Duty Of Care And Failure

Police officers, like the citizens they protect, can make mistakes. I do not believe that police officers should be held liable for acting in good faith. According to the United States Supreme Court, per Brinegar v. United States, “because many situations which confront officers in the course of executing their duties are more or less ambiguous, room must be allowed for some mistakes on their part. But the mistakes must be those of reasonable men, acting on facts leading sensibly leading to their conclusions of probability.” (PoliceMag, 2007). The Fourth Amendment protects the citizens of the United States from unreasonable searches and seizures. (U.S. Const. amend. IV). Over the course of history, the Supreme Court has ruled in favor of protecting the police officers from any liability. My focus will be on the good-faith exception and the exigent circumstance.

Negligence is upholding a certain leavel of care by determining if it meets the four components nessessary for a claim; duty, breach of duty, causation, and damages. In this case duty was not handled correctly. Duty means you agree to take care of a health care patients. THe girls working at the Good Samaritan Home did not take proper care of the residents. Breach of duty is broken down into four categories; Misfeasance, nonfeasance, and malfeasance. In this case the breach of duty refers to nonfeasance. There was a failure to act, by no other employees bringing the ause to attention. Causation requires an injury to be due to the healthcare professionals negligence. In the case of abuse in the Good Samaritan case there was no other way the injuries could have happened. The damages refers to the injuries caused to the residents.

It is the government’s ordained and foremost right to provide its citizens with reliable protection and security, especially in the face of an emergency. However, the government’s failure to provide equitable care, causing damage, injury, or death, results in legal negligence, or a person not acting to their given standard resulting in damage. In the case of Riss v. The City of New York, Linda Riss experienced negligent conduct from the New York City police department when, after she was repeatedly threatened by a rejected suitor, they did nothing to protect her until after she was mutilated with acid. With protection and ongoing investigation, Riss would have been kept safe under the responsibility that the police failed to adhere to.

What is police misconduct? It can be defined as any action performed by a law enforcement officer that is unethical by established employment guidelines, unconstitutional, or a crime with in itself. When people hear the term “police misconduct” they automatically think of a police officer using unnecessary force against a civilian. While that is a form of police misconduct it is not only form. Throughout this paper I will bring light to the many types of police misconduct that can happen in the law enforcement industry.

To have a duty of care means you must aim to provide a high quality of care to the best of your ability, not act in a way that could case harm and always act in the best interest of the individual.

In the United States today if you as an officer put either you or your department in a liability, for any type of act that is not warranted and handled in a professional manner you are opening yourself for a number of different actions which could hurt both you, your department as well as causing you to loss everything that you own, just because you decided to not following proper protocals which were developed for you department.

Millions of free citizens around the world have reported misconduct by law enforcement officers. In the United States alone, 8,800 officers have been reported as using excessive force when performing their job (Packman). One of the major causes of excessive use of force by the police is anxiety and rage brought on by low compensation. The police is a force that is meant to protect the people against threats, not to be a threat. Police are not compensated enough for the dangerous job they dedicate themselves to perform each day. The Federal Government should provide a safe environment to properly maintain a lawful country. When police do not perform their job correctly, the environment is not safe. Therefore, the Federal Government needs to

against officers who violate their civil rights. Next, the media and political effects documented in this study suggest that external oversight can

According to Gaines and Kappeler (2011) litigation of police misconduct can be filed in state court claiming police negligently or intentionally failed to perform their duties, or a civil suit brought in federal court under the claims that the police violated their constitutional rights. The primary purpose of civil rights is to protect citizens from abuse of government officials. The statute known as Section 1983 was passed to protect civil rights to unlawfully act under authority of state law to deprive another person of their rights by acting out of the scope of the authority granted to him/her under state law (Gaines and Kappeler, 2011). It was a way of providing balance between the duty of the law enforcement to uphold the law and the rights of citizens to be free of police misconduct. This legislation allows person whose civil rights have been violated by government officials to bring civil suit to federal court to recover damages. Violations must meet the violation of constitutional or federally protect rights and not those under the violation of city ordinances or state laws (Gaines & Kappeler, 2011). A person seeking civil rights violation must show that officials were acting under the authority of law and the violation was a federally protected right; although, if the suit does not meet the criteria for civil suits under the federally protected constitutional rights, it may be brought under the state level of tort

