with an organization called "The National Lawyers Guild" an anti-racist, people-first organization of lawyers who (along with a lot of other cool things) provide training in how to be a "legal observer" during protests, so you can show up, and bear witness to police abuse of protesters and appear in court as a credible witness. While police are rarely held accountable at least a legal observer can show up in court and say that a protester did not do the things police said provoked them to use violence. another barrier to police being held accountable is the fact that cops charge anyone they beat up with a litany of "crimes," if a civilian victim of police violence is found guilty of even a minor crime it's pretty much a bar to any lawsuit. So, often an essential "step zero" in a lawsuit is winning a not guilty verdict in criminal court. ACAB. Fuck 12.

@RJ "Deke" Dieken love

this, curious what do they teach? is there a place I could look at the guidelines.

I apologize for the late reply. They are an association of lawyers and legal support staff, as well as a few other law minded folx. here is their website address: National Lawyers Guild (nlg.org)

The Supreme Court basically made it up. There is a statute called §1983 that congress made specifically for the purpose of citizens suing government when government trampled on their constitutional rights. The Supreme Court, basically made qualified immunity up based on some old common law doctrine. the current test for qualified immunity is from about 40 years ago. There really is no rational basis for the law, especially where congress explicitly made a law for a the opposite purpose, the Supreme Court is only SUPPOSED to interpret the laws--not make them up out of thin air. The only reason QI has survived for so long is that for the longest time it was political suicide to come out against "Law and Order" on either side, democrat or republican. It is only very recently that we as a society have begun to recognize "Law and Order" as the racist, classist dog whistle that it is.

very VERY few cases. Logically there should be a lot more cases, but even where qualified immunity is denied most juries are exceptionally deferential to law enforcement. The people who have seen law enforcement abuse, for the most part, either are not able to serve on a jury, or are quickly hand-picked from the jury and told to leave by government lawyers. Many "good" jobs will pay an employee their normal daily rate while they serve on a jury, but most folks don't read that in their employment contract and thus do whatever they can to get out of jury duty. We need more people who actually know the police are full of crap to sit on a jury...the problem is if you mention you think they are full of crap you'll be excluded from jury service by a government lawyer.