This law is a practice that states officers are liable for violating constitutional rights by using the backing of the state laws while on duty (Kappeler, 2006). Exceeding rightful power is also under color of law by use of sexual assault, excessive force, or any intentional acts that end in loss of liberty for an individual (United States Department of Justice, n.d.). The police misconduct provision is another practice that helps keep police officers’ actions controlled. This provision (42 U.S.C. Section 14141) declares that it is illegal for law enforcement officers to practice behavior that withholds a person’s rights, such as excessive force, false arrest, unlawful stops and seizures, discriminatory harassment, and coercive sexual conduct (Federal Bureau of Investigation, n.d.). Department policies have minor differences but most follow similar guidelines and policies. One of the most current policies that have become active is the policy of seeing the threat before shooting. This policy requires officers to see and know what they are shooting at before shooting at the target (Stanley, 2013). The see before shooting policy holds officers liable for excessive force even if the officer responds to a shooting and fires without seeing the actual threat (Stanley, 2013). A policy that departments are also now following through with is a policy of independent monitoring teams. This policy allows officer

In cases like Monroe v. Pape as well as Mapp v. Ohio and Miranda v. Arizona there was police miscoduct that lead to this rulings (Jaros, 2014). The Supreme Courtcided to regulate the actions of the police. Limits are being set by the Warren court. This implimitations are being made to shape the future. Today, officers have to follow many laws especially the constitutional law. There were some disagrements on wether the court has jurisdiction on policing the police (Jaros, 2014). In fact they do. Everything begins with the poeple on the streets. Police officers are the first on scene and the ones who booked the criminal for the courts to take care of them. In this era, the misconduct of officers was increasing. There are articles and doctrines in plces for the police and the court to

`SHC 34 PRICIPLES FOR IMPLEMENTING DUTY OF CARE IN HEALTH, SOCIAL CARE OR CHILDRREN’S AND YOUNG PEOPLE’S SETTINGS

Police departments draft and implement policies and procedures to provide consistency and eliminate ambiguity in department practices. These are guidelines are for staff and officers to follow in a variety of different situations. Police policies and procedures may have the force of law, or be considered by a court or jury in determining whether an officer acted lawfully in the line of duty. Procedures related to employee actions can also be subject to legal scrutiny in some cases. A lack of policies on issues involving the community may result in unlawful and inconsistent police action. These adverse actions can create a negative reaction within the

Before 1932 there was no generalised duty of care in negligence. The tort did exist and was applied in particular situations where the courts had decided that a duty should be owed, eg, road accidents, bailments or dangerous goods. In Donoghue v Stevenson [1932] AC 562, Lord Atkin attempted to lay down a general principle which would cover all the circumstances where the courts had already held that there could be liability for negligence. He said:

They are sworn to maintain high ethical standard and protect, serve and make society safer as a condition of their employment. Each office is then issued a badge which is used to identify whether a person is a law enforcement or not. The badge is a symbol of integrity, having integrity means being totally honest and truthful in every part of life, personally and professionally (International Association of Chiefs of Police, 2000). But do all officers uphold these requirement? Absolutely not! Oakland, CA. 2009. Oscar Grant was shot dead by Bay Area Rapid Transit law enforcement officer Johannes Mehserle, age 27. Officer Mehserle and other police officers had been responding to reports of a fight, and arrested and handcuffed Oscar Grant, age 22, and several others in a subway station. Mr. Grant was handcuffed, unarmed and lying on the ground when Officer Mehserle pulled out his gun and shot him in the back. In court Mehserle claimed he thought his gun was his Taser. He was sentenced to two years in jail and let out on parole in June 2011. This is another example of police misconduct/brutality. Not only should the offices be criminally charged but also force to pay any settlement out of their pockets for their wrongdoing. Taxpayers like myself are paying millions of dollars in lawsuits resulting from police brutality, misconduct, wrong convictions